Google takes on teleconferencing with $999 Chromebox for Meetings

[techbeck]

Google's $35 Chromecast dongle made it cheap and easy to show off YouTube videos on your TV. Now, the company sees another window of opportunity for Chrome: teleconferencing. "Audioconferencing takes pain to a completely new level," says Caesar Sengupta, VP of product development for Chrome. Today, the company plans to fix that with a $999 kit that uses a souped-up Google Chromebox and Google's cloud services to make setup as painless as possible.

 

The package comes with an HD webcam, a speakerphone, and a remote control with a keyboard on the back, and uses Google+ Hangouts for video chat such that any Gmail user can join a meeting from any laptop, tablet, or smartphone anywhere in the world.

 

 

Once a meeting room is set up with one of the Chromeboxes over ethernet or Wi-Fi, says Sengupta, there will also be no confusion over when the meeting room is in use: the service syncs with Google Calendar (or, in the future, with a Microsoft Exchange plug-in) to prominently display the schedule of upcoming meetings, and allow a user to start a new meeting just by typing a new meeting name into the terminal with the keyboard on the back of the remote. The system also tries to address pain points of meetings running too long, by reminding speakers when the next meeting is scheduled to begin, highlights users who are currently speaking, and will notify people who speak up if they happen to be muted so they can avoid embarassment. While the software free for the first year, the company plans to charge a $250 annual management and support fee to maintain the service and provide 24/7 assistance.

 

Chromecast for Meetings is available today in the US with Chromebox hardware from HP, Asus, and Dell. Australia, Canada, France, Japan, Spain, UK and New Zealand availability is coming soon, according to the company.

 

Developing...

 

 

http://www.theverge.com/2014/2/6/5386582/google-takes-on-business-teleconferencing-with-999-chromebox-for

[dopydope]

And Lync just died.

[Bad Man Duke]

And Lync just died.

 

How so?

[dopydope]

How so?

 

Because it's so clunky and ... generally bad. It's IE7 vs Chrome. It's Windows mobile vs. Android. Same result.

[Bad Man Duke]

Because it's so clunky and ... generally bad. It's IE7 vs Chrome. It's Windows mobile vs. Android. Same result.

 

?

 

I've used and supported Lync for several years now, and can't see how you make that statement. Could you offer some detail? Also, you do realize that this isn't an enterprise level solution (which Lync is) and is targeted at small-medium businesses?

 

Different solutions that aren't entirely comparable. One leverages and compliments your existing infrastructure (typically). The other tries to supplant it with Google Services (which have a very spotty record in the business world).

[bguy_1986]

Because it's so clunky and ... generally bad. It's IE7 vs Chrome. It's Windows mobile vs. Android. Same result.

Try using IBM Sametime....

[dopydope]

Oh boy i've used that thing since ... Office Communicator 2007 R2 ? I think that's how it was called at the time. While the idea is great the implementation is poor - at least from an end-user perspective.

 

I do realise it's not comparable at this stage, but google isnt that far away from having something similar - if you look at google apps and hangouts, they just need to market it better and they can start competing against O365 - package a business version of google+ and google drive and you have a feature match with Sharepoint and Yammer for social collaboration. Of course they will never offer anything on-premise but the growth is clearly on the cloud solutions anyway.

I was just taking an extreme shortcut ; clearly Google starts targeting the enterprise, after destroying MS on the devices world (smartphone+tablet) they slowly get into enterprise scenarios. Remember that MS entered the enterprise through the small-medium businesses too, for companies who couldnt afford Lotus Notes type of products.

 

Now back to my gripes with Lync, the list would be too long !! :) But what about the endless flickering when adding/removing tabbed conversations, the spotty audio quality, the bouncing messages with unhelpful reasons, the unreliability of sending content (files etc), the poor mobile clients (although improving a lot with 2013 at least of wp8), the conversation not reliably save to outlook and then the laughable stuff like the 90's style voice recognition of voicemail (why even bother with that feature given how bad the results are, just dont try it would look less pathetic). It's really a slightly unpleasant experience across the board, it's really the tool you have to use and you're happy when you get off it.

Try using IBM Sametime....

 

This is still around ???? oh god.

[dopydope]

And actually, back to my comparison, Windows Mobile was "functional", technically everything android did was doable with windows mobile ... it just did it better, in a smoother way

Same for IE7, Chrome was just so much leaner and faster.

 

Have you ever tried large meetings with lync ? >30 attendees and it's a nightmare. It doesnt do broadcast either if you want to broadcast a video feed. Well it tries to do it but the result is just subpar.

I dont think it does multiple video feeds - not sure as i have never succeeded in establish a video conf ... :rofl:

[Argi]

Does it work with Exchange? 

[Bad Man Duke]

Yes, I have seen large meetings with Lync. At my previous job (Motorola Solutions), and the implementation worked fine for the meetings that were held. I might add that the # of people in that meeting far exceeded what Google Hangouts supports (only 10). There are numerous factors that play into the quality of the feed beyond just the application. Sounds like someone wasn't doing something right in your case.

 

Google's enterprise endeavors are at best, pitiful. Google+/Google Drive, Google whatever comes absolutely no where near the feature set of Yammer, SharePoint, Office 365, and so on. It's not even close. This is clearly represented by the number of businesses that try to go Google, and the majority end up switching back to previous solutions.

 

Simply packaging something like Google+ and trying to shove it into businesses simply doesn't work, and probably never will. You have to recognize that the reasons for such aren't simply technological alone. I'd agree that you are taking extreme shortcuts into trying to advance your argument, because if you understood these factors you'd clearly recognize the issues that they present.

[Bad Man Duke]

Does it work with Exchange? 

 

At release, nope. Possible future plugin.

[blerk]

I eagerly await Microsoft's marketing campaign where they market the Xbox One with Skype to businesses. 

[Bad Man Duke]

I eagerly await Microsoft's marketing campaign where they market the Xbox One with Skype to businesses. 

 

All in seriousness, I've been rather curious about the potential of integrating Kinect's ability to recognize individuals with Active Directory/Yammer. Makes me wonder if they might perhaps bring that functionality forward. Like an Office version of Xbox with Lync.