Video conferences have never been more important for businesses than they are today. COVID-19 changed the way businesses hold conferences. Before the coronavirus pandemic, businesses all over the world preferred sending their teams to remote locations so they could meet with their clients in person and negotiate contracts face to face.
But that’s a thing of the past now. Today, everyone is meeting in video conferences. So using top-notch video conferencing software is crucial for businesses. Let’s take a look at the best video conferencing software for businesses in 2020.
What Is Video Conferencing Software?
To qualify as a video conferencing software, a product must provide a video and audio connection between two or more parties. The software must also allow the conference hosts to change the meeting’s specifications to suit their needs and to invite certain guests to specific meetings.
Video conferencing software enables you to communicate online with other people using audio meetings, video meetings, or seminars. Good video conferencing software comes with built-in features such as live chat, screen sharing, and meeting recording.
Some video conferencing solutions offer different integrations that could improve your meetings, such as marketing automation or CRM software. With the help of these integrations, you can sync relevant business data into your conferences and you can streamline your follow-ups or update your contacts.
Below Are The Top 10-15 Video Conferencing Software
Let’s examine the best video conference software available in 2020 for businesses.
1. Kumospace
Kumospace is an innovative online platform that enables more immersive and interactive virtual meetings, events, and social gatherings. It utilizes a spatial environment where users can move their avatars around different rooms, initiating conversations when they get close to each other, much like at a physical gathering. This immersive setup provides an opportunity for more organic and spontaneous interactions, differing from traditional video conferencing tools where participants are presented in static, equal-sized boxes. Kumospace also offers features like screen sharing, text chat, and custom environment setups, making it a flexible tool for various use cases ranging from casual hangouts to formal business meetings. Its intuitive interface and unique approach to facilitating online interactions make Kumospace a compelling tool for those seeking a more engaging and natural virtual communication experience.
2. Webex Meetings
Cisco Webex is a leading enterprise solution for business video conferencing. Webex Meetings is a hassle-free app you and your team could use to drive your company forward. This software offers a lot of features that could satisfy every type of online meeting, whether you’re hosting a webinar, an onboarding tutorial, or closing a contract.
One of the great things about Webex Meetings is that you can host interactive sessions with high-definition video and broadcast-quality audio for up to 100,000 people at a time. You can view up to 25 participants on your screen, and you can do it all using a device of your choosing.
Webex Meetings integrates seamlessly with all the leading third-party applications and works on every operating system. The software allows you and your team to use your Google and Microsoft credentials to log in, making it super easy to keep track of your tasks and increase your productivity.
3. Zoom
Zoom makes video conferences easy. This software brings together video conferencing, online meetings, and group messaging in an intuitive and easy to use platform. You can use Zoom in your web browser or in a dedicated client app compatible with desktop and mobile platforms.
This software allows you to host video meetings with up to 1,000 participants and see up to 49 guests on your screen. Zoom is compatible with a fair number of third-party integrations, and it allows you to sync your Google Calendar, iCal, or Microsoft Outlook.
4. Microsoft Teams
Microsoft Teams is a successor to Skype for Business and it’s part of the Microsoft Office 365 Suite. This software integrates very well with all the other business tools created by Microsoft and it’s compatible with a lot of third-party applications.
Microsoft Teams enables you to host meetings with up to 10,000 participants at the same time. The participants can join your meeting using Teams’ proprietary app or with their web browser if they don’t want to download the application.
One of the few downsides of this software is that its user interface can seem a bit overwhelming at first, particularly if you host a large meeting. You might have to spend some time learning more about the platform to figure out how to access all its features and integrated applications.
5. Google Hangouts Meet
Google Meet is a popular video conferencing tool for businesses. This software is part of the Google Suite, and it’s accessible on desktop, Android, iOS, or as a Chrome extension.
This video conferencing platform is very easy to use. You can set up a meeting with ease, and you can host events with up to 250 participants. The app integrates seamlessly with all the other Google apps and with multiple third-party applications.
Google Meet has a lean interface that’s highly intuitive. Even those who are not tech-savvy can work their way around most of its settings and features. As far as its performance is concerned, Google Meet has minimal performance issues. Conferences with large participant numbers are known to lag occasionally, but other than that, Meet is great for businesses.
6. BlueJeans Meetings
BlueJeans Meetings is a conferencing platform developed by Verizon. This software focuses on instant connections and allows users to host or connect to a meeting using an app or directly from their browsers.
The platform is powered by Dolby Voice and it includes a background noise cancellation feature. The app integrates well with third-party applications and comes with a wide array of tools that can make your meetings more interesting.
BlueJeans Meetings supports up to 150 participants and hosts can record their meetings in their cloud.
7. GoToMeeting
GoToMeeting is a conferencing platform you can access through desktop or mobile apps or directly from your web browser (no download required). The software integrates with calendar solutions and various third-party apps such as Office 365, G Suite, Slack, Salesforce, and more.
This software allows hosts to create conferences that support up to 3,000 participants. The participants can take notes in real-time, which are later embedded and saved in the transcript.
GoToMeeting allows you to save your meetings as videos, but you can also capture your meeting presentation slides and share them as a downloadable PDF.
8. Zoho Meeting
Zoho Meeting is a 100% browser-based conferencing solution that doesn’t require users to download apps in order to use it. Hosts can create meetings with up to 100 participants and can store up to 10 of their meetings on the cloud.
Zoho Meeting integrates with calendar solutions, and you can send meeting invitations via Gmail, Microsoft Outlook, or Zoho Mail.
Even though it’s a solid video conferencing app, Zoho doesn’t offer a private chat option for its users. You’ll have to use another chat service if you want to send a 1-on-1 message that won’t show up for all participants.
9. Join.Me
Join.Me is a video conferencing software that’s ideal for businesses on a tight budget. This software has a user-friendly interface that makes setting up meetings very easy. The platform supports up to 250 participants and you can watch up to 10 webcam streams on your screen at the same time.
You can schedule meetings and send reminders via Microsoft Outlook and Google Calendar. Join.Me has apps for iOS, Android, Mac OS, and Windows. Unfortunately, there are no apps for Linux at the moment. However, users can also join a meeting using their browsers.
One of the downsides of using this app is that you’ll have to download a plug-in the first time you log into it. The app closes and relaunches after the download is completed, so you can’t join a meeting immediately after downloading the app.
10. Intermedia AnyMeeting
AnyMeeting is a video conferencing platform that has more than 1 million users. The app supports up to 30 attendees, 200 web phone participants, and 12 HD video participants. AnyMeeting is compatible with VoIP and PSTN audio calling, and offers unlimited messaging, custom meeting URLs, and meeting chat.
This software is compatible with more than 1,000 third-party business apps, and the Pro plan offers 24/7 support. The app’s interface is easy to navigate, and users can quickly schedule or start a meeting.
Hosts can save their recordings and choose to automatically share their presentation decks with their attendants after the meeting. Chrome AnyMeeting users can join a conference without downloading a client. Non-Chrome users will have to download and install a client to join an AnyMeeting conference.
11. Slack
Slack is one of the most popular workplace collaboration tools, and it also supports video conferencing. Even though Slack has mobile apps for Android and iOS mobile users, the video conferencing options are only available for desktop users.
Slack’s interface is intuitive and easy to navigate. Users can quickly host or join a meeting, and they can tailor their settings to their liking. The software is compatible with third-party integrations, making it easy to streamline your conversations.
One of the downsides of using Slack for voice conferences is that there can be long delays between initiating a call and finally connecting. And some users report that conferences with a large number of attendants might lag from time to time.
However, despite its downsides, Slack video conferencing can be very helpful for enterprises that already use the software for internal communications.
12. Whereby
Norwegian-born Whereby has quickly become one of the most popular video conferencing tools in Europe.
Its unique selling point is that every customer gets a personalised URL that they keep forever and they can send to guests and continue to use for future meetings, ranging from a handful of guests all the way up to 100 people on a call.
You also have all the strong features included with other platforms such as screen-sharing, chat boxes, sharing of documents, screen recording and the ability to brand video calls.
Hot on security, all messages and calls are encrypted and any files and chats disappear once the conversation ends (not stored on a server or cloud). In addition, you have the ability to lock rooms and keep calls password protected if need be.
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