Look Out for the 3 Best Video Conference Services
Quality communication helps businesses work better, and cloud-based services can help. Even when using free versions of, sometimes, low quality and with no visual capabilities, companies can use available technology to break down geographical boundaries during hiring processes and coordinate activities with remote workers. Video conferencing can reduce phone expenses and eliminate travel costs and wasted time. If you want to communicate with people located anywhere from practically anywhere, try the following three video conference services.
Ringcentral
An established star in the field of global cloud communications, RingCentral’s all-in-one solution brings together all the things you could possibly need in a communication and collaboration platform. This is a solution that can do it all: voice calls, video conferencing solutions, and team messaging, all while also boasting specialized contact center functionality.
Complicated as it may seem, this application is not just feature-rich, but also extremely intuitive. Developed with ease of access in mind, RingCentral allows click-to-dial functionality, one-click video calling, and more features that allow effortless use and management, wherever you are in the world and whatever device you’re on.
And for the cherry on top RingCentral is also as secure a communication and collaboration platform as you’ll find. It boasts seven active layers of security to ensure user protection, while geographically dispersed and redundant data centers also ensure that users get the highest level of availability possible.
Skype for Business
After becoming a Microsoft-owned brand, the consumer-driven free Skype communication service now has a counterpart that serves the business world. Despite its well-known name, Skype for Business lacks some of the functionality offered by competing services, but it integrates well in environments that have Microsoft enterprise services installed and the few known problems have simple fixes.
Skype comes integrated with some Microsoft Office 365 plans that start at $5 monthly that include 1 TB of storage with user mailboxes equipped for 50 GB. Business subscriptions without Office 365 start at $2 per month for each user. Skype now offers HD video conferencing for as many as 250 users as well as scheduling features via Microsoft Outlook.
Choosing Skype for your business gives you flexible communication channels that feature enterprise-grade security with full encryption and Active Directory authentication. You also get access to whiteboards and translation tools as well as whiteboards used to communicate your points visually. Skype lets you share your screen with meeting participants and provides for instant messages and polls that provide real-time feedback during your sessions.
Skype works for audio and video calling and integrates with Microsoft Exchange Online as well as SharePoint Online and Microsoft Office applications. Skype doesn’t provide a complete VoIP solution, and its online version doesn’t work with mobile and landline phones. Also, Skype lacks integrated audio conferencing for non-VoIP participants.
Fuze
You can use the free plan from Fuze for meetings with as many as 25 participants. The service offers 12 concurrent HD video streams and 1 GB of storage that you can use to distribute handouts. Of all the available video conference services, Fuze offers the greatest capacity for free. If you discover that you need more features than those provided by the free-of-charge plan, enroll in a premium service plan for $8.
Your paid subscription gives you the ability to record meetings and host as many as 125 attendees. You can also share your screen with participants. Other tools for markups and annotations support your ability to edit documents and videos during your meetings.
Fuze also has mobile apps that allow you to join events from any device. Your ability to record meetings with the premium version allows you to make them available for viewing by employees who could not attend the live session.