Five video conferencing tools to keep businesses collaborating during lockdown

At the beginning of March 2020, we were just starting to see people being asked to work from home due to the coronavirus. Now, just a few weeks later, a vast proportion of the world’s workforce has found itself under strict orders to continue this new way of working for the next few weeks at least. With all your employees scattered in different places, how can you make sure that everyone is communicating and productivity remains high? Online video conferences and web meetings! With online conference software, you can schedule regular meetings for your team to check in, share updates, and make sure projects stay on track.

We have picked out a few of some of the best web video conferencing tools for businesses available today:

Cisco WebEx

This live video conferencing software has lots of great features, including screen sharing, cloud recording, personal video meeting rooms, and plenty more. The number of people you can include in your web meeting depending on the package you purchase, with the Business level letting you have up to 200 meeting participants at once!

Subscriptions start from £11.25 a month.*

GoToMeeting

GoToMeeting is an extremely popular meeting tool for small and larger businesses — hosting 80 million meetings for 18 million users annually. This platform is perhaps best known for its wide-ranging support of different devices, instant and scheduled meetings, and generally user-friendly experiences. It also allows you to set up a personal meeting room with your own URL, share your desktop in real-time, and record your meetings to store in the cloud.

Subscriptions start from £9.50 a month.*

Zoom

Probably one of the most famous names on this list, Zoom is very popular because it is so user-friendly. With its most basic level (which is free!), you can host up to 100 meeting participants for up to 40 minutes. You can also use screen sharing to collaborate, and there are breakout rooms for private discussions.

High-level subscriptions support up to 1,000 participants at the same time and up to 49 videos on a single screen, the ability to save meetings locally or to the cloud, along with transcripts with a searchable text function. Additionally, meeting participants can share their screens and work together to provide their own notes as required, while a team chat feature allows for file sharing, a searchable history, and a ten-year archive.

Subscriptions start from £11.99 a month.*

Google Hangouts

Perhaps the simplest of them all, Google Hangouts ticks all the boxes. User-friendly, reliable and free — all you need is a Gmail account.

Google Hangouts Meet

Similar to Google Hangouts, but with greater functionality, Google Meet has been developed specifically for business needs. It can cater for a large number of users at once and also uses smart participation and a fast interface. As part of the G Suite platform, it integrates seamlessly with other applications, such as Google Calendar, allowing you to streamline business processes, set up event information and keep track of your team’s schedule even from a different location.

To use this meeting software, you’ll need a G Suite Account. 

Subscriptions start from £4.14.*

*At the time of writing. 

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