Google cuts back-up support for Microsoft Exchange in ongoing product cull

Google will continue to shut down operations not core to its business, revealing plans to close or open-source six more services, including the disaster recovery support it offers Microsoft Exchange customers.

Google has offered a Message Continuity service to Microsoft Exchange customers since December 2010, but the firm said this support will be cut so development resources can be focused entirely on its Google Apps service.

The Message Continuity service backs up emails originally sent from the on-premise Exchange system to the Google cloud. Now Google expects businesses to move from Microsoft Exchange to Google Apps.

"Resolutions can be hard and changing products that people love is hard, too," said Dave Girouard, Google product management vice president, in a blog post.

"But we're excited to focus on creating a beautifully simple, intuitive user experience across Google."

Google also announced that its online photo editor Picnik, which the firm acquired in 2010, will be retired this April.

The firm urged users to download a zip file of their edited photos through Picnik Takeout or copy them to Google+.

The data management platform Needlebase, which Google acquired from ITA Software, will be retired this June, while Google's initial online analytics product Urchin will no longer be available from April.

Google also said it will cut its Social Graph API in April because the product had not seen enough adoption. The API makes information about public connections between people on the web available for developers.

Finally, Google said its Sky Map app will be open-sourced and Google will now work in partnership with Carnegie Mellon University on its development.

Google Sky Map allows Android phone users to view celestial objects, including stars, constellations, galaxies, planets and the moon on their devices.

The web giant first announced it was axing a number of services last year in order to bring more focus to the business. The first major cull was made in October, with the closure of Buzz, Jaiku and Google Labs, among others.