Skype Gets A New Competitor: Amazon Announces Chime (geekwire.com) 88
Amazon has released new service to make voice and video calls and share screen. Called Chime, the service is aimed at business users. It directly competes with well-known players such as Skype, Google Hangouts, GoToMeeting, Zoom, and Cisco's WebEx, among others. From a report: Amazon Web Services today unveiled Chime, a new service that it says takes the "frustration out of meetings" by delivering video, voice, chat, and screen sharing. Instead of forcing participants to call one another on a dedicated line, Amazon Chime automatically calls all participants at the start of a meeting, so "joining a meeting is as easy as clicking a button in the app, no PIN required," the company said in a press release. Chime also shows a visual roster of participants, and allows participants to pinpoint who exactly on the call is creating annoying background noise.
But the question... (Score:5, Insightful)
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as Amazon appears to have forgotten Linux then it obviously does not run well on all OS's
There is a clear opportunity for a really cross platform system given that MS is making Skype just about useless if not run on Windows.
It is a shame that this isn't totally free.
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Android, and therefore FireOS, both have the Linux kernel at their core. So they can say "yeah, we do Linux"
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From Amazon's web site:
"Amazon Chime offers rich apps for iOS, Android, Windows, and Mac"
No mention of Linux.
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No mention of Linux.
Unless 99% of the OS are supported, it's useless for my company then (and lots of company I know). We're in 2017 for god's sake, people should start to understand that not all the people do run Windows or iOS. Especially for a conf-call stuff, where you need to find the common denominator suitable for every callers.
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"common denominator suitable for every callers"
You just set the bar so god damn low...
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Was that so hard?
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Very much agreed. In my department 50% of the machines are Linux, 20% Apple and the rest Windows. Every time a vendor wants to do something like a webex we have to fire up a virtual Windows environment for them to utilise, and that's ridiculous. In 2017, being OS-agnostic should be the default for any company producing software.
Re: But the question... (Score:2)
"Every time a vendor wants to do something like a webex we have to fire up a virtual Windows environment for them to utilise, and that's ridiculous."
Webex runs on Linux. More poorly than on Windows, but it runs and I was able to screen share on one occasion when I tried it.
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Webex runs on Linux. More poorly than on Windows, but it runs and I was able to screen share on one occasion when I tried it.
Depends on your definition of "runs on Linux". I managed to get the screen-share running (ugly I must say), after a long and epic battle with my browser. But to make the sound work, AFAIR you had to "manually" install of dozen of old/unsupported x86 libs; the operation was heading towards a maintenance disaster so I did not dare to complete it. Anyway, for sound, I usually use a plain-old-physical-phone, the sound quality is usually better.
Re: But the question... (Score:2)
"But to make the sound work, AFAIR you had to "manually" install of dozen of old/unsupported x86 libs;"
But this is really a Java problem, and not a Webex problem per se, and problems/work-arounds would heavily depend on which Java run-time your browser launches for WebStart apps and whether you have matching sound plugins installed or not.
Of course, recent Firefox is probably going to break WebStart and all the enterprise-y apps they don't care about but we need. Guess some people will have to dump Firefox
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But this is really a Java problem, and not a Webex problem per se, [...]
Agreed, but random Joe does not give a shit whether the application is not running because it's using a broken virtual environnement or if it's the own application fault. If you are not able to reliably run an application using java web-start, then don't use java web-start. Use a native application, browser plugins, or whatever else.
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Must be fairly recent then - I recall it used to run on it in the past, then stopped supporting it for years. I've not had to do a webex for probably a couple years now - the most common one vendors use for the appliances I support tends to be GoToMeeting. Will have to test out WebEx and see how it's functioning with our current Linux systems.
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There's you're 99%
There's you are 99%?
Re:But the question... (Score:4, Funny)
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Last time I tried Skype on Linux it was completely broken.
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> does it run well on all operating systems?
They're only trying to compete with Skype here....
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This is for business users. VOIP chat has been around for a while now so it shouldn't be hard to get Echo to do that but it's not going to have the features business users are looking for.
and... no Linux client (Score:5, Insightful)
So... just as useless as all the other offerings.
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Considering the overwhelming majority of business users have windows for an OS I'd say it's useful for their target audience.
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Unless you use Java, HTML5 or some other cross platform framework.
Or make an all-dependencies included package, which can be done on Linux just like it's done on Mac OS. The NIX package manager is supposed to address this sort of thing.
When you get into the Linux world as long as your software is written properly there's a lot less supporting that has to be done, the users tend to be more advanced or are working under someone who is. As long as the stuff isn't written poorly or focused on one distro only
Re: and... no Linux client (Score:2)
Android VM? (Score:2)
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I prefer a phone line for conferencing vs IP anyhow, as it reduces latency [...]
The funny thing is that both are carried more or less the same way by the telcos nowadays.
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the design QOS wise is not the same, or i should say, should not be the same.
Subject (Score:2)
I will take a serious look to see if it can really improve GTM/JoinMe/etc crap services.
GTM is by far the worst offender, every version remains fully intact on your machine until you find and manually delete it. And they have a release schedule that makes Chrome look good.
Only issue is the pricing. Chime pricing seems awkward.
Don't auto-call me... (Score:2)
If I have a noon meeting, don't call me at the start of the meeting... All too often I've got back2back meetings and not everyone ends their meetings a few minutes short of the hour. So we need a few minutes for a bio break before the next meeting....
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nah i think they are talking about a one click app that calls you, just like webex.
Spyware (Score:2, Interesting)
Crap gets a new competitor: another horrible compa (Score:1)
Crap gets a new competitor: (Score:1)
Not to be confused with... (Score:2, Offtopic)
Chyme [wikipedia.org]
WebRTC turns 5 (Score:5, Informative)
https://webrtc.org/ [webrtc.org] "WebRTC is a free, open project that provides browsers and mobile applications with Real-Time Communications (RTC) capabilities via simple APIs. The WebRTC components have been optimized to best serve this purpose."
You can host it yourself, internal, inside of your firewall if you're that security paranoid.
There are also solutions hosted by other people if you don't want to deal with that:
https://appear.in/ [appear.in]
https://opentokrtc.com/ [opentokrtc.com]
https://talky.io/ [talky.io]
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Don't forget Jitsi [jitsi.org], although screen sharing is still quite buggy.
Great, another AppData directory bomb (Score:3)
I don't know for a fact that it runs in AppData, but the fact we lock it down to keep crypto lockers from running and the fact GoTo Meeting throws a screaming fit demanding it be not locked down AND it runs from randomized directories to prevent us from making an allowance tells me that Amazon is likely to be just as big of a pain in the ass.
I hope Amazon has learned some good practice about writing programs that can be installed as a system program OR be installed as a user program like Chrome, not as a user program or nothing like the Amazon music player (or Goto Meeting, or Spotify).
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Looked closer. Haven't installed it but it requires a download.
STRIKE 1
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If they had a test button I could have tested that out for myself. I'm okay with an in-browser app - as long as it isn't Silverlight or something else OS limited.
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Windows, Mac, Android, and iOS versions listed. No Linux or Java option, in the day of Raspberry Pi's everywhere and an increase of LInux powered devices, including those from Amazon they didn't bother with a Linux version.
Strike 2
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There's no reasonable excuse not to support Linux on something like this.
Release two versions - first and up front release a Nix style [linux.com] package, which for all intents and purposes can be compared to a Mac .dmg file with all dependencies included. Or more accurately an APK for a desktop since they already support a version of Linux by having an Android version. With a Mac, Android, and iOS version out there already the work is done - can you say easy port?
Then for the braver types and for the distro makers
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Looks like there isn't a test meeting to join. Pretty much all the other guys have a test meeting. I want to see if I have to do an install of anything just to join, which is the most important thing to me. My company works with many others, we have standardized on a product, but that doesn't mean I don't have to consider every other product out there since we work with so many other companies and they all want to do their own thing. You've probably gathered GoTo Meeting with its absolute demand to run
Re:Great, another AppData directory bomb (Score:5, Informative)
So, I downloaded the client.
I logged in as my test domain user - his name is Norm L. User. I right-clicked the installer exe - no there wasn't an MSI even in this day and age - and chose "Run as Administrator" which is exactly what I'm going to have to do for one off user installs.
Without asking it installed directly into my administrator accounts AppData directory.
STRIKE 3!!!!
This program is crap from a corporate perspective.
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Just when I thought it couldn't get much worse:
I logged into the machine with the same domain admin account I used to run the installer. I went to Add/Remove programs - I got a message that I didn't have the rights to uninstall it. I am an administrator of both the local machine and the domain.
I browsed into the AppData directory (which I don't expect the average user who has admin to their own stuff to understand) I found an uninstaller and I ran it. That worked. I then manually deleted the directories
Re: Great, another AppData directory bomb (Score:2)
Knowing my shit is why users running crap from there is banned. Per user programs aren't supposed to exist in a controlled corporate environment.
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So you tell me I'm doing it wrong then tell me the right way to do it is to keep doing what I'm doing? Making rules for what can and can't be done with the AppData directory?
With or without AppLocker a business friendly application should have the option to install to the system - which is what I as an administrator with a fleet of computers under my control prefer - it's easier to manage with the K1000 system - or as a user app in case I decide to play it loose in that department. Firefox works that way,
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DropBox is banned in our organization for this and other reasons. Turns out it's more insecure than it gets credit for, Slashdot has covered that a few times and I know people who've personally been able to prove data was leaking from there. I no longer have anything in my personal Dropbox account.
I will sign this contract immediately.... (Score:2)
Good god. I cannot count the times I've heard "please mute your phones" shouted over a conference call.
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What software are you using that *doesn't* already provide this?
Expensive! (Score:5, Informative)
PSTN Integration? (Score:2)
Killer features? (Score:5, Interesting)
You want killer features for a conference calling app?
1 - Highlight on your screen all the people who are currently talking.
2 - Automatic transcription of calls with the individuals talking labeled.
3 - Ability to pass along a 'talking now' and 'request talking' tokens so that someone can "raise their hand" while someone else is talking. Also the ability to cede the talking now token to one of the other people talking (for when a lot of people are on a conference call)
Or do current apps have all of this?
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Chyme (Score:2)
Heavy breathers, typists, and other noise makers (Score:2)
From TFA: "and allows participants to pinpoint who exactly on the call is creating annoying background noise."
Ding! Ding! We have a winner!
Thanksfully there is a free alternative in Ring.cx (Score:1)