5 ms·

As someone who has never been super-impressed with the Zoom experience, I'm impressed. Also, what is their moat exactly?

trhway 8y ago
not a moat per.se. - seems they have powerful enterprise sales team. Ability and luck in building it is a kind of a quasi-moat ( that for example Google still can't cross in their enterprise endeavors like the Cloud) That sales team makes them (at the current multiples - see Mule, Qualtrix, GitHub, etc) into a $4B public or a $6-8B acquisition (my bet is that somebody of a big ones will snatch them before the IPO).
- sofaofthedamned 8y ago
  We are G-Suite at work so obviously use Hangouts Meet everywhere. However, whenever we need a company-wide meeting we switch to Zoom as apparently HM can't handle this.
  - alasdair_ 8y ago
    Hangouts breaks after ten people. Zoom works well with hundreds, that’s why we seitched over.
  - ec109685 8y ago
    They fixed this. It can do 100k participants now: https://gsuiteupdates.googleblog.com/2018/09/live-stream-hangouts-meet-meetings.html https://gsuiteupdates.googleblog.com/2018/09/live-stream-han...
tehlike 8y ago
none. as gsuite becomes more widespread, people will switch to it. I'd be more worried about msft building something similar compared to zoom. disclaimer: Used zoom couple times, use hangouts every day. google employee, opinions are my own.
- makmanalp 8y ago
  I've got to say that I've always wanted to love hangouts but it always makes my laptop (reasonably powerful macbook pro) immediately max out CPU and make fan noise like a spaceship taking off, and for comparatively worse AV quality than the competitors. The only thing that kept me using it was that I didn't have to install crap. Just used meet for the first time yesterday, reserving judgement there, but honestly I didn't need yet another rebrand from google. Zoom is the exact opposite: You have to get the client but it client works with minimal resources, on many platforms (phone / laptop is seamless for me) scales perfectly with large meetings / screenshare and video at the same time, laggy mobile connections etc etc. Most importantly it ALWAYS works. I never have to futz with it ever (whether in terms of connections, or "your link doesn't work", "you have to invite me", "user is from a different organization than you" etc). Just get the meeting ID and connect. This is how technology should work in 2018.
  - apendleton 8y ago
    Meet isn't exactly a rebrand, it's an enterprise-oriented product variant. It includes a bunch of extra features that the consumer one doesn't have, and isn't free.
- e40 8y ago
  I use zoom regularly (and have for more than a year). Paid customer. I've the equivalent from google... horrible experience both times I've used it. UI is a mess. Quality of call was terrible. As a g suite customer, I will stay far away from the google offerings.
- metal13 8y ago
  Zoom works more reliably than hangouts does. I use hangouts every day for some business calls, but I pay for Zoom. If you're looking for something that will work so you can close a sale, Zoom wins. Potential customers struggling to hear you on a hangout isn't a winner. Scheduling, calendars, easy phone dial ins, and way better mobile performance make it clutch. I'm a GSuite customer, but it's still better to pay Zoom. Zoom is also focused on one thing. Hangouts/chats/meet/whatever Google wants call it /do with it is an afterthought. If Google wanted to make a real run at the market, they should buy Zoom immediately.
timcederman 8y ago
https://zoom.us/zoomrooms https://zoom.us/zoomrooms
- rrix2 8y ago
  Being able to walk in to a room and dial a room at a different site and then have individuals connecting for screen share has been such a quality of life improvement.
dorfsmay 8y ago
High (sound, screen sharing, video) quality, low men and CPU usage.
mathieuh 8y ago
It really Just Works. We’ve used Skype previously and literally every group call had issues, 75% of the time requiring everyone to restart the app entirely. We’ve been using Zoom for a year now and have had zero issues. None at all.
- neom 8y ago
  FWIW, we use AWS chime. It's absolutely fantastic. Call quality is always good to great, super easy to use for all parties. We found skype and zoom didn't work well for conference calls such as NYC to Cape Town.

trhway 8y ago

not a moat per.se. - seems they have powerful enterprise sales team. Ability and luck in building it is a kind of a quasi-moat ( that for example Google still can't cross in their enterprise endeavors like the Cloud) That sales team makes them (at the current multiples - see Mule, Qualtrix, GitHub, etc) into a $4B public or a $6-8B acquisition (my bet is that somebody of a big ones will snatch them before the IPO).

sofaofthedamned 8y ago
We are G-Suite at work so obviously use Hangouts Meet everywhere. However, whenever we need a company-wide meeting we switch to Zoom as apparently HM can't handle this.
- alasdair_ 8y ago
  Hangouts breaks after ten people. Zoom works well with hundreds, that’s why we seitched over.
- ec109685 8y ago
  They fixed this. It can do 100k participants now: https://gsuiteupdates.googleblog.com/2018/09/live-stream-hangouts-meet-meetings.html https://gsuiteupdates.googleblog.com/2018/09/live-stream-han...

tehlike 8y ago

none. as gsuite becomes more widespread, people will switch to it. I'd be more worried about msft building something similar compared to zoom. disclaimer: Used zoom couple times, use hangouts every day. google employee, opinions are my own.

makmanalp 8y ago
I've got to say that I've always wanted to love hangouts but it always makes my laptop (reasonably powerful macbook pro) immediately max out CPU and make fan noise like a spaceship taking off, and for comparatively worse AV quality than the competitors. The only thing that kept me using it was that I didn't have to install crap. Just used meet for the first time yesterday, reserving judgement there, but honestly I didn't need yet another rebrand from google. Zoom is the exact opposite: You have to get the client but it client works with minimal resources, on many platforms (phone / laptop is seamless for me) scales perfectly with large meetings / screenshare and video at the same time, laggy mobile connections etc etc. Most importantly it ALWAYS works. I never have to futz with it ever (whether in terms of connections, or "your link doesn't work", "you have to invite me", "user is from a different organization than you" etc). Just get the meeting ID and connect. This is how technology should work in 2018.
- apendleton 8y ago
  Meet isn't exactly a rebrand, it's an enterprise-oriented product variant. It includes a bunch of extra features that the consumer one doesn't have, and isn't free.
e40 8y ago
I use zoom regularly (and have for more than a year). Paid customer. I've the equivalent from google... horrible experience both times I've used it. UI is a mess. Quality of call was terrible. As a g suite customer, I will stay far away from the google offerings.
metal13 8y ago
Zoom works more reliably than hangouts does. I use hangouts every day for some business calls, but I pay for Zoom. If you're looking for something that will work so you can close a sale, Zoom wins. Potential customers struggling to hear you on a hangout isn't a winner. Scheduling, calendars, easy phone dial ins, and way better mobile performance make it clutch. I'm a GSuite customer, but it's still better to pay Zoom. Zoom is also focused on one thing. Hangouts/chats/meet/whatever Google wants call it /do with it is an afterthought. If Google wanted to make a real run at the market, they should buy Zoom immediately.

timcederman 8y ago

https://zoom.us/zoomrooms https://zoom.us/zoomrooms

rrix2 8y ago
Being able to walk in to a room and dial a room at a different site and then have individuals connecting for screen share has been such a quality of life improvement.

dorfsmay 8y ago

High (sound, screen sharing, video) quality, low men and CPU usage.

mathieuh 8y ago

It really Just Works. We’ve used Skype previously and literally every group call had issues, 75% of the time requiring everyone to restart the app entirely. We’ve been using Zoom for a year now and have had zero issues. None at all.

neom 8y ago
FWIW, we use AWS chime. It's absolutely fantastic. Call quality is always good to great, super easy to use for all parties. We found skype and zoom didn't work well for conference calls such as NYC to Cape Town.