The online retail giant Amazon has launched Amazon Chime to all of its customers. The modern and fully-managed communication service that is just another contender in the already crowded messaging market. Or is it not?
First went live on February 13th, 2017, Amazon Chime allows users to communicate with people inside and outside their organization using voice, video, and chat. It provides a medium for online meeting that work on both desktop and mobile devices. So here, users can use it for online meetings, video conferencing, voice calls, chat, and to share content, all from the same app.
Using AWS, the service doesn't require users to deploy or maintain complex infrastructure and software.
And with security that comes along with it, Amazon Chime is created to meet the requirements of most security-sensitive organizations.
One of Chime's interesting features is the visual roster that shows who has joined an online meeting and who is running late. It also allows anyone to mute background noise. So in a meeting without a moderator, any user can choose to mute one of the participants, like for example because he/she has a disturbing background noise.
This will allow the rest on the call for not listening to distractions.
People who got muted will get notified that their mic has been blocked. They can choose to unmute themselves whenever they want to.
In addition, users can also call into a Chime conference call using a regular phone number. Like for example in an event where they can't use the service’s app for one reason or another. In the future, according to Gene Farrell, AWS's vice president of enterprise applications, AWS also plans to add support for person to person calls over a traditional telephone network.
Amazon doesn't charge any minimum fees for Amazon Chime. Users pay only for what they use. They are billed per user, per month, and users can change or cancel their subscription at any time. Amazon Chime is available in three editions:
- Amazon Chime Basic allows 1:1 voice and video calls, and use chat and chat rooms, on all devices.
- Amazon Chime Plus adds the ability to share screen during meetings, and enables integration with users' company directory.
- Amazon Chime Pro offers the full set of features for online meetings, including scheduling and hosting meetings, recording meetings, and personalized meeting URLs, for up to 100 people.
Amazon Chime is a secure, real-time and unified communications service. Highlighting high-quality audio and video through an application that is easy to use and stays in sync across all of devices. With Amazon Chime, Amazon wants to create a platform where communication can be easily managed.
While there are plenty of other services that do more or less the same thing, But Chime is aimed for companies and organizations as its primary customers. As a part of AWS's portfolio of applications, it's focused on helping business users with their work. This is putting itself against WebEx, Skype for Business and GoToMeeting.
To help with adoption, AWS is working with Level 3 Communications to market Chime to its enterprise customers, and Vonage that will work with small businesses.
Companies that are looking for a new video- and teleconferencing system can have a new option with Amazon Chime.
AWS launched the service as a cross-platform video and audio calling app that is able to run with native applications on Windows, MacOS, iOS and Android.