Amazon is penetrating the tele-conferencing market with its new Chime video calling service. The company just announced its new service that will take on Skype, WebEx and GoToMeeting, which are currently the biggest players in the market.
Amazon on Monday went public with the news of its new teleconferencing app that will be easily compatible with all platforms, primarily – Windows, MacOS, iOS and Android. Although Chime’s reach is accessed worldwide, its main place of functioning will be derived from the US, according to a report by PCWorld. The service offers a host of different features that is unique to Amazon’s ecosystem. There some interesting ones too:
Muting
Now, users will be able to check the roster of individual users who will be taking part in the conference. There will be some information about each participant in the roster for users to go through, but more importantly, it will also display which user’s background noise is a lot louder, thus allowing users to mute that person’s chat so they can clearly hear while the others are talking. It’s a much-needed function that business users will appreciate.
Those who get muted will be notified that they have been muted and they can choose to unmute themselves in the case that they want to be heard.
Applications
There are also a bunch of applications that will be pre-loaded with the service such as WorkSpaces, a cloud based virtual desktop and the WorkDocs office suite along with WorkMail and QuickSight business intelligence service. Each of these offerings provide a complete office interactive experience for users to share documents and get work done a lot more efficiently based on the collaborations that are defined in their projects.
Pricing
According The Verge, the company is offering a free version of the app for those who just need basic video and messaging conferencing with up to two people. That will be the basic plan. More than that, for accessing the other options that the service provides, users will have to start paying a fee that starts at $2.50 and it will rise up to $15 per user per month for video meetings of up to 100 people. It will also include features like Active Directory integration, custom URLs and the ability to join meetings from a phone line as well.
Reports state Amazon wants to portray Chime as a more reliable and higher quality alternative to other VoIP services with features that are accessible through a single interface.
The race is on, but Amazon’s new operation will have to contend with existing competition and carve out a niche for itself. Many of the services offered by them are already offered by the rest of the service providers. We’ll just have to wait and see how the company aims at innovation.
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