Whether you are a global corporation or a small business, ensuring remote working colleagues can keep in touch is suddenly more important than ever. John Leonard, research director at our sister title Computing, looks at the best video-enabled collaboration tools that could help bridge the communications gap.
Zoom
Fast-growing Zoom offers a scalable video conferencing platform which it claims can accommodate up to 1,000 video participants and 10,000 viewers. Forty-nine videos can be broadcast simultaneously on-screen, allowing multiple participants to share their screens at the same time. Meetings are end-to-end encrypted and Zoom offers role-based user security.
The free Basic plan is limited to 100 participants and 40 minutes, whereas £11.70 per host per month buys the Pro version where the time limit is extended to 24 hours and cloud storage offered. The Business and Enterprise versions include auto-generated transcripts, an on-premises option, managed domains, dedicated support, company branding and other additions.
Clients are available for most platforms including Linux and there are plugins for Chome browser and Outlook.
Fuze
Formerly known as ThinkingPhones, Fuze is a cloud-based integrated enterprise collaboration platform that includes audio and video conferencing as well as chat, VoIP, voicemail and messaging. It's designed primarily for organisations with 250+ employees. Fuze facilitates HD audio and video conferencing for meetings with up to 1,000 participants including screen and content sharing. There's also a presence function that integrates with Outlook and Google calendars so colleagues can when others are available.
The Fuze app is available for Windows, macOS, Chrome OS, or Ubuntu and other Debian-based Linux distributions with Android and iOS apps provided. Fuze integrates with Office365 and Chrome. There is also a web-based version of Fuze called Fuze Web which requires the use of Chrome browser.
Fuze plans start at £17.00 per user per month - there is no free tier.
Avaya Team Collaboration
Avaya Team Collaboration enables voice, video and persistent group chat with integrated document storage and task management. The software is sold on a monthly or annual subscription model and is priced on a per-subscriber basis with prices starting at £6.00 per user per month. There is a free tier but it doesn't include group video.
Delta respondents felt Avaya Team Collaboration was a solid choice although some remian worried about its financial stability, the company having filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy four years ago. Of more concern was the lack of integrations: "Integration with bespoke systems do not work, although it was sold on the basis that it would," said one.
The company recently launched Spaces an "app [that] integrates web meetings and team collaboration, creating a cloud workspace in which messaging, meeting, sharing content, and managing tasks from a browser or mobile device is all possible."
Avaya is allowing free use of Spaces to educational and non-profit organisations worldwide until 31 August 2020.
Mitel MiTeam Meetings
MiTeam Meetings is Mitel's integrated video conferencing and collaboration suite. It features complete 16-person multi-pane viewing and screen and file sharing plus collaborative whiteboard sessions. All meeting activities are archived in the cloud by default.
The app MiTeam is compatible with Windows, macOS, iOS and Android devices.
Pricing is not available on the website, but there's a 6 month free trial for qualifying customers of the Mitel MiCollab enterprise collaboration suite.
Delta respondents appreciated the progress made since the company acquired Shoretel in 2017, saying it had allowed the company to make a fresh start. "The system is intuitive, well supported and any issues are resolved quickly. The mobile client works on most mobile platforms", said one. But others criticised Mitel for being too hardware-centric and said that after-sales support was lacking.
LogMeIn GoToMeeting / Join.Me
GotoMeeting comes in versions designed for small, medium and large organisations. Features include screen sharing, conference calling, integrated VoIP conference calls, videoconferencing, mobile conferencing, meeting recording and transcription. There are plugins for O365, Google Calendar and Salesforce.
Prices start at £9.50 per month for 150 people.
GoToConnect bundles the GoToMeeting virtual meetings software with the Jive VoIP virtual phone suite.
Join.me is a simple screen sharing and video conferencing solution designed with ease of use in mind. It is targeted at smaller organisations and features screen sharing, audio, video, whiteboard and chat.
Join.me prices start at £9.00 per month for up to 5 participants per meeting and with no webcam streams, but an unlimited number of meetings are allowed and there's also no limit on duration.
There are separate rates for non-profits for whom £10.00 per month buys facilities for 50 meeting participants, 10 videos and screen share.
Delta respondents said LogMeIn products were "simple to use", "easy to set up" and "good for end users". On the other hand, some felt scalability was weak. They also picked out training, cost of ownership, ongoing improvement and hidden costs as areas for improvement.
LogMeIn has said it will allow critical frontline workers to use GoToMeeting for free for 3 months.
RingCentral Meetings
RingCentral Meetings is a cloud-based video conferencing service that unifies HD video conferencing, mobility and web meetings for up to 100 participants. Functionality can be expanded with addons: Webinar, Large Meetings, RingCentral Rooms and RingCentral Rooms Connector.
The main features of RingCentral Meetings include HD video conferencing, audio dial-in access, screen-sharing, multi-point video conferencing, video gallery, spotlight speaker and integrated chat.
The RingCentral userbase among Delta respondents was small. The company recieved positive comments for ease of use and deployment, but it was said by others to be aggressively sales-led and rather US-centric.
Prices start at the UK equivalent of $14.99 per user per month for up to 100 participants and unlimited group meetings.
In response to the Covid-19 emergency, RingCentral is offering free access to RingCentral Office to "all healthcare providers, schools (K-12), and non-profit organisations who are new customers."
