Google just made it easier for businesses to build custom apps and digital signs for Chromeboxes

Google definitely wants companies to use its Chromebox computers that boot the Chrome OS. Today, Google is coming out with a couple of tools that could help businesses provide information to consumers — or employees.

First, there’s the Chrome Sign Builder, which “helps you create intelligent digital signs that are easy to build, schedule, and deploy,” according to a blog post from Google Chrome for Work product manager Vidya Nagarajan. And second, there’s the Chrome App Builder, which “makes it easy to build third-party kiosk apps,” Nagarajan wrote.

Google last year came out with Chromebox for Meetings for videoconferencing. Now it’s becoming a little clearer how Chromeboxes could gradually become a bigger fixture in companies’ IT fleets.

Meanwhile, other companies have been thinking about ways to make digital signage popular. For instance, there’s startup Eventboard, which relies on iPads to display information outside conference rooms in offices.

Also today, Google is announcing monitoring tool to track the health of kiosks and signs that are running on Chromeboxes.

“You’ll get alerts from Chrome device management if a screen goes down, and can remotely reboot the device to get it back online without dispatching a technician,” Nagarajan wrote. “You can also get live updates about system usage and capture screen grabs to see exactly what viewers see.”