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Which Video Conferencing Solution Is The Right For Your Business?
Video conferencing has become an essential capability during the COVID-19 pandemic. Have you found the right video conferencing solution for your business?
There is a long list of options to choose from when you need to have a video meeting with your staff. Are you sure you’ve been using the right one so far?
It’s not too late to change – you can expect to be working remotely for the foreseeable future, so you would be smart to take your time and choose the right video meeting platform.
Your primary options include:
Microsoft Teams
Microsoft Teams is a chat-based workspace that brings people together to collaborate, communicate, and share content. For meetings, it allows up to 250 people in a meeting, and up to 10,000 spectating a live event, for up to 4 hours.
- Advantages: Using Teams means you’ll have access to the full integrated benefits of Microsoft 365, making it that much easier to work seamlessly between other Office-based apps (Word, Excel, Outlook, PowerPoint).
- Disadvantages: Microsoft 365 may not fit for smaller businesses that are just looking for a video conferencing solution in the short term. The fact is that you can’t just get Teams – you get the entire Microsoft 365 experience, which could be a bit bloated for certain sizes and types of operations.
Lifesize Video Conferencing
Lifesize Video Conferencing is a video communications platform that prioritizes high-quality video streams. Its free plan allows up to 25 participants in a meeting, and on paid plans that can be increased to 500.
- Advantages: Lifesize offers 4K video conferencing, which will deliver an undeniably high quality of video when supported by adequate Internet speeds. It also does not require first-time users or guests to download an application to use, making it easier to stay in touch with the occasional business contact. LifeSize also has one of the simplest integrations for your conference room installations and tends to be more secure than a Zoom call.
- Disadvantages: Lifesize’s tends to be priced more for business use with conference room integration vs. a single user and can be costly in certain configurations.
Mitel MiTeam
MiTeam is a communications vendor Mitel’s virtual collaboration platform. Like Teams, it offers video conferencing capabilities in addition to several online workspace capabilities.
- Advantages: MiTeam can be stand-alone or integrate directly into your Mitel phone system. It has crystal clear video and audio along with an easy to use interface. Mitel has forced some security features into the basic offering, unlike other providers that make it optional. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Mitel is offering this for six months free if you own a Mitel phone system.
- Disadvantages: MiTeam is new and lacks some expected features such as recording and polling. It does appear Mitel is releasing frequent updates to improve the product and resolve these temporary shortcomings.
Need Help Deciding?
It’s OK if you’re still not sure which option is right for you. ICS will help you figure out which video meeting solution is right for your business. We’ll assess your organization’s needs and match them with the solution that will work best for your purposes.
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Further reading
ICS is a Texas-based 40-year-old technology company specializing in Managed IT, VoIP, Video Conferencing and Video Surveillance solutions for US and International businesses. ICS has over 4000 regional installations and specializes in multi-site businesses between 25 and 2500 employees. ICS’s customers enjoy the experience of ICS’s Total Care program which provides clients flat fee services with obsolescence and growth protection. Whether a customer elects to deploy their IT, Video Conferencing or VoIP in the cloud or on the customer’s premise, ICS can provide a full turn-key solution for our clients under one flat monthly fee.