Google Beam ships in six countries
Google has expanded its Beam 3D video-calling system to customers in six countries and is adding bookable units at Industrious coworking spaces, moving the system past early pilots and toward broader enterprise sales.
Google announced that Google Beam units are now shipping to customers in the U.S., Canada, the U.K., France, Germany and Japan. Eighteen channel partners will deploy and support the system.
HP sells the hardware as HP Dimension with Google Beam. The company says it works with both Google Meet and Zoom.
Google also shared results from an eight-week internal study. It said teams using Beam felt 50% more connected to one another and found it 33% easier to make sure their feedback was clearly understood. They also needed 21% fewer follow-up meetings. Google did not describe how the study was designed or how many people took part.
Bain & Company tested the system earlier this year for campus recruiting and candidate interviews, which cut down on travel. Google also named Netflix and Capital Group among its first customers. It did not give a total customer count.
To reach smaller organizations, Google is partnering with Industrious, a flexible-workspace operator, on what it calls the first Beam "extended network." The two ran a pilot earlier this year in which distributed teams used Beam for manager check-ins, interviews and client consultations. Starting in October, people can book HP Dimension with Google Beam at select Industrious locations in the U.S., including Atlanta, Chicago, New York City and Palo Alto.
The announcement did not include pricing for the hardware or for booking a Beam room at Industrious.