Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Chromebox, now for simpler and better meetings

chrome.blogspot.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

121–130 of 161 posts

Re: Chromebox, now for simpler and better meetings

#121

Post by smm2000 »

VikingCoder wrote: post #75
rubiquity wrote: post #29

So regular computers just can't cut the mustard at streaming video? I don't see the value in a custom hardware product for this and I can't quite justify the price tag. It's not often that Google creates a product where you say to yourself "Oh, I guess this just wasn't created for me" but I think this is one of those rare occasions. Disclaimer: I'm not a megacorp with millions to spend.

Every company I've ever worked at (save one) had projectors in conference rooms, but no permanent computer hooked up to it. The meeting organizer would have to set up a web conference in something, and then people would share their Desktop, and whoever the presenter at the moment was would plug in their laptop. And then the guy forgot his power cord, and can't project for the whole meeting. And then the other guy for…

That's exactly my experience with videoconferences! At least 10 minutes of every meeting was spent tinkering with hardware/software/cables/etc.

Re: Chromebox, now for simpler and better meetings

#122

Post by kyledilger »

skyjedi wrote: post #88
michaelbuckbee wrote: post #53

I assure you that this is not a joke. The best 'self-contained' video conference machine I've used in the last year is: 1. $400 less up front than the Chromebox 2. Has an annual service fee $200 less than the Chromebox 3. Has a camera with awesome built in face detection (if one person is in the room it centers on their face, if three people are in it automatically expands to fit them all in, if you wander around the…

cuz an xboxone is perfectly acceptable on an expense report.

Microsoft seems to think so: http://www.forbes.com/sites/insertcoin/2013/07/11/microsoft-...

Re: Chromebox, now for simpler and better meetings

#124

Post by bluedino »

wmf wrote: post #117
bluedino wrote: post #65

I wonder how well this works over T1's. We have 5 offices that this would work great for, and would be far, far less than the $10k/site we paid for LifeSize video conference systems (excellent, by the way) at the last place I worked.

I'm surprised anyone is still using (only) T1s; business cable is a much better deal.

Can't get cable in many locations, and cable often isn't as reliable.

Re: Chromebox, now for simpler and better meetings

#125

Post by wj »

smm2000 wrote: post #96
erva wrote: post #46

> Need to meet with a customer who doesn’t use Chromebox for meetings? That’s easy too—all they need is a Gmail account. This would be amazing, except no partner or customer our company works with has a gmail account. I have used quite a few different solutions, and while none of them wow me, the one thing all of them did was work for everyone. For this to become a viable solution for this market it will need to incl…

I have gmail personal gmail account but I will absolutely not use it for business purposes. It's just unprofessional to ask everyone to log in into gmail.

It is any different than asking everybody to log in to Skype?

It is definitely preferable to asking somebody to drop tens or hundreds of thousands on other enterprise virtual conferencing solutions.

Re: Chromebox, now for simpler and better meetings

#126

Post by cromwellian »

Google has an internal version of this called GVC and it is hands down better than any other system I've used. The interface is easy and intuitive to use, and being able to screenshare/present is as simple as visiting a URL. No installation of anything needed on the part of attendees.

Hangouts also allows widespread distribution, so for example, with the GWT team's weekly meetings, we have sometimes recorded them, or broadcast them live, and even invited external participants to watch and field questions.

You can also do things like run Hangouts Apps (Web Version), that lets people collaborate on documents while having the meeting. We do this with design docs or spreadsheets used for planning so that everyone on the video can edit what we are all watching get presented.

Those complaining about the price are speaking from the standpoint of consumers. For someone running a non-trivial business, paying $1000 to get customer support is worth the trouble.

If Google weren't making any margin on this, then you'd have to worry about it going away at some point. If you want a healthy assurance that it's going to stick around, pay b2b rates.

Re: Chromebox, now for simpler and better meetings

#127

Post by eitally »

For a lot of companies, the biggest benefit here will be having a cheap computer already in the meeting rooms that facilitates wireless screen sharing for any users with any kind of device that can use Hangouts. Compare that to traditional hardware-based VC and the amount of friction this eliminates, especially for non-technical users, is enormous.

Re: Chromebox, now for simpler and better meetings

#128

Post by eitally »

cromwellian wrote: post #126

Google has an internal version of this called GVC and it is hands down better than any other system I've used. The interface is easy and intuitive to use, and being able to screenshare/present is as simple as visiting a URL. No installation of anything needed on the part of attendees. Hangouts also allows widespread distribution, so for example, with the GWT team's weekly meetings, we have sometimes recorded them, or…

The major sticking point for most companies are 1) they don't currently use Google Apps, and 2) they don't want to allow employees to use any part of G+ except Hangouts.

Re: Chromebox, now for simpler and better meetings

#129

Post by moreati »

will_work4tears wrote: post #99
etler wrote: post #90

I was wondering where is all the money was going. It's clearly the newly announced Asus Chromebox, which starts at $179[1]. I haven't seen the high end price, but according to the spec sheet[2], the only difference is the CPU. The price difference here is $820. I couldn't imagine the cost difference between a celeron and a mid-range i7 to be much more than $300. That same camera is $75 on amazon, and a similar lookin…

Hopefully the 250 a month includes a customer support phone line or at least a chat room. Might be almost worth getting one of these just for that. Google isn't known for it's customer support.

$250 per year, not per month.

Re: Chromebox, now for simpler and better meetings

#130

Post by thrownaway2424 »

dangerboysteve wrote: post #60

Tell you what google, why don't you the service for few years before I sign up to make sure you want to keep the offering.

You're an idiot, but Google switched to this years ago. There must be 10,000 of these things in total at Google offices.
Post reply on HN