With WebEx for Chromebooks, Google actually does something boring

We all know Google’s moonshots, from its self-driving cars and crazy robots to Project Loon, which seeks to bring the world Internet via balloon. Even divisions outside Google X tend to be pretty fascinating.

But today, the search giant revealed an even more thrilling announcement: Cisco’s WebEx conferencing is coming to Chromebooks.

Yawn.

Ok, perhaps we’re being unfair. We’re sure some folks will find the feature useful, as it enables you to do things like join WebEx meetings directly from from a Google Calendar or Gmail inbox. But Chromebook already support Hangouts, Google’s slick, user-friendly video conferencing service that many prefer to stodgier meeting tools like WebEx.

It seems a bit counterintuitive, as Chromebooks haven’t seen much adoption inside the enterprise. But perhaps this is part of Google’s effort to propel more Chromebooks into businesses. Forrester, for one, has said that more companies should consider Chromebooks.

Chromebooks can already run a bevy of Windows apps thanks to their support for VMware’s desktop-as-a-service environment. But this latest integration brings a native WebEx experience to Chromebooks — if you care.