Amazon Takes on Microsoft, Cisco in Videoconferencing
February 14 2017 - 12:30AM
Dow Jones News
By Jay Greene
Amazon.com Inc.'s cloud-computing business is taking on
Microsoft Corp. and Cisco Systems Inc. in videoconferencing,
pushing deeper into in the productivity-application market to
broaden its appeal to business customers.
The new service, called Chime, lets users host video meetings
and share content on computer and mobile-phone screens. It is
available on the web as well as apps for Apple Inc.'s iOS and
Alphabet Inc.'s Android mobile operating systems.
Chime competes with Microsoft's Skype for Business, Cisco's
WebEx and a host of other similar services.
Amazon's biggest rivals in cloud computing--Microsoft and
Alphabet's Google Cloud--already offer a wide range of productivity
applications. Such apps can drive other corporate tech-buying
decisions, said Bern Elliot, an analyst with the market research
firm Gartner Inc.
Chime isn't Amazon's first step into productivity apps. Two
years ago, the company launched WorkMail, an email and calendaring
service for businesses, and WorkDocs, a document storage and
sharing service.
Both services are still in their "early days," said Ariel
Kelman, vice president of world-wide marketing for Amazon Web
Services. Even with that slow start, he expects Amazon to push
deeper into the market for workplace-productivity apps.
Employee productivity is "an area where the tools of the future
have yet to be built," Mr. Kelman said.
Amazon has a "tough row to hoe" to be successful in the
so-called unified communications-as-a-service market, Gartner's Mr.
Elliot said. The research firm estimates the market, which includes
web-based audio and videoconferencing, voice mail and telephony,
generated $12 billion in world-wide revenue last year, and will
climb to $22 billion in 2020.
"This is a competitive market that's mature," Mr. Elliot said.
"It's a market that has established vendors and some of them are
mega-vendors."
Amazon can potentially carve a niche for itself through pricing,
Mr. Elliot said. The basic version of Chime is free. Chime Plus,
which includes management features such as the ability to disable
accounts, costs $2.50 a user per month. Chime Pro, which costs $15
a user per month, adds support for mobile and in-room video, among
other features.
Chime is built on technology Amazon acquired when it bought the
San Francisco startup Biba Systems Inc. The company declined to say
when it bought Biba or how much it paid.
Write to Jay Greene at Jay.Greene@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
February 14, 2017 00:15 ET (05:15 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2017 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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