Jamboard aside, I've really hesitated buying any Google product because it could be bricked any day, including Nest devices. Understand the business logic behind it, but sooner than later this is going to catch up to them.
Google Ending Support for Jamboard
141–150 of 289 posts
Re: Google Ending Support for Jamboard
#142"Ha-ha, you fool. You fell victim to one of the classic blunders, the most famous of which is "Never get involved in a land war in Asia", but only slightly less well known is this: 'Never bet the business on a Google product, when death is on the line!'"
Inconceivable!
Re: Google Ending Support for Jamboard
#143Earlier quoted context omitted.
I can still run DOS 6.22 right now . Probably even older software. In fact, just about most 'owned' software that does not depend on the cloud can be run for ever. Especially software that was sold as a perpetual license.
You can run DOS 6.22 on brand new hardware, with an EFI bios? Or on a pc you pulled from a closet or a VM?
You can run DOS 6.22 on an emulator. On modern hardware. (Even the latest Mac + their custom processor.) It doesn't have to be the boot Operating System. But it still runs, and can be used usefully if I've built something on top of it.
The point is, 'the cloud' for services + software tied to physical hardware is proving over and over to be a dead end, and effectively a mechanism to create ewaste.
Google could publish a docker image of the server software, and update the Jamboard firmware to provide a facility to connect to it. (DNS-SD, DHCP Options, Manual entry, whatever). And then Google has zero ongoing costs, and people who have bought into this ecosystem now have hardware they can continue to use, and we make far less e-waste.
Re: Google Ending Support for Jamboard
#144We have a few of these in our office. The experience is decent, but, man, I really miss chalkboards. I just don't find whiteboards, physical or virtual, as compelling. I actually make some use of the Jamboard app in meetings occasionally, but usually I'm at a desk with my feet up, using a tablet to draw while everyone else is remote. Not only has Jamboard never been a first-class citizen, no whiteboard is a first-class citizen in VTC world. Partially, no one else knows how to use whatever is in use today.
I actually have a slate chalkboard my dad got from an old schoolhouse in Nebraska. He built a frame for it, gave it me when my kids were young, and I have moved with that all over the world. I have actually as productive is a chalkboard and a phone on a tripod, joining the phone to the VTC so people can see the chalkboard. I wish there was a better way to do that.
I love chalkboards so much, I really, really miss them.
If I'm ever in charge, I'm buying chalkboards.
Re: Google Ending Support for Jamboard
#145How people continue to trust buying anything from Google is just beyond me. I am glad that they are doing something for schools, but this is just ridiculous. Shutting down a free service that you didn't have to buy into, fine whatever. It still sucks but at least you didn't invest in a platform. But if you are going to make a physical device you cannot treat it like you treat everything else.
A lot of us are in trouble when they kill android.
Re: Google Ending Support for Jamboard
#146Earlier quoted context omitted.
It doesn't really matter how many people were affected, the point is that people made an investment (and not a small one) and its being shut down. And it isn't like this is the first hardware that Google has abandoned, but they turn it into ewaste since it's tied to the cloud.
It’s being shutdown after 8 years. That’s not a bad lifespan. Most electronics are obsolete but that age and replaced with new ones. Especially at businesses - it’s already amortized by then and reached end of life. Google sucks, but I think you’re blowing this out of proportion.
You're missing the point.
First this is just yet another bad mark against Google that should be used to discourage buying into any hardware platform from Google of this nature. The single exception I would give is the Pixel line since even if they discontinue Pixel, Android is still there.
But they are treating hardware like they do their other software. Because this hardware is tightly tied to the cloud instead of shutting it down, they should be putting it in maintenance mode. No new features and you can't buy hardware anymore. But continue to keep it up for a longer period of time for those that spent money with you.
Great this product lasted more than 2 years, we have a record! That doesn't mean that they are not handling the shutdown of this product in a responsible manner.
Google is continuing their track record of how they are handling their pet projects and it is a bad decision to buy into any of them. Particularly if there is hardware involved
Re: Google Ending Support for Jamboard
#147I bought a Jamboard for our small 20 person half remote company before Covid. Jamboard was definitely ahead of its time. Giant (bigger than your living room TV) touch screen monitor with a camera, speakers and microphone built in. I think this is an example where the market need is clearly there (does anyone like the state of remote brainstorming/remote whiteboarding?) but Google is deciding not to capture the market…
I kind of wonder how many companies bought these before COVID and kept paying google throughout the pandemic. And now the accountants are back and wondering why they're still paying.
Re: Google Ending Support for Jamboard
#148I bought a Jamboard for our small 20 person half remote company before Covid. Jamboard was definitely ahead of its time. Giant (bigger than your living room TV) touch screen monitor with a camera, speakers and microphone built in. I think this is an example where the market need is clearly there (does anyone like the state of remote brainstorming/remote whiteboarding?) but Google is deciding not to capture the market…
Does that work as a whiteboard you can scribble on with the results shown in real time on N other devices synchronised with it? As the one thing I miss from the office is a shared whiteboard. Quite sloppy conflict resolution would work out adequately, people would expect a mess when they scribble on the same area.
Not this one obviously as google are shutting it down, but if the tech works someone else is probably selling the same thing. Or will be shortly.
Re: Google Ending Support for Jamboard
#149It's crazy to me that people keep willingly buying hardware that requires a service to work. You have a high up-front cost, yet you're at someone else's mercy. That's the worst of buying and renting combined. Obviously it isn't very profitable to keep supporting a product you've already sold at the moment, so something must be done to make it more attractive. At the very least there should be a support commitment whi…
I work in IoT and my single goal working in the industry is to do as much as I can (which will likely still be small) to make devices that are entirely separable from the cloud by enabling the use of different services and by being local-fist.
Imagine if private organizations built their own road network and then sold you a car that can only be driven on that road. Once that company goes out of business, the road vanished and your car is now a very heavy paperweight that literally cannot turn on. This would be totally unacceptable to us, yet we tolerate home automation vendors selling garbage that is locked to their propitiatory systems and will happily brick itself once those systems go offline.
Re: Google Ending Support for Jamboard
#150How people continue to trust buying anything from Google is just beyond me. I am glad that they are doing something for schools, but this is just ridiculous. Shutting down a free service that you didn't have to buy into, fine whatever. It still sucks but at least you didn't invest in a platform. But if you are going to make a physical device you cannot treat it like you treat everything else.
what product or service has lasted indefinitely? Google will compensate those who adopted it, life goes on.
Microsoft Windows still exists, and can open executable compiled for it 25+ years ago.
Microsoft Office still exists, and can still open Word / Excel / etc files from 25+ years ago.
Adobe Photoshop still exists, and can open PSD files created 25+ years ago.
Microsoft Xbox One X still exists, and is backwards compatible with titles from the OG Xbox release, as far back as 22 years ago - https://www.xbox.com/en-us/games/backward-compatibility?cat=...
Microsoft Zune (launched 2006) is still supporting and fixing compatibility issues, all the way up through Windows 11 now 17 years post-launch - https://www.pcgamer.com/microsoft-just-fixed-a-zune-compatib...
Warframe (Canadian MMO-lite third-person action video game) still supports every purchased piece of digital content ever sold, on all platforms, from the very first purchase, over the past 10 years. (I believe the same is true for Final Fantasy 14 which launched in the same year, but I'm less familiar with that one)
Vanilla accounts from World of Warcraft (now 19ish years old) still work and function today.
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I don't think anyone expects things to last forever. I think they're just expecting things to last longer than "a few years", and there's no technical reason why we couldn't ensure that.