20 ms·

Amazon Chime

573 points by runesoerensen 10y ago

_ao789 10y ago
I didn't know there was a .aws tld..
ultimoo 10y ago
I liked the part about Chime calling you at the scheduled start of meeting. So simple yet I had never thought of this since my org uses WebEx. With a smart phone that would pretty well via a push notification or an actual call, but not sure how that would work when you want a join a meeting from a physical meeting room with its own AV system. I'm sure there is a way to get that set up.
- r00fus 10y ago
  I wonder how Chime callback will work with back-back meetings. ie, I'm in someone's Chime/webex, and I need to join a different one. Also does it seamlessly join multiple connections - one benefit of Webex is that I can start my meeting on the iPhone while leaving a meeting room so that others can hop on, and then have my laptop join later so I can share my screen when I hit my desk.
  - andy_ppp 10y ago
    It can/should tell everyone at the start and tell you specifically when it's time to say bye. Depending on the time of the next meeting you could opt to join that one late... obviously triple booked will never work.
- apahwa 10y ago
  uberconference does this
  - sahaskatta 10y ago
    +1 for Uber Conference. Discovered it about a year ago and it's by far my favorite service for work. Just wish they add video calling support soon.
- sandyjames 10y ago
  our neighbor's mother in law makes 64 per hour on the internet. she has been out of work for ten months. last month her pay-check was 13214 just working on the internet 5 hours a day... check this site... http://tinyurl.com/lidfk88kl http://tinyurl.com/lidfk88kl
- baconner 10y ago
  Seemed like it was just a mobile join notification in the video similar to Skype for business or WebEx if you are using VoIP. No? My company used WebEx and I could make it dial me and start up my conference line without having to go through all the regular pin entry stuff. Now we're using Lync (Skype for business) which is similar although tragically buggy. That can also dial me and sends notifications if you hook it up. The key for these kind of apps is cost and reliability. Seems like they're advertising substantial cost reductions and better quality. If either one is true they'll likely make out really well.
  - webmaven 10y ago
    Lync is still buggy? I haven't used it in about two years, but I'd have thought Microsoft would have solved those issues by now.
    - kybernetikos 10y ago
      Lync is shockingly bad. You'd think that after 45 years of sending text to each other over networks this would be a solved problem by now.
    - baconner 10y ago
      I must say I've been really disappointed with how often it crashes outright or has major rendering issues during screen sharing. When it works it's really convenient but 20% of meetings with screen share involved seem to have an issue. I really think quality is life or death for these products. If my company weren't a tight Microsoft partner I really doubt we'd be using it. WebEx wasn't as convenient but at least it worked correctly the vast majority of the time.
      - annnnd 10y ago
        > I really think quality is life or death for these products... > If my company weren't a tight Microsoft partner I really doubt we'd be using it. You answered yourself - no, quality is not life and death (at least not fast death) for this product. :)
- TorKlingberg 10y ago
  > not sure how that would work when you want a join a meeting from a physical meeting room with its own AV system. I'm sure there is a way to get that set up. As someone who works in video conferencing, this is often very broken. The are all kinds of compatibility issues and crappy UX. One of our core selling points is getting room systems into online meetings.
- macspoofing 10y ago
  >So simple yet I had never thought of this since my org uses WebEx. WebEx has (sort of) that capability. There is an option for it to call you when you join a meeting.
  - sixothree 10y ago
    This is one of my favorite features. Using computer audio is awful especially on the go and GotoMeeting fails to recognize correctly the code I enter some 20% of the time it seems.
    - jerf 10y ago
      If there is anybody who happens to read this who is responsible for implementing the code that reads the meeting codes, please implement the following changes: 1. Make it so meeting codes are strictly forbidden from having repeating digits, by construction. 2. Make it so that when entering meeting codes, if you think you see repeated digits, consider it just one instance of that digit. The cell system does not use literal DMTF tones to dial calls; those are played by the phone itself for the user's benefit. If the cell system used DMTF for numeric signalling, we'd all be dialing a lot more wrong numbers. (And we'd all groan when we got a new line with a number with repeated digits in it....) Heck, even on VOIP systems very well connected to the internet, I've had trouble entering 9-12 digit codes without the remote system becoming convinced I'd actually entered a 11-15 digit code. I've gotten a few strange looks before for the way I push the buttons for the codes as rapidly as possible, because, ironically, the human intuition here is exactly backwards; you intuitively think that if the remote system isn't understanding your numbers you should press the number "longer" and harder, but that actually increases the chances of the system hearing multiple instances of that number. You actually want to pound the number buttons as quickly as possible. You still can't deal with the entire number being dropped, but it's still your best chance sometimes. .... 'course, there's probably some patent out that this is in violation of. In which case you are authorized and even encouraged to use this post as part of a defense that this technique is Obvious to One Skilled in the Art. I'm not a telecom engineer.
- Proven 10y ago
  I don't want to be called because I choose a different device every time.
- m12r 10y ago
  Absolutely aggreed with this. We still have to pay a 5 to 10% task to get the conference call going. Chime is the absolute good step in the right direction, however we will need need a layer on top to solve for all conference call systems. There are three pieces that needs to be figured out to make this work well: 1. How do you deal with (non?) presence? Are you joining from the AV hardware? 2. How do you deal with PSTN? 3. How do you deal with other VoIP solutions out there. I have a few ideas on this, especially on #2.
- lloydde 10y ago
  That does seem great for a distributed team with fewer meetings. As you suggest for a physical meeting or when people have back to back meetings, it would quickly get annoying. I wonder if this also reflects that calendar apps still suck.
- iamdave 10y ago
  I'm sure there is a way to get that set up. Hrm, SIP URIs maybe? https://www.wikiwand.com/en/SIP_URI_scheme https://www.wikiwand.com/en/SIP_URI_scheme
cobookman 10y ago
Not sure if more impressed with the product or use of a TLD of .aws
- endgame 10y ago
  Go with the product. ICANN making dumb decisions isn't impressive.
  - dajohnson89 10y ago
    Is it a dumb decision, or a corrupt/biased one?
    - djsumdog 10y ago
      Yes, yes and yes.
draw_down 10y ago
"Meetings call you" is a good idea, as is the reconnecting stuff. Who knows if anyone will use this, but even with all the supply in this market, there is still space for something that actually works well. As someone who works remotely I can't wait until this gets figured out.
euyyn 10y ago
A new player in the area! Is this the first Amazon enterprise service not for developers?
- ajmurmann 10y ago
  They have a online email interface and a virtual workstation solution also targeted at enterprises.
JumpCrisscross 10y ago
Does this feature end-to-end encryption?
- dsacco 10y ago
  I don't believe so. If you look under the FAQs and the "Security and Control" heading of the Features page, there is no mention of encryption beyond AES-256. Companies offering E2E typically like to highlight that somewhere, even in a non-technical way. Furthermore, the security is apparently "fully managed", which to me translates to "keys securely stored on our servers, not client-side."
legohead 10y ago
No screenshots of the product?
krackers 10y ago
Amazon's horizontal expansion is pretty fascinating. From an online stores and cloud service provider to consumer products and now b2b apps.
sthomas1618 10y ago
Zoom competitor?
nathancahill 10y ago
Speaking of.. can Slack hurry up and buy Zoom? Aren't they pretty flush with cash? It seems crazy that they are letting this huge market (where they have a foothold) slip away to new competitors.
- deleted 10y ago
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- toomuchtodo 10y ago
  A better question would be: How long until AWS has a Slack competitor? That natively integrates with the entire AWS stack?
  - draw_down 10y ago
    That's what I figured this was, before I read what it did. Someone will come up with a decent competitor one day.
    - brazzledazzle 10y ago
      The page claims it has chat and can replace your entire communications stack. Curious to see how it executes on that.
  - rev_bird 10y ago
    >natively integrates with the entire AWS stack I'm not sure I see the utility in this, as Amazon resources and group chat don't really have a lot of overlap, at least for me. What would you need "integrated" into the new AWS Chat that couldn't be accomplished with a chatbot and Slack?
- snarkyturtle 10y ago
  Or even put their Screenhero acquisition to good use and finally roll out screen-sharing.
biot 10y ago
"With Amazon Chime, you can feel confident you’re communicating securely." This wording has always struck me as being awful. People felt confident investing with Bernie Madoff as well. I'd rather have confidence from proven security instead of just feeling confident.
- notatoad 10y ago
  confidence is a feeling. there's no other way to experience confidence than to feel it.
  - biot 10y ago
    I'd word it something along the lines of: "Communicate securely with your team, confident that we've taken care of your online security via [list of reasons]". Yes, confidence is a feeling but for me it sounds better this way. Saying "you can feel confident" reads to me like "with MtGox, your funds can be secure".
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Taek 10y ago
They tout security but I don't think it's open source and it looks like everything is stored on Amazon servers. Minimally it is centralized, and you can't verify that there's no backdoor. In this day and age, that means we're both trusting their core intentions, and also trusting that some government won't step in and silently force their hand. I don't personally feel that is good enough to be considered secure anymore.
- tomesch1982 10y ago
  That is exactly what I thought when I read the words "secure" and "trust". If it is not open source it is neither secure nor should anybody trust it. The word used in Britain to describe a statement like that is bollocks.
- miend 10y ago
  Like any other hosting, if it's in the US, it must be considered compromised in these terms. That's the world we live in now.
  - zeveb 10y ago
    > Like any other hosting, if it's in the US, it must be considered compromised in these terms. s/, if it's in the US// There, fixed it for you. Any data not under your control can and will be used against you, especially by a state wielding a monopoly on force.
blintz 10y ago
I'm really curious how this all-in-one concept will compare to the Slack approach of chat as the central functionality augmented by a bunch of integrations with external services.
krashidov 10y ago
Enterprise conferencing software is so bad and so expensive I'm astonished it took this long for a decent competitor to come in. I'm really surprised Google didn't go all in with making Hangouts a decent competitor. I have a feeling this will make a lot of money.
- ajmurmann 10y ago
  Hangouts is so strange to me (like many Google products I guess). They got a ton of traction; first release immediately was super solid and then nothing. Nothing has changed in ages. No obvious features get implemented. I would love so much to have s tile view of all participants. Ideally we would get a codec that's actually supported by hardware instead of this battery draining mess. I'd love to have an option for the video not to be cropped. I can't count the confusion that has caused over the years with people in meeting wondering why someone is only showing their forehead out why everybody but them can see multiple people on camera but they only see someone in the center. All the hard work seems to be done, but Google refuses to polish and properly maintain it. It's bizarre.
  - ChuckMcM 10y ago
    At one time this was a function of how Google did promotions/pay raises. I'm not sure if Hangouts got caught in that catch 22 or not but it did kill a lot of decent projects. Had that team remained relevant they could have conceivably done a "Chromebox" Hub like the Surface Hub and given Microsoft some competition in that space. EDIT: Ok so as is pointed out there is a chromebox for meetings. Pretty nice. Seems to be out of the Enterprise group though, is that still part of Google or is it an 'Other Bet' now?
    - tschwimmer 10y ago
      We had it at my old company and it was garbage. Super frustrating to join meetings (type your automatically generated, super long meeting name on a tiny keyboard), random crashes freezes and relatively poor video quality. Another super annoying thing was screensharing had an extremely low bitrate. It was so bad that it was pretty pretty useless to demo any nice UI features or animations. The framerate was 2-5 fps.
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hrayr 10y ago
Are they competing with WebEx, Skype, or Slack? Looks like a compelling B2B offering from Amazon. I bet they'll have an accompanying hardware to go with this in the coming months.
- mattnewton 10y ago
  Looks like a skype/Webex competitor
- m-app 10y ago
  Looks to me a bit more akin to Cisco's Spark, although without the video endpoints, digital whiteboard and end-to-end security. https://www.ciscospark.com/products/overview.html https://www.ciscospark.com/products/overview.html D: I work at Cisco and use Spark daily.
  - jquast 10y ago
    so cisco employees don't use webex? no wonder it sucks ...
- jedisct1 10y ago
  More of a Zoom competitor.
manishsharan 10y ago
...application available for Android, iOS, Mac, and Windows Why not Linux?
- dsacco 10y ago
  Probably because they crunched the numbers and came to the conclusion that the potential revenue didn't justify the development costs.
  - chrisper 10y ago
    I am speculating that they are probably using some Electron app. So they could have probably done Linux. I am just guessing that it's a support issue since Linux comes in so many different ways.
  - pmontra 10y ago
    Don't overlook that a team might keep using something else because they need to make a conf call between 3 Macs, 1 Windows and 1 Linux (a case with a customer of mine).
greyskull 10y ago
Amazon acquired Biba[0], this is that product with the backend swapped out. It's currently being beta'd internally and they haven't yet added anything over Biba the product. There are some great features planned, from what I've heard. [0] http://www.biba.com/ http://www.biba.com/
planetjones 10y ago
Great product idea. At work we use Skype for business and it's a disaster - especially bad is it seemingly randomly says 'your device is causing poor audio quality' and mutes you. The only way to recover is to dial out and in. Before that it was the AT&T solution - such an ugly application with poor usability. If Amazon really polish this product and provide a great user experience and quality they could pick up a lot of business. Edit: there's a problem here. Skype for business allows up to 250 participants. The AT&T solution (webex maybe) allows, I think, an unlimited number. Amazon Chime has a limit of 250 people. This wouldn't cut it for presentations in large companies e.g. announcement of annual results or divisional virtual 'town hall'
- josh2600 10y ago
  All conferenincing systems have a limit on the number of first-class participants (people who can listen and speak). Broadcast is a different problem and there are a ton of really good solutions when you have less than 250 speakers but many listeners. There are no conferencing products, to my knowledge, that support more than 250 first-class participants over the internet in a reliable way. If you have an example, I'd be very curious to play with that product.
  - planetjones 10y ago
    So can Chime allow more than 100 listeners. I interpreted the 100 limit as a hard cut off on the number of participants irrespective of their class.
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therealmarv 10y ago
I really do not like conference systems which do not work on Linux. Not everybody is using a Mac or Windows. Microsoft is also ignoring Skype and Skype for Business on Linux. This is all crap.
- cthalupa 10y ago
  It looks like they support a web client for use on Linux for viewing meetings, at least. https://answers.chime.aws/articles/17/supported-operating-systems.html https://answers.chime.aws/articles/17/supported-operating-sy...
  - djsumdog 10y ago
    At my current gig, it's WebEx. The Linux client supposedly does work on 32-bit FireFox using 32-bit Java. I've tried some docker containers that supposedly support this configuration, but so far I can't get anything to work. WebEx is literally the only reason I even start up a Windows VM at work.
    - BHSPitMonkey 10y ago
      When I worked in a WebEx shop, I gave up on the Linux/Firefox situation and just used their Android client on a tablet or phone.
- pmontra 10y ago
  Don't know about Skype for business but they are rewriting the normal Skype client for Linux. https://community.skype.com/t5/Linux/bd-p/Linux https://community.skype.com/t5/Linux/bd-p/Linux I didn't try it out. The old client still works. The only missing feature is screen sharing in multiple parties video calls. I'm using TeamViewer for that. Desktop sharing is much smoother with TeamViewer anyway. The real plus of Skype over Hangout or Webex is the chat: the history is stored forever locally and I can search every message I sent. We're using a Skype group chat even when we're using TeamViewer.
  - 10y ago
Narkov 10y ago
Their claim of "a third of the cost of traditional solutions" is an apples and oranges comparison. The basic and plus pricing options, while cheap, are practically useless with only 2 maximum attendees and the $15/user/month pro plan is hardly "a third of the cost...". Looks like a great product with an average price point.
- qq66 10y ago
  GoToMeeting charges $50/month so it is 1/3 the cost of GoToMeeting, at least at the individual subscriber level.
- djsumdog 10y ago
  I suspected they were directly challenging either WebEx or Skype for Business.
  - mynameisvlad 10y ago
    https://products.office.com/en-us/business/compare-more-office-365-for-business-plans https://products.office.com/en-us/business/compare-more-offi... Skype for Business is available in all Office 365 Business plans except the software-only one (ProPlus). That includes the $5/6 plan (https://products.office.com/en-us/business/office-365-business-essentials https://products.office.com/en-us/business/office-365-busine...) as well as the $8.25/10 plan that includes all of Office. It's not a very good competitor on that front...
- chokma 10y ago
  And the price for Biba Pro (on which Chime is based) previously was $10/user/month...
alexandercrohde 10y ago
One thing I'd like to hear the official policy on is message privacy (i.e. is management reading your stuff?). That's a personal concern I have with slack.
kupiakos 10y ago
> Amazon Chime works seamlessly across your devices. > No Linux support
- dajohnson89 10y ago
  Huh, I was excited until then. Onwards....
- partiallypro 10y ago
  Haven't looked but probably no Windows Mobile support either. I know I'm a infinitesimal user base, but the lack of support from services makes me not use them. This is one place Slack really excels and why I hate Hangouts.
chime 10y ago
As the guy who has owned chime.tv for well over a decade, this is a bit concerning IP-wise.
- discardorama 10y ago
  Instead of a chime, you should be hearing a cha-ching!
  - dajohnson89 10y ago
    Yes, proceeded by a bang of the gavel. Kidding, kinda.
- supercoder 10y ago
  Hope it was good while it lasted
- darkstar999 10y ago
  What IP, besides the domain name? Yours redirects to some game. I don't think you have a brand to protect.
lars_francke 10y ago
I'm definitely going to try this (even though unusable for us because of missing Linux support). We have currently settled on Zoom and it's okay, they do have Linux support. One problem I have with all video conferencing solutions we've tried (same for my colleagues, all Mac or Linux users, sadly no Windows users to compare) is high CPU usage. I have a 2015 MacBook Pro and when I share my screen CPU usage skyrockets to 150-200% basically pegging the whole CPU. Without sharing my screen CPU usage is at 80-100%. I have similar problems with certain videos on the web (e.g. Ted.com and others). Is this something everyone else here sees as well? I always assumed they must because we see it across devices and products.
- hmottestad 10y ago
  Someone mentioned to me here on HN that Safari uses less CPU when video/screen sharing. I have the same problem as you. Can't use my built in microphone because the fans as blasting full power due to the CPU usage.
- tagawa 10y ago
  Yes, the same experience. Also a Zoom user and screen sharing in particular is a CPU and battery hog.
- djrogers 10y ago
  I wonder if it's a function of what you're sharing? I use zoom with PowerPoint and Keynote all the time and have never had my fans spin up when sharing. Haven't noticed it sharing Safari or my whole desktop either... As a test I'm currently on a video+computer audio+full screen sharing zoom, and my overall CPU load is at <20%, with Zoom accounting for about half of that.
  - lars_francke 10y ago
    That's interesting. I'm mostly sharing either Powerpoint, IntelliJ stuff or just Chrome. I more or less can't use IntelliJ any more productively while sharing my screen because it's starved for resources.
m_mueller 10y ago
For those who tried screensharing, does it have a pointing-feature (i.e. viewer can point to something)? There's so many products out there like Skype and Hangout that don't support it and I don't understand why not, it seems pretty basic to me (just only show the arrow on platforms that support it, i.e. OSX, Windows and Linux).
all_usernames 10y ago
In soviet Russia...
Roritharr 10y ago
While we're on the topic of conferencing software, is there a List for Software to use when you want 4k/30p or 1080/60p? Skype seems to not be up to the task. Our Gbit Connection is.
- nodesocket 10y ago
  Have you tried Slack video?
  - Roritharr 10y ago
    That's only 1on1 for now. We need at least 3 people (more often 5) in a video conference.
algesten 10y ago
So, no video conferencing in basic/plus plan (1:1 doesn't count). It's funny how many attempts there are at making conferencing software that just have audio and some basic chat. Entry level needs video, since you can get it for free elsewhere (i.e. hangouts).
- fourstar 10y ago
  Not a bad idea. Have a poorer quality (free) version and then offer an upgrade to a higher quality stream.
evantahler 10y ago
Appear.in can't be beat.
- mderazon 10y ago
  Agree it's great for small meetings (2-3 people). P2P without any server in between, works as good as your connection. One thing that bugs me though is using it in Chrome in Mac. 50% of the times the microphone doesn't work and I have to kill coreaudiod and restart the session. I came to a point where I do it before I start a meeting just in case. It's not appear.in problem though, it happens in Hangouts in Chrome as well
xroche 10y ago
So this is basically what lifesize.com has been providing for ages, sans the Linux support. Truly revolutionary I guess.
- gurrone 10y ago
  From my own experience lifesize voice and video quality is so awful that anything from an egineering company should be superior. Also the stability of the lifesize appliance is horrible. Often enough we've to reboot them before every meeting, because the microphone went dead again. The only positive point is that it works with Chromium on Linux including the window sharing extension. I hope it's of slightly better quality then webex. But I fear that is overly optimistic at least. On the other hand Google Hangouts is for free, has from my experience a better quality and all of them ship your data to the US. If amazon offers something similar they and can offer an option that keeps your data in Europe that would be an interesting option.
slyall 10y ago
Interesting that you pay per user per month. I wonder how it works for occasional and one-off users. Eg if you want a vendor to join your team's chat or you use it to talk to clients.
- djrogers 10y ago
  With most (all?) of these conferencing, the host is the one that has to have an account and pay - otherwise nobody would be able to use them for support, sales calls, etc.
benevol 10y ago
> Amazon Chime is a communications service that transforms online meetings with a secure, easy-to-use application that you can trust. - Amazon, PRISM partner
- tdmule 10y ago
  Has this been substantiated? To my knowledge Amazon denies being a part of PRISM and the only thing a quick search reveals is that denial and Snowden criticizing Amazon for not being HTTPS by default on some of their endpoints.
  - benevol 10y ago
    Have you read Snowden's Leaks? All of the major tech companies have been on board for a long time (and that was years ago). How can you believe that a giant like Amazon will somehow magically not be part of it? It's time for the country to sharpen its critical thinking skills.
    - jamesrcole 10y ago
      > All of the major tech companies have been on board and > How can you believe that [...] Amazon [isn't] part of it? I don't know what they say, but what you're saying here is unclear. Do the leaks mention Amazon or not?
      - tdmule 10y ago
        The closest I can see to someone asserting they do is https://www.mhpbooks.com/is-amazon-one-of-the-companies-working-with-the-nsa-to-spy-on-you/ https://www.mhpbooks.com/is-amazon-one-of-the-companies-work... But the thrust of that article is more suspicion that Amazon is not mentioned in the leaks and questioning the reliability of the company's word. It does cite one source, described in the article as non-mainstream, which asserts that Amazon was a part of PRISM, but that source fails to cite any leak. http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article40822.html http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article40822.html Edit: I should mention that the first article casting doubt on Amazon's reliability is published by an independent publishing company, historically an industry that has been at odds with Amazon and harmed by its business practices.
vegabook 10y ago
No Linux. Buh-Bye
- supercoder 10y ago
  Why is this surprising ? Just get it for iOS
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avip 10y ago
I absolutely love the startupish way aws launches new services. They have the whole "landing page" and marketing pitch class A, but the product is alpha if being nice. There's long, long way to go for this thing to compete with hangout, zoom, or anything else out there. Source: I've just tried it out, chatting with myself on native app + 2 browsers.
po 10y ago
This is the first time that I've heard Amazon really call out AWS as a name brand in a non aws-dashboard oriented product (maybe they have already in the past?) Are Chime user identities AWS IAM users under the hood? AWS as a more consumer-facing platform probably has a long climb ahead of it but it could be quite helpful for Amazon to differentiate from their many product misses released under the Amazon name.
andy_ppp 10y ago
This looks awesome; I'm regularly told that Amazon is a horrendous place to work yet they seem to be producing great software and interesting startup type concepts all the while. Not sure how they do it? AWS is a bit of a mess, maybe it's just there that is problematic...
- djsumdog 10y ago
  There are good people everywhere. There are also terrible people in every business. The best people tend to not care about money and leave to go work as paramedics or line cooks or attempt a startup .. and then end up back in software after a year or two. One day we'll get out of here.
vinay_ys 10y ago
Super expensive dial-in rates. $0.214 per minute in India is basically twice the ISD calling rate.
- phonon 10y ago
  For some reason they only have toll-free for India, which explains the cost, I guess. (Still seems pretty high.) https://chime.aws/dialinnumbers/ https://chime.aws/dialinnumbers/
cyberferret 10y ago
Everything else aside, I am surprised/impressed to see that Amazon has the '.aws' top level domain! Does that mean they will be now branding all their AWS infrastructure under this domain?
- djsumdog 10y ago
  This pisses me off to no end. I hate how ICANN approved these product name, (mostly) single company TLDs! I think allowing this is terrible. I know it's just a DNS entry, but it's a fundamental change in the way we think of DNS and the Internet. DNS should not degrade into AOL keywords!
  - andrewstuart2 10y ago
    I don't know. I agree with you on one hand. On the other hand, though, the second-level domain name that is typically up for purchase is all about branding. I have a hard time justifying treating TLD as special and distinct from the rest of the domain name. After all, TLD is just the widest level of the hierarchy that DNS names allow. Why limit TLDs to countries if a particular organization has grown large enough to benefit from it, and wants to pay for it?
  - bhartzer 10y ago
    Well, ICANN has approved over 600 dot brand TLDs. I suspect we're going to be seeing a lot of them here in the near future.
- bhartzer 10y ago
  Amazon paid a lot for that .AWS TLD ($185,000 ICANN application fee alone plus other expenses). I would imagine that this is one of the first sites of many that they'll launch on their .AWS TLD.
jcoffland 10y ago
The Chime app for Android is very invasive. Instead of asking for permissions as they are needed it asks you to give up everything immediately.
nodesocket 10y ago
How did they get that TLD .aws?
- laurentdc 10y ago
  By asking ICANN: https://newgtlds.icann.org/en/applicants/global-support/faqs/faqs-en https://newgtlds.icann.org/en/applicants/global-support/faqs...
happy-go-lucky 10y ago
No wonder Amazon is the most innovative company of 2017. https://www.fastcompany.com/3067455/most-innovative-companies/why-amazon-is-the-worlds-most-innovative-company-of-2017 https://www.fastcompany.com/3067455/most-innovative-companie...
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hkmurakami 10y ago
I noticed that this is from AWS. Is this the first SaaS application coming from AWS?
- Artemis2 10y ago
  Amazon already has WorkDocs and WorkMail in the business productivity segment: https://aws.amazon.com/products/?nc2=h_l3_bu https://aws.amazon.com/products/?nc2=h_l3_bu (couldn't find a better page with the list) I guess some of the other services in AWS could be considered as SaaS?
  - aji 10y ago
    I would add QuickSight to that list https://quicksight.aws/ https://quicksight.aws/
avodonosov 10y ago
No linux support?
dbg31415 10y ago
Someone please do what you say and make one that's clearly better than all the other shitty dwarves out there today so the industry can standardize. "Should we call, or Go to Meeting, or Google Hangout, or Skype, or Lifesize, or Slack, or Adobe Connect, or Zoom, or WebEx, or Chime, or..." It's getting ridiculous. For new services: Please don't be based in the US or willing to cooperate with the US Government. Remember, "We don't snitch!" is an excellent marketing line -- I'll give you money for that. I don't trust Amazon or any of these at present.
thomasfl 10y ago
No screenshots?
woodylondon 10y ago
Wondering if you have a Plus account and setup a call if you then have remote access, group chat etc - a little unclear what happens between Plus and Basic user. if all users need to be Plus then can see this being a problem.
kr0 10y ago
I hope they don't get in the habbit of releasing -ime products. Wow that's old already
Proven 10y ago
You gotta be kidding me. LOL!
jerianasmith 10y ago
For simple and secure meetings, We should give Amazon chime a try.
malloryerik 10y ago
Is Chime based on WebRTC in any way?
- rdtsc 10y ago
  I wouldn't be surprised. Anyone working on it want to confirm?
- ourcat 10y ago
  If they're supporting Safari, then no, not without something additional.
- daimoc35 10y ago
  Found in Chime MacOS 3rd party licence : ** WebRTC; version 90 -- https://webrtc.org/ Copyright (c) 2011, The WebRTC project authors. All rights reserved.
bikamonki 10y ago
I see Amazon making a successful social network faster than Facebook making a successful market place.
cdnsteve 10y ago
Plus plan: $2.50 per user, maximum 2 attendees - seriously, $125/mo for 50 users? I think they missed the mark. Join.me: 50 meeting participants, $22/mo.
- compuguy 10y ago
  When the mean attendees, they are talking about people who have full listen and talk privileges? Not just people who are listen only?
- phonon 10y ago
  No, "user" means someone who can initiate meetings. The Pro Plan ($15/m) allows up to 100 attendees per meeting. So twice the limit and 30% cheaper :-)
codingdave 10y ago
Screen sharing not being available for free is going to make us skip the free trial. We have plenty of options for voice and chat. And video just isn't that important to my teams. Screen sharing, however, is vital. And we are willing to pay, but as long as hangouts works for free, why pay? I know everyone says hangouts is dead and Google isn't putting much work into it. But it does work. And unless they actually shut it down, it gives us what we need. Free. We don't use it for large webinars or anything, and it has its flaws, but... free. That is a really hard point to beat.
dorfsmay 10y ago
No Linux client? What's the advantage over WebEx then? Both hangout and zoom can do Linux, but they aren't seen as corporate as WebEx.
pimlottc 10y ago
How do they authenticate who they are when they call you? I've gotten bogus calls before from "the credit card company", so there needs to be a way to be certain you're talking to the right people.
- hamandcheese 10y ago
  I think it's the app "calling you", not an actual phone call.
  - pimlottc 10y ago
    Okay, that makes sense, wasn't completely clear from the video. Still, they would need to somehow verify it's the right conference call, and not one set up by a phisher.
    - darkstar999 10y ago
      If it's anything like Slack, the call can only originate from within the application (which is isolated to the single business), so there is no chance for outside calls.
Corrado 10y ago
This is really cool but I wish they had more details on the Chat part of the solution. What does it look like? Can you theme it? Does it have any integrations (ala Slack)? Can you have inline pictures? Does it have a rich message API?
- thatwebdude 10y ago
  More importantly, does it support GIFs?
  - tylermac1 10y ago
    It does not. Just tried it. Displays as a static image, even when you open it in the chat window.
Grimes23 10y ago
Only amazon would reveal a product without including any screenshots or details.
jamiesonbecker 10y ago
We use Zoom at Userify and love it. Fantastic Linux client, too. However, it automatically calling me (and saving me time auto-dialing auth codes) would be a pretty nice feature.
webwanderings 10y ago
I don't know how any of these could compete with Zoom, in terms of their offerings. Perhaps Zoom just doesn't have enough of a big name branding push, otherwise, it is hands down a product one should use over any other. I am a free-user of Zoom and I have explored many others out there; there's just no one who come close to Zoom's offerings.
niyazpk 10y ago
The first (and personally the only) requirement I have with any chat system is that it should _not_ modify the text I enter in any way - especially if I am pasting something. Sometimes I have to paste a line or two of code, or a few lines of a stack trace. Sometimes I have to paste a string which contains some particular set of characters. Microsoft Lync absolutely destroys the pasted text. It subtly converts the double quotes into some unicode nonsense. Then it converts some common character sets into smilies. When you copy text from Lync it is almost always guaranteed to be different from what what entered originally. God, I hate Lync with a passion.
- SmellyGeekBoy 10y ago
  I'm not sure about Lync but we got into the habit of pasting into a text file and attaching that when using Skype to send code / log snippets. Agreed that it is a major inconvenience at times.
- ape4 10y ago
  I don't know Lync but googling found this... http://superuser.com/questions/427542/how-can-i-paste-text-without-format-in-a-lync-chat-window http://superuser.com/questions/427542/how-can-i-paste-text-w...
- tzakrajs 10y ago
  It's like Slack's "smart" quotes feature that mangles your ascii quotes out of the box! So frustrating!
  - jedahan 10y ago
    If you are on OSX, that is a feature of OSX, not Slack. You can turn it off in Keyboard settings IIRC.
    - therein 10y ago
      My pet peeve about Slack as of late is -- is turned into a single, long-dash. Even when you're inside ` or ```. Which leaves me juggling there on my keyboard, trying to delete one, move my cursor and add a second dash before submitting.
tea-flow 10y ago
My Amazon login doesn't work. Is anyone else experiencing this issue? I just logged in on Amazon.com just fine using the same credentials (I use a PW manager). Thanks in advance.
zeta0134 10y ago
I clicked through, and was accosted with a gigantic video. I wanted to close the tab right there, but I've seen this before, so I scrolled down to make the giant video go away. No dice, every single page element dances and animates and moves, and there don't seem to be any static images on the whole page. I can't scroll to a single position to read the actual text without some large part of my monitor animating in a suitably distracting fashion. Why. Just... why? Why is this necessary?
- z3t4 10y ago
  You instantly see what the product is good for. It's something many startups fail at. If you are really interested you will endure a lot to get it.
- CaptSpify 10y ago
  The page wouldn't even load for me on mobile. When I tried on my desktop, I turned all JS off and it finally started working.
bobmagoo 10y ago
Not sure what the long term play for Amazon is with a WebEx competitor, something likely to do with getting enterprise business, hope it works out. In case you hadn't seen it, this is basically the anti-marketing video for how conference calls actually work: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DYu_bGbZiiQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DYu_bGbZiiQ
fizixer 10y ago
> ... transforms online meetings ... (has no mention of collaborative white-boarding)
- eyeonai 10y ago
  you can check out Acrossio for a new experience with recording and bookmarking during the meeting! www.acrossio.com
dfrey 10y ago
I'm so sick of proprietary walled garden messaging systems. So now I need slack, chime, skype, hangouts, imessage, allo, facebook, etc depending on who I want to talk to.
manuj10 10y ago
UI Seems to be inspired from goto meeting.

573 points by runesoerensen 10y ago

I didn't know there was a .aws tld..

I liked the part about Chime calling you at the scheduled start of meeting. So simple yet I had never thought of this since my org uses WebEx. With a smart phone that would pretty well via a push notification or an actual call, but not sure how that would work when you want a join a meeting from a physical meeting room with its own AV system. I'm sure there is a way to get that set up.

r00fus 10y ago
I wonder how Chime callback will work with back-back meetings. ie, I'm in someone's Chime/webex, and I need to join a different one. Also does it seamlessly join multiple connections - one benefit of Webex is that I can start my meeting on the iPhone while leaving a meeting room so that others can hop on, and then have my laptop join later so I can share my screen when I hit my desk.
- andy_ppp 10y ago
  It can/should tell everyone at the start and tell you specifically when it's time to say bye. Depending on the time of the next meeting you could opt to join that one late... obviously triple booked will never work.
apahwa 10y ago
uberconference does this
- sahaskatta 10y ago
  +1 for Uber Conference. Discovered it about a year ago and it's by far my favorite service for work. Just wish they add video calling support soon.
sandyjames 10y ago
our neighbor's mother in law makes 64 per hour on the internet. she has been out of work for ten months. last month her pay-check was 13214 just working on the internet 5 hours a day... check this site... http://tinyurl.com/lidfk88kl http://tinyurl.com/lidfk88kl
baconner 10y ago
Seemed like it was just a mobile join notification in the video similar to Skype for business or WebEx if you are using VoIP. No? My company used WebEx and I could make it dial me and start up my conference line without having to go through all the regular pin entry stuff. Now we're using Lync (Skype for business) which is similar although tragically buggy. That can also dial me and sends notifications if you hook it up. The key for these kind of apps is cost and reliability. Seems like they're advertising substantial cost reductions and better quality. If either one is true they'll likely make out really well.
- webmaven 10y ago
  Lync is still buggy? I haven't used it in about two years, but I'd have thought Microsoft would have solved those issues by now.
  - kybernetikos 10y ago
    Lync is shockingly bad. You'd think that after 45 years of sending text to each other over networks this would be a solved problem by now.
  - baconner 10y ago
    I must say I've been really disappointed with how often it crashes outright or has major rendering issues during screen sharing. When it works it's really convenient but 20% of meetings with screen share involved seem to have an issue. I really think quality is life or death for these products. If my company weren't a tight Microsoft partner I really doubt we'd be using it. WebEx wasn't as convenient but at least it worked correctly the vast majority of the time.
    - annnnd 10y ago
      > I really think quality is life or death for these products... > If my company weren't a tight Microsoft partner I really doubt we'd be using it. You answered yourself - no, quality is not life and death (at least not fast death) for this product. :)
TorKlingberg 10y ago
> not sure how that would work when you want a join a meeting from a physical meeting room with its own AV system. I'm sure there is a way to get that set up. As someone who works in video conferencing, this is often very broken. The are all kinds of compatibility issues and crappy UX. One of our core selling points is getting room systems into online meetings.
macspoofing 10y ago
>So simple yet I had never thought of this since my org uses WebEx. WebEx has (sort of) that capability. There is an option for it to call you when you join a meeting.
- sixothree 10y ago
  This is one of my favorite features. Using computer audio is awful especially on the go and GotoMeeting fails to recognize correctly the code I enter some 20% of the time it seems.
  - jerf 10y ago
    If there is anybody who happens to read this who is responsible for implementing the code that reads the meeting codes, please implement the following changes: 1. Make it so meeting codes are strictly forbidden from having repeating digits, by construction. 2. Make it so that when entering meeting codes, if you think you see repeated digits, consider it just one instance of that digit. The cell system does not use literal DMTF tones to dial calls; those are played by the phone itself for the user's benefit. If the cell system used DMTF for numeric signalling, we'd all be dialing a lot more wrong numbers. (And we'd all groan when we got a new line with a number with repeated digits in it....) Heck, even on VOIP systems very well connected to the internet, I've had trouble entering 9-12 digit codes without the remote system becoming convinced I'd actually entered a 11-15 digit code. I've gotten a few strange looks before for the way I push the buttons for the codes as rapidly as possible, because, ironically, the human intuition here is exactly backwards; you intuitively think that if the remote system isn't understanding your numbers you should press the number "longer" and harder, but that actually increases the chances of the system hearing multiple instances of that number. You actually want to pound the number buttons as quickly as possible. You still can't deal with the entire number being dropped, but it's still your best chance sometimes. .... 'course, there's probably some patent out that this is in violation of. In which case you are authorized and even encouraged to use this post as part of a defense that this technique is Obvious to One Skilled in the Art. I'm not a telecom engineer.
Proven 10y ago
I don't want to be called because I choose a different device every time.
m12r 10y ago
Absolutely aggreed with this. We still have to pay a 5 to 10% task to get the conference call going. Chime is the absolute good step in the right direction, however we will need need a layer on top to solve for all conference call systems. There are three pieces that needs to be figured out to make this work well: 1. How do you deal with (non?) presence? Are you joining from the AV hardware? 2. How do you deal with PSTN? 3. How do you deal with other VoIP solutions out there. I have a few ideas on this, especially on #2.
lloydde 10y ago
That does seem great for a distributed team with fewer meetings. As you suggest for a physical meeting or when people have back to back meetings, it would quickly get annoying. I wonder if this also reflects that calendar apps still suck.
iamdave 10y ago
I'm sure there is a way to get that set up. Hrm, SIP URIs maybe? https://www.wikiwand.com/en/SIP_URI_scheme https://www.wikiwand.com/en/SIP_URI_scheme

cobookman 10y ago

Not sure if more impressed with the product or use of a TLD of .aws

endgame 10y ago
Go with the product. ICANN making dumb decisions isn't impressive.
- dajohnson89 10y ago
  Is it a dumb decision, or a corrupt/biased one?
  - djsumdog 10y ago
    Yes, yes and yes.

draw_down 10y ago

"Meetings call you" is a good idea, as is the reconnecting stuff. Who knows if anyone will use this, but even with all the supply in this market, there is still space for something that actually works well. As someone who works remotely I can't wait until this gets figured out.

euyyn 10y ago

A new player in the area! Is this the first Amazon enterprise service not for developers?

ajmurmann 10y ago
They have a online email interface and a virtual workstation solution also targeted at enterprises.

JumpCrisscross 10y ago

Does this feature end-to-end encryption?

dsacco 10y ago
I don't believe so. If you look under the FAQs and the "Security and Control" heading of the Features page, there is no mention of encryption beyond AES-256. Companies offering E2E typically like to highlight that somewhere, even in a non-technical way. Furthermore, the security is apparently "fully managed", which to me translates to "keys securely stored on our servers, not client-side."

legohead 10y ago

No screenshots of the product?

krackers 10y ago

Amazon's horizontal expansion is pretty fascinating. From an online stores and cloud service provider to consumer products and now b2b apps.

sthomas1618 10y ago

Zoom competitor?

nathancahill 10y ago

Speaking of.. can Slack hurry up and buy Zoom? Aren't they pretty flush with cash? It seems crazy that they are letting this huge market (where they have a foothold) slip away to new competitors.

deleted 10y ago
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toomuchtodo 10y ago
A better question would be: How long until AWS has a Slack competitor? That natively integrates with the entire AWS stack?
- draw_down 10y ago
  That's what I figured this was, before I read what it did. Someone will come up with a decent competitor one day.
  - brazzledazzle 10y ago
    The page claims it has chat and can replace your entire communications stack. Curious to see how it executes on that.
- rev_bird 10y ago
  >natively integrates with the entire AWS stack I'm not sure I see the utility in this, as Amazon resources and group chat don't really have a lot of overlap, at least for me. What would you need "integrated" into the new AWS Chat that couldn't be accomplished with a chatbot and Slack?
snarkyturtle 10y ago
Or even put their Screenhero acquisition to good use and finally roll out screen-sharing.

biot 10y ago

"With Amazon Chime, you can feel confident you’re communicating securely." This wording has always struck me as being awful. People felt confident investing with Bernie Madoff as well. I'd rather have confidence from proven security instead of just feeling confident.

notatoad 10y ago
confidence is a feeling. there's no other way to experience confidence than to feel it.
- biot 10y ago
  I'd word it something along the lines of: "Communicate securely with your team, confident that we've taken care of your online security via [list of reasons]". Yes, confidence is a feeling but for me it sounds better this way. Saying "you can feel confident" reads to me like "with MtGox, your funds can be secure".

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

Taek 10y ago

They tout security but I don't think it's open source and it looks like everything is stored on Amazon servers. Minimally it is centralized, and you can't verify that there's no backdoor. In this day and age, that means we're both trusting their core intentions, and also trusting that some government won't step in and silently force their hand. I don't personally feel that is good enough to be considered secure anymore.

tomesch1982 10y ago
That is exactly what I thought when I read the words "secure" and "trust". If it is not open source it is neither secure nor should anybody trust it. The word used in Britain to describe a statement like that is bollocks.
miend 10y ago
Like any other hosting, if it's in the US, it must be considered compromised in these terms. That's the world we live in now.
- zeveb 10y ago
  > Like any other hosting, if it's in the US, it must be considered compromised in these terms. s/, if it's in the US// There, fixed it for you. Any data not under your control can and will be used against you, especially by a state wielding a monopoly on force.

blintz 10y ago

I'm really curious how this all-in-one concept will compare to the Slack approach of chat as the central functionality augmented by a bunch of integrations with external services.

krashidov 10y ago

Enterprise conferencing software is so bad and so expensive I'm astonished it took this long for a decent competitor to come in. I'm really surprised Google didn't go all in with making Hangouts a decent competitor. I have a feeling this will make a lot of money.

ajmurmann 10y ago
Hangouts is so strange to me (like many Google products I guess). They got a ton of traction; first release immediately was super solid and then nothing. Nothing has changed in ages. No obvious features get implemented. I would love so much to have s tile view of all participants. Ideally we would get a codec that's actually supported by hardware instead of this battery draining mess. I'd love to have an option for the video not to be cropped. I can't count the confusion that has caused over the years with people in meeting wondering why someone is only showing their forehead out why everybody but them can see multiple people on camera but they only see someone in the center. All the hard work seems to be done, but Google refuses to polish and properly maintain it. It's bizarre.
- ChuckMcM 10y ago
  At one time this was a function of how Google did promotions/pay raises. I'm not sure if Hangouts got caught in that catch 22 or not but it did kill a lot of decent projects. Had that team remained relevant they could have conceivably done a "Chromebox" Hub like the Surface Hub and given Microsoft some competition in that space. EDIT: Ok so as is pointed out there is a chromebox for meetings. Pretty nice. Seems to be out of the Enterprise group though, is that still part of Google or is it an 'Other Bet' now?
  - tschwimmer 10y ago
    We had it at my old company and it was garbage. Super frustrating to join meetings (type your automatically generated, super long meeting name on a tiny keyboard), random crashes freezes and relatively poor video quality. Another super annoying thing was screensharing had an extremely low bitrate. It was so bad that it was pretty pretty useless to demo any nice UI features or animations. The framerate was 2-5 fps.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

hrayr 10y ago

Are they competing with WebEx, Skype, or Slack? Looks like a compelling B2B offering from Amazon. I bet they'll have an accompanying hardware to go with this in the coming months.

mattnewton 10y ago
Looks like a skype/Webex competitor
m-app 10y ago
Looks to me a bit more akin to Cisco's Spark, although without the video endpoints, digital whiteboard and end-to-end security. https://www.ciscospark.com/products/overview.html https://www.ciscospark.com/products/overview.html D: I work at Cisco and use Spark daily.
- jquast 10y ago
  so cisco employees don't use webex? no wonder it sucks ...
jedisct1 10y ago
More of a Zoom competitor.

manishsharan 10y ago

...application available for Android, iOS, Mac, and Windows Why not Linux?

dsacco 10y ago
Probably because they crunched the numbers and came to the conclusion that the potential revenue didn't justify the development costs.
- chrisper 10y ago
  I am speculating that they are probably using some Electron app. So they could have probably done Linux. I am just guessing that it's a support issue since Linux comes in so many different ways.
- pmontra 10y ago
  Don't overlook that a team might keep using something else because they need to make a conf call between 3 Macs, 1 Windows and 1 Linux (a case with a customer of mine).

greyskull 10y ago

Amazon acquired Biba[0], this is that product with the backend swapped out. It's currently being beta'd internally and they haven't yet added anything over Biba the product. There are some great features planned, from what I've heard. [0] http://www.biba.com/ http://www.biba.com/

planetjones 10y ago

Great product idea. At work we use Skype for business and it's a disaster - especially bad is it seemingly randomly says 'your device is causing poor audio quality' and mutes you. The only way to recover is to dial out and in. Before that it was the AT&T solution - such an ugly application with poor usability. If Amazon really polish this product and provide a great user experience and quality they could pick up a lot of business. Edit: there's a problem here. Skype for business allows up to 250 participants. The AT&T solution (webex maybe) allows, I think, an unlimited number. Amazon Chime has a limit of 250 people. This wouldn't cut it for presentations in large companies e.g. announcement of annual results or divisional virtual 'town hall'

josh2600 10y ago
All conferenincing systems have a limit on the number of first-class participants (people who can listen and speak). Broadcast is a different problem and there are a ton of really good solutions when you have less than 250 speakers but many listeners. There are no conferencing products, to my knowledge, that support more than 250 first-class participants over the internet in a reliable way. If you have an example, I'd be very curious to play with that product.
- planetjones 10y ago
  So can Chime allow more than 100 listeners. I interpreted the 100 limit as a hard cut off on the number of participants irrespective of their class.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

therealmarv 10y ago

I really do not like conference systems which do not work on Linux. Not everybody is using a Mac or Windows. Microsoft is also ignoring Skype and Skype for Business on Linux. This is all crap.

cthalupa 10y ago
It looks like they support a web client for use on Linux for viewing meetings, at least. https://answers.chime.aws/articles/17/supported-operating-systems.html https://answers.chime.aws/articles/17/supported-operating-sy...
- djsumdog 10y ago
  At my current gig, it's WebEx. The Linux client supposedly does work on 32-bit FireFox using 32-bit Java. I've tried some docker containers that supposedly support this configuration, but so far I can't get anything to work. WebEx is literally the only reason I even start up a Windows VM at work.
  - BHSPitMonkey 10y ago
    When I worked in a WebEx shop, I gave up on the Linux/Firefox situation and just used their Android client on a tablet or phone.
pmontra 10y ago
Don't know about Skype for business but they are rewriting the normal Skype client for Linux. https://community.skype.com/t5/Linux/bd-p/Linux https://community.skype.com/t5/Linux/bd-p/Linux I didn't try it out. The old client still works. The only missing feature is screen sharing in multiple parties video calls. I'm using TeamViewer for that. Desktop sharing is much smoother with TeamViewer anyway. The real plus of Skype over Hangout or Webex is the chat: the history is stored forever locally and I can search every message I sent. We're using a Skype group chat even when we're using TeamViewer.
- 10y ago

Narkov 10y ago

Their claim of "a third of the cost of traditional solutions" is an apples and oranges comparison. The basic and plus pricing options, while cheap, are practically useless with only 2 maximum attendees and the $15/user/month pro plan is hardly "a third of the cost...". Looks like a great product with an average price point.

qq66 10y ago
GoToMeeting charges $50/month so it is 1/3 the cost of GoToMeeting, at least at the individual subscriber level.
djsumdog 10y ago
I suspected they were directly challenging either WebEx or Skype for Business.
- mynameisvlad 10y ago
  https://products.office.com/en-us/business/compare-more-office-365-for-business-plans https://products.office.com/en-us/business/compare-more-offi... Skype for Business is available in all Office 365 Business plans except the software-only one (ProPlus). That includes the $5/6 plan (https://products.office.com/en-us/business/office-365-business-essentials https://products.office.com/en-us/business/office-365-busine...) as well as the $8.25/10 plan that includes all of Office. It's not a very good competitor on that front...
chokma 10y ago
And the price for Biba Pro (on which Chime is based) previously was $10/user/month...

alexandercrohde 10y ago

One thing I'd like to hear the official policy on is message privacy (i.e. is management reading your stuff?). That's a personal concern I have with slack.

kupiakos 10y ago

> Amazon Chime works seamlessly across your devices. > No Linux support

dajohnson89 10y ago
Huh, I was excited until then. Onwards....
partiallypro 10y ago
Haven't looked but probably no Windows Mobile support either. I know I'm a infinitesimal user base, but the lack of support from services makes me not use them. This is one place Slack really excels and why I hate Hangouts.

chime 10y ago

As the guy who has owned chime.tv for well over a decade, this is a bit concerning IP-wise.

discardorama 10y ago
Instead of a chime, you should be hearing a cha-ching!
- dajohnson89 10y ago
  Yes, proceeded by a bang of the gavel. Kidding, kinda.
supercoder 10y ago
Hope it was good while it lasted
darkstar999 10y ago
What IP, besides the domain name? Yours redirects to some game. I don't think you have a brand to protect.

lars_francke 10y ago

I'm definitely going to try this (even though unusable for us because of missing Linux support). We have currently settled on Zoom and it's okay, they do have Linux support. One problem I have with all video conferencing solutions we've tried (same for my colleagues, all Mac or Linux users, sadly no Windows users to compare) is high CPU usage. I have a 2015 MacBook Pro and when I share my screen CPU usage skyrockets to 150-200% basically pegging the whole CPU. Without sharing my screen CPU usage is at 80-100%. I have similar problems with certain videos on the web (e.g. Ted.com and others). Is this something everyone else here sees as well? I always assumed they must because we see it across devices and products.

hmottestad 10y ago
Someone mentioned to me here on HN that Safari uses less CPU when video/screen sharing. I have the same problem as you. Can't use my built in microphone because the fans as blasting full power due to the CPU usage.
tagawa 10y ago
Yes, the same experience. Also a Zoom user and screen sharing in particular is a CPU and battery hog.
djrogers 10y ago
I wonder if it's a function of what you're sharing? I use zoom with PowerPoint and Keynote all the time and have never had my fans spin up when sharing. Haven't noticed it sharing Safari or my whole desktop either... As a test I'm currently on a video+computer audio+full screen sharing zoom, and my overall CPU load is at <20%, with Zoom accounting for about half of that.
- lars_francke 10y ago
  That's interesting. I'm mostly sharing either Powerpoint, IntelliJ stuff or just Chrome. I more or less can't use IntelliJ any more productively while sharing my screen because it's starved for resources.

m_mueller 10y ago

For those who tried screensharing, does it have a pointing-feature (i.e. viewer can point to something)? There's so many products out there like Skype and Hangout that don't support it and I don't understand why not, it seems pretty basic to me (just only show the arrow on platforms that support it, i.e. OSX, Windows and Linux).

all_usernames 10y ago

In soviet Russia...

Roritharr 10y ago

While we're on the topic of conferencing software, is there a List for Software to use when you want 4k/30p or 1080/60p? Skype seems to not be up to the task. Our Gbit Connection is.

nodesocket 10y ago
Have you tried Slack video?
- Roritharr 10y ago
  That's only 1on1 for now. We need at least 3 people (more often 5) in a video conference.

algesten 10y ago

So, no video conferencing in basic/plus plan (1:1 doesn't count). It's funny how many attempts there are at making conferencing software that just have audio and some basic chat. Entry level needs video, since you can get it for free elsewhere (i.e. hangouts).

fourstar 10y ago
Not a bad idea. Have a poorer quality (free) version and then offer an upgrade to a higher quality stream.

evantahler 10y ago

Appear.in can't be beat.

mderazon 10y ago
Agree it's great for small meetings (2-3 people). P2P without any server in between, works as good as your connection. One thing that bugs me though is using it in Chrome in Mac. 50% of the times the microphone doesn't work and I have to kill coreaudiod and restart the session. I came to a point where I do it before I start a meeting just in case. It's not appear.in problem though, it happens in Hangouts in Chrome as well

xroche 10y ago

So this is basically what lifesize.com has been providing for ages, sans the Linux support. Truly revolutionary I guess.

gurrone 10y ago
From my own experience lifesize voice and video quality is so awful that anything from an egineering company should be superior. Also the stability of the lifesize appliance is horrible. Often enough we've to reboot them before every meeting, because the microphone went dead again. The only positive point is that it works with Chromium on Linux including the window sharing extension. I hope it's of slightly better quality then webex. But I fear that is overly optimistic at least. On the other hand Google Hangouts is for free, has from my experience a better quality and all of them ship your data to the US. If amazon offers something similar they and can offer an option that keeps your data in Europe that would be an interesting option.

slyall 10y ago

Interesting that you pay per user per month. I wonder how it works for occasional and one-off users. Eg if you want a vendor to join your team's chat or you use it to talk to clients.

djrogers 10y ago
With most (all?) of these conferencing, the host is the one that has to have an account and pay - otherwise nobody would be able to use them for support, sales calls, etc.

benevol 10y ago

> Amazon Chime is a communications service that transforms online meetings with a secure, easy-to-use application that you can trust. - Amazon, PRISM partner

tdmule 10y ago
Has this been substantiated? To my knowledge Amazon denies being a part of PRISM and the only thing a quick search reveals is that denial and Snowden criticizing Amazon for not being HTTPS by default on some of their endpoints.
- benevol 10y ago
  Have you read Snowden's Leaks? All of the major tech companies have been on board for a long time (and that was years ago). How can you believe that a giant like Amazon will somehow magically not be part of it? It's time for the country to sharpen its critical thinking skills.
  - jamesrcole 10y ago
    > All of the major tech companies have been on board and > How can you believe that [...] Amazon [isn't] part of it? I don't know what they say, but what you're saying here is unclear. Do the leaks mention Amazon or not?
    - tdmule 10y ago
      The closest I can see to someone asserting they do is https://www.mhpbooks.com/is-amazon-one-of-the-companies-working-with-the-nsa-to-spy-on-you/ https://www.mhpbooks.com/is-amazon-one-of-the-companies-work... But the thrust of that article is more suspicion that Amazon is not mentioned in the leaks and questioning the reliability of the company's word. It does cite one source, described in the article as non-mainstream, which asserts that Amazon was a part of PRISM, but that source fails to cite any leak. http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article40822.html http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article40822.html Edit: I should mention that the first article casting doubt on Amazon's reliability is published by an independent publishing company, historically an industry that has been at odds with Amazon and harmed by its business practices.

vegabook 10y ago

No Linux. Buh-Bye

supercoder 10y ago
Why is this surprising ? Just get it for iOS
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avip 10y ago

I absolutely love the startupish way aws launches new services. They have the whole "landing page" and marketing pitch class A, but the product is alpha if being nice. There's long, long way to go for this thing to compete with hangout, zoom, or anything else out there. Source: I've just tried it out, chatting with myself on native app + 2 browsers.

po 10y ago

This is the first time that I've heard Amazon really call out AWS as a name brand in a non aws-dashboard oriented product (maybe they have already in the past?) Are Chime user identities AWS IAM users under the hood? AWS as a more consumer-facing platform probably has a long climb ahead of it but it could be quite helpful for Amazon to differentiate from their many product misses released under the Amazon name.

andy_ppp 10y ago

This looks awesome; I'm regularly told that Amazon is a horrendous place to work yet they seem to be producing great software and interesting startup type concepts all the while. Not sure how they do it? AWS is a bit of a mess, maybe it's just there that is problematic...

djsumdog 10y ago
There are good people everywhere. There are also terrible people in every business. The best people tend to not care about money and leave to go work as paramedics or line cooks or attempt a startup .. and then end up back in software after a year or two. One day we'll get out of here.

vinay_ys 10y ago

Super expensive dial-in rates. $0.214 per minute in India is basically twice the ISD calling rate.

phonon 10y ago
For some reason they only have toll-free for India, which explains the cost, I guess. (Still seems pretty high.) https://chime.aws/dialinnumbers/ https://chime.aws/dialinnumbers/

cyberferret 10y ago

Everything else aside, I am surprised/impressed to see that Amazon has the '.aws' top level domain! Does that mean they will be now branding all their AWS infrastructure under this domain?

djsumdog 10y ago
This pisses me off to no end. I hate how ICANN approved these product name, (mostly) single company TLDs! I think allowing this is terrible. I know it's just a DNS entry, but it's a fundamental change in the way we think of DNS and the Internet. DNS should not degrade into AOL keywords!
- andrewstuart2 10y ago
  I don't know. I agree with you on one hand. On the other hand, though, the second-level domain name that is typically up for purchase is all about branding. I have a hard time justifying treating TLD as special and distinct from the rest of the domain name. After all, TLD is just the widest level of the hierarchy that DNS names allow. Why limit TLDs to countries if a particular organization has grown large enough to benefit from it, and wants to pay for it?
- bhartzer 10y ago
  Well, ICANN has approved over 600 dot brand TLDs. I suspect we're going to be seeing a lot of them here in the near future.
bhartzer 10y ago
Amazon paid a lot for that .AWS TLD ($185,000 ICANN application fee alone plus other expenses). I would imagine that this is one of the first sites of many that they'll launch on their .AWS TLD.

jcoffland 10y ago

The Chime app for Android is very invasive. Instead of asking for permissions as they are needed it asks you to give up everything immediately.

nodesocket 10y ago

How did they get that TLD .aws?

laurentdc 10y ago
By asking ICANN: https://newgtlds.icann.org/en/applicants/global-support/faqs/faqs-en https://newgtlds.icann.org/en/applicants/global-support/faqs...

happy-go-lucky 10y ago

No wonder Amazon is the most innovative company of 2017. https://www.fastcompany.com/3067455/most-innovative-companies/why-amazon-is-the-worlds-most-innovative-company-of-2017 https://www.fastcompany.com/3067455/most-innovative-companie...

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hkmurakami 10y ago

I noticed that this is from AWS. Is this the first SaaS application coming from AWS?

Artemis2 10y ago
Amazon already has WorkDocs and WorkMail in the business productivity segment: https://aws.amazon.com/products/?nc2=h_l3_bu https://aws.amazon.com/products/?nc2=h_l3_bu (couldn't find a better page with the list) I guess some of the other services in AWS could be considered as SaaS?
- aji 10y ago
  I would add QuickSight to that list https://quicksight.aws/ https://quicksight.aws/

avodonosov 10y ago

No linux support?

dbg31415 10y ago

Someone please do what you say and make one that's clearly better than all the other shitty dwarves out there today so the industry can standardize. "Should we call, or Go to Meeting, or Google Hangout, or Skype, or Lifesize, or Slack, or Adobe Connect, or Zoom, or WebEx, or Chime, or..." It's getting ridiculous. For new services: Please don't be based in the US or willing to cooperate with the US Government. Remember, "We don't snitch!" is an excellent marketing line -- I'll give you money for that. I don't trust Amazon or any of these at present.

thomasfl 10y ago

No screenshots?

woodylondon 10y ago

Wondering if you have a Plus account and setup a call if you then have remote access, group chat etc - a little unclear what happens between Plus and Basic user. if all users need to be Plus then can see this being a problem.

kr0 10y ago

I hope they don't get in the habbit of releasing -ime products. Wow that's old already

Proven 10y ago

You gotta be kidding me. LOL!

jerianasmith 10y ago

For simple and secure meetings, We should give Amazon chime a try.

malloryerik 10y ago

Is Chime based on WebRTC in any way?

rdtsc 10y ago
I wouldn't be surprised. Anyone working on it want to confirm?
ourcat 10y ago
If they're supporting Safari, then no, not without something additional.

bikamonki 10y ago

I see Amazon making a successful social network faster than Facebook making a successful market place.

cdnsteve 10y ago

Plus plan: $2.50 per user, maximum 2 attendees - seriously, $125/mo for 50 users? I think they missed the mark. Join.me: 50 meeting participants, $22/mo.

compuguy 10y ago
When the mean attendees, they are talking about people who have full listen and talk privileges? Not just people who are listen only?
phonon 10y ago
No, "user" means someone who can initiate meetings. The Pro Plan ($15/m) allows up to 100 attendees per meeting. So twice the limit and 30% cheaper :-)

codingdave 10y ago

Screen sharing not being available for free is going to make us skip the free trial. We have plenty of options for voice and chat. And video just isn't that important to my teams. Screen sharing, however, is vital. And we are willing to pay, but as long as hangouts works for free, why pay? I know everyone says hangouts is dead and Google isn't putting much work into it. But it does work. And unless they actually shut it down, it gives us what we need. Free. We don't use it for large webinars or anything, and it has its flaws, but... free. That is a really hard point to beat.

dorfsmay 10y ago

No Linux client? What's the advantage over WebEx then? Both hangout and zoom can do Linux, but they aren't seen as corporate as WebEx.

pimlottc 10y ago

How do they authenticate who they are when they call you? I've gotten bogus calls before from "the credit card company", so there needs to be a way to be certain you're talking to the right people.

hamandcheese 10y ago
I think it's the app "calling you", not an actual phone call.
- pimlottc 10y ago
  Okay, that makes sense, wasn't completely clear from the video. Still, they would need to somehow verify it's the right conference call, and not one set up by a phisher.
  - darkstar999 10y ago
    If it's anything like Slack, the call can only originate from within the application (which is isolated to the single business), so there is no chance for outside calls.

Corrado 10y ago

This is really cool but I wish they had more details on the Chat part of the solution. What does it look like? Can you theme it? Does it have any integrations (ala Slack)? Can you have inline pictures? Does it have a rich message API?

thatwebdude 10y ago
More importantly, does it support GIFs?
- tylermac1 10y ago
  It does not. Just tried it. Displays as a static image, even when you open it in the chat window.

Grimes23 10y ago

Only amazon would reveal a product without including any screenshots or details.

jamiesonbecker 10y ago

We use Zoom at Userify and love it. Fantastic Linux client, too. However, it automatically calling me (and saving me time auto-dialing auth codes) would be a pretty nice feature.

webwanderings 10y ago

I don't know how any of these could compete with Zoom, in terms of their offerings. Perhaps Zoom just doesn't have enough of a big name branding push, otherwise, it is hands down a product one should use over any other. I am a free-user of Zoom and I have explored many others out there; there's just no one who come close to Zoom's offerings.

niyazpk 10y ago

The first (and personally the only) requirement I have with any chat system is that it should _not_ modify the text I enter in any way - especially if I am pasting something. Sometimes I have to paste a line or two of code, or a few lines of a stack trace. Sometimes I have to paste a string which contains some particular set of characters. Microsoft Lync absolutely destroys the pasted text. It subtly converts the double quotes into some unicode nonsense. Then it converts some common character sets into smilies. When you copy text from Lync it is almost always guaranteed to be different from what what entered originally. God, I hate Lync with a passion.

SmellyGeekBoy 10y ago
I'm not sure about Lync but we got into the habit of pasting into a text file and attaching that when using Skype to send code / log snippets. Agreed that it is a major inconvenience at times.
ape4 10y ago
I don't know Lync but googling found this... http://superuser.com/questions/427542/how-can-i-paste-text-without-format-in-a-lync-chat-window http://superuser.com/questions/427542/how-can-i-paste-text-w...
tzakrajs 10y ago
It's like Slack's "smart" quotes feature that mangles your ascii quotes out of the box! So frustrating!
- jedahan 10y ago
  If you are on OSX, that is a feature of OSX, not Slack. You can turn it off in Keyboard settings IIRC.
  - therein 10y ago
    My pet peeve about Slack as of late is -- is turned into a single, long-dash. Even when you're inside ` or ```. Which leaves me juggling there on my keyboard, trying to delete one, move my cursor and add a second dash before submitting.

tea-flow 10y ago

My Amazon login doesn't work. Is anyone else experiencing this issue? I just logged in on Amazon.com just fine using the same credentials (I use a PW manager). Thanks in advance.

zeta0134 10y ago

I clicked through, and was accosted with a gigantic video. I wanted to close the tab right there, but I've seen this before, so I scrolled down to make the giant video go away. No dice, every single page element dances and animates and moves, and there don't seem to be any static images on the whole page. I can't scroll to a single position to read the actual text without some large part of my monitor animating in a suitably distracting fashion. Why. Just... why? Why is this necessary?

z3t4 10y ago
You instantly see what the product is good for. It's something many startups fail at. If you are really interested you will endure a lot to get it.
CaptSpify 10y ago
The page wouldn't even load for me on mobile. When I tried on my desktop, I turned all JS off and it finally started working.

bobmagoo 10y ago

Not sure what the long term play for Amazon is with a WebEx competitor, something likely to do with getting enterprise business, hope it works out. In case you hadn't seen it, this is basically the anti-marketing video for how conference calls actually work: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DYu_bGbZiiQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DYu_bGbZiiQ

fizixer 10y ago

> ... transforms online meetings ... (has no mention of collaborative white-boarding)

eyeonai 10y ago
you can check out Acrossio for a new experience with recording and bookmarking during the meeting! www.acrossio.com

dfrey 10y ago

I'm so sick of proprietary walled garden messaging systems. So now I need slack, chime, skype, hangouts, imessage, allo, facebook, etc depending on who I want to talk to.

manuj10 10y ago

UI Seems to be inspired from goto meeting.