Other problem was that they never really added new features, and had the least features to begin with, so eventually the IT department and their feature sheet based comparison went with a competitor.
But the prices are steep compared to what a lot of small to medium businesses are willing to pay for when they think they can just use their laptops.
Disclaimer: I work at Google, but not on Hangouts.
For consumers there is the “hangouts” app which this article is about.
Probably a harder sell for larger companies with more rooms, and less remote employees, but I have never had a complaints about audio with these things.
google is repositioning hangouts and google+ as competitors to office 365 teams and yammer. facebook is working on workplace. compared to how google usually kills products, this does seem somewhat foward looking to a near future workplace social battle.
I've heard the opposite of this from some googler friends.
Disc: Googler.