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Google bans Zoom from employees' computers

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Re: Google bans Zoom from employees' computers

#171

Post by sah2ed »

cameronbrown wrote: post #113
hacker_newz wrote: post #66

I interviewed at Google a while back for an SRE position working with the Hangouts team. My first interview was in another office and the audio in Hangouts session would not start. We ending up having to move on to the next interview. I'm not surprised even Google employees don't use it.

> I'm not surprised even Google employees don't use it. I wouldn't go that far - there's something like 250k hangout meetings per day at Google[0] and that was before Covid. [0] https://www.blog.google/products/g-suite/how-google-went-all... (2017)

Relevant text from your link:

"Nearly a decade has passed since we built the first prototype. Face-to-face collaboration is ingrained in Google’s DNA now—more than 16,500 meetings rooms are VC-equipped at Google and our employees join Hangouts 240,000 times per day!"

Re: Google bans Zoom from employees' computers

#172

Post by softwaredoug »

walrus01 wrote: post #162
ColanR wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Because it has a better UI or makes their life very slightly more convenient in some way. I think you've missed the point completely. It's not a question of convenient UI. It's the reliability of the video call. I've tried numerous video conferencing tools, and the differentiating factor is literally just whether or not the video quality is consistently good, whether the call is dropped or not, and whether the audi…

Personal opinion, you don't need video or talking heads to have a conference. Some combination of text chat to share documents with simultaneous good quality audio is sufficient. The challenges related to audio sucking are mostly individual end users' audio stepping on itself, such as feedback from speakerphone configurations into its own microphone. Easily solved by good quality bluetooth headsets, wired headsets, o…

I disagree. To build connection, read body language, and show people are paying attention it’s important to see the person... we ask that of all of our internal remote calls.

Re: Google bans Zoom from employees' computers

#173

Post by jabroni_salad »

mulmen wrote: post #38
kinkrtyavimoodh wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Googlers don't use Zoom for company work. It was banned as in it can no longer be installed on corp laptops.

Right but it's also astonishing that was allowed before. If it's not needed for work why would it be installed? Why would any non-work software be allowed on corp laptops?

With videoconferencing you aren't always in control of it, especially if you interface with other companies. I have webex, zoom, bluejeans, teams, and skype4business on my laptop because I am a consultant and have to use whatever my client is using.

There's also that zoom free tier creating a 'Shadow IT' situation. Slack used this to great effect and everybody on HN was very impressed. It should be no surprise that Zoom is finding its way onto random employee laptops, that is something tech firms are trying to do on purpose now.

Re: Google bans Zoom from employees' computers

#175

Post by berdon »

walrus01 wrote: post #162
ColanR wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Because it has a better UI or makes their life very slightly more convenient in some way. I think you've missed the point completely. It's not a question of convenient UI. It's the reliability of the video call. I've tried numerous video conferencing tools, and the differentiating factor is literally just whether or not the video quality is consistently good, whether the call is dropped or not, and whether the audi…

Personal opinion, you don't need video or talking heads to have a conference. Some combination of text chat to share documents with simultaneous good quality audio is sufficient. The challenges related to audio sucking are mostly individual end users' audio stepping on itself, such as feedback from speakerphone configurations into its own microphone. Easily solved by good quality bluetooth headsets, wired headsets, o…

VC > Audio > Text

Tone, emotion, and intent are incapable of being conveyed properly without facial expressions and audible cues.

Re: Google bans Zoom from employees' computers

#177

Post by gamblor956 »

softwaredoug wrote: post #44
softwaredoug wrote: post #30

God please don't make me use a non-zoom video conferencing tool! I have used about a dozen over the years in my role as a consultant, and Zoom has been by far the most reliable. I’m hopeful lots of good can come from the scrutiny, but please Zoom get your act together so I don’t have to use some other buggy thing that doesn’t actually work.

I knew I would get downvoted. But folks seriously don’t remember the pain before Zoom. And the current pain anytime we have to use a GoToMeeting, Google Meet, Webex or other tool that barely functions. Human interaction that actually works right now is so important. And I simply have a hard time trusting another product to actually do the call reliably

BlueJeans and Zoom seem to be the most reliable and easiest to use. BlueJeans doesn't have a free option though.

Re: Google bans Zoom from employees' computers

#178

Post by thelean12 »

closeparen wrote: post #109
mulmen wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems perfectly sensible to ban all software that is not pre-approved by IT, InfoSec and Legal. You can't safely assume all your employees are properly assessing the risks unless that is their actual job. If you only allow what you know then you can reason about your risk.

Google’s reputation as an employer stems in large part from rejecting that belief, and more generally the enterprise bureaucratic culture it lives in. Engineers aren’t clamoring to get into the kinds of companies where IT needs to pre-approve software for their workstations.

You might be disappointed to know that native applications need pre-approval in most cases. There's a whitelist.

Of course, after years and years and hundreds of thousands of engineers, the whitelist is pretty robust.

I don't know for sure, but I bet Zoom has been on that whitelist, and "banning" is removing it from that whitelist.

Re: Google bans Zoom from employees' computers

#180

Post by gamblor956 »

tazjin wrote: post #86
softwaredoug wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I knew I would get downvoted. But folks seriously don’t remember the pain before Zoom. And the current pain anytime we have to use a GoToMeeting, Google Meet, Webex or other tool that barely functions. Human interaction that actually works right now is so important. And I simply have a hard time trusting another product to actually do the call reliably

Google Meet is the only one of these that has always worked reliably for me. Doesn't require any strange clients, works in most browsers, never randomly fails to move just some person's audio and so on. Disclaimer: I work for Alphabet, but already held this opinion before I did.

I have never gotten Google Meet to work in Firefox. Or the new Edge for that matter, despite it using the Chromium engine.

It seems to work only in Chrome and Safari.

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