Video conferencing software has become a key technology helping keep people connected and businesses productive in the wake of the current COVID-19 pandemic.
A big portion of this surge is businesses and workers relying on video conferencing to stay productive while they work from home.
However remote education is another big and growing driver as is simple social interaction at the consumer level.
However, the new user load and these suddenly popular use cases are testing the limits of both connectivity and the inner workings of this software.
Providers like Zoom have seen unprecedented rates of adoption.
"As of the end of December last year, the maximum number of daily meeting participants, both free and paid, conducted on Zoom was approximately 10 million.
In March this year, we reached more than 200 million daily meeting participants, both free and paid," said Eric S.
Yuan, Zoom's founder and CEO in a recent message to its users.
Like many video conferencing solutions, Zoom Meeting was created for businesses and not initially designed for casual or consumer use; however, it is and always was a dedicated conferencing product, unlike several other large players, such as RingCentral Office, which treats video conferencing as just one piece of a larger business-grade voice over IP (VoIP) platform.
This focus has kept the product relatively simple to use compared to much of the competition.
It's also helped the company react quickly to problems as the unprecedented spike in users, sessions and conference hours have stressed the system and exposed security exploits and vulnerabilities.
"Our platform was built primarily for enterprise customers – large institutions with full IT support.
These range from the world’s largest financial services companies to leading telecommunications providers, government agencies, universities, healthcare organizations, and telemedicine practices." Yuan said.
Cisco Webex Meetings is part of Cisco's popular video conferencing and collaboration product suite.
This video conferencing app registered a record 324 million attendees in March, including double the numbers in the Americas.
“Webex grew 2.5 times in Americas, four times in Europe and 3.5 times in Asia Pacific.
Our growth is sourced from enterprise expansion, education and telehealth,” said Sri Srinivasan, senior vice president and general manager, Cisco Collaboration. We look at these two Editors' Choice video conferencing solutions to determine which tool is best.
1.
Price
Zoom Meeting begins at $14.99 per month per host for the Pro plan, which is good for small teams, and which can host 100 participants with meeting duration limits of 24 hours.
A $19.99 per host per month Business tier is available for a minimum of 10 hosts.
Also available for $19.99 per host per month is an Enterprise plan (minimum of 50 hosts) which can accommodate up to 500 participants.
Cisco Webex Meetings starts at $13.50 per host per month and up to 50 participants in the Starter plan ideal for small teams who have the option to meet as long as they want.
The Plus plan costs $17.95 per host per month for up to 100 participants.
A $26.95 per month per host Business plan for enterprise users is available for a minimum of five licenses per month.
This tier accommodates up to 200 participants.
Both services offer free tiers.
Zoom Meeting's free service is ideal for personal meetings and makes it possible to run unlimited one to one meetings, host up to 100 participants for a broadcast, and has a 40-minute limit on group meetings.
Cisco Webex similarly offers a free Personal Plan good for up to 100 participants (up from 50), with an unlimited number of meetings and 40 minutes meeting length (currently unlimited).
In terms of pricing, Zoom Meetings and Cisco Webex Meetings are very close starting at under $15.00 per month per host, even as Cisco Webex Meetings comes in slightly cheaper at $13.50 per host per month for up to 50 participants and unlimited meeting times.
Edge: Cisco Webex Meetings.
2.
Setup
Setting up a video conferencing solution remains to be one of the pain points for many new users. These solutions require software to be installed on a PC or mobile device and some users may run into system requirement limitations.
Often these kinds of tools also require the use of microphones and webcams, so setting these up can take some time as well.
Thankfully, both Cisco Webex Meetings and Zoom Meeting are straightforward to setup, at least as far as the software half of the video conferencing equation goes.
If you're invited to a meeting in Zoom Meeting, you don't need to create an account.
However, you will see a prompt to download the Zoom Meeting application.
Downloading the app is optional as you can connect via a web app if you prefer, but the installed app does give you the optimized experience and a wider range of control.
Zoom Meeting has apps for Android, Apple iOS, Linux, Microsoft Windows, and macOS.
If you want to use Zoom Meetings to invite other people to meetings, then you need to create an account.
You can authenticate with Facebook or Google, or sign up the old-fashioned way using an email address and password.
When you create an account, you get a Personal Meeting ID as well as a unique meeting URL, which you can use at any time to start a meeting.
It's handy because you can send your link or Personal Meeting ID to participants without advance notice and get on the call quickly.
With Cisco Webex Meetings, signing-up requires filling in your contact information, creating a password, and opting in or out of email notifications from Cisco Webex Meetings.
Then you activate your account via email, at which point you can add a picture and other details to your profile or skip this if you wish. Zoom Meetings' ease of use, which requires only a link for participants to join a meeting using a web browser, gives it the edge in simplicity, even if this convenience can also lead to security exploits.
All things considered; Zoom Meetings has the edge in setup ease. Edge: Zoom Meetings.
3.
Features and Functionality
Joining a Zoom meeting takes little effort.
It takes a few seconds if you already have the app installed and only about two extra clicks if you choose the web app instead.
Recommended by Our Editors
When you connect as a guest, you either see a waiting room notice or you go directly to the meeting.
If there's no waiting room, attendees can connect and chat with one another before the host arrives.
Everyone can choose to enable or disable their video at any time.
If you join using your device audio, then you can also mute and unmute by using buttons on the screen, or by using a shortcut if you enable it from your account preferences.
Zoom Meeting gives you information about the connectivity of everyone on the call.
For example, during a small group call recently, one of my participants was connecting from a mobile device over 4G.
When her connection was stable, I saw a white set of bars indicating the strength of her connectivity in the lower left-hand corner of her video. Zoom Meeting has a unique Participant Reporting feature that checks all the members who reported at the meeting.
Cisco Webex Meetings does not have a similar feature.
Both of these solutions offer features that can help blur or replace a user's background, this is ideal for work from home situations where locations are less than ideal (messy), or when participants want to add a bit of flair to their video conference.
Cisco Webex Meetings does offer video conferencing hosts a wider range of control including co-browsing, file transfers, and the ability to remove attendees from the meeting.
Hosts can also lock and unlock the focus on a participant during the meeting.
That's important because it means all attendees can see who is talking.
Hosts can also protect meetings with a password. Cisco Webex Meetings are also generally smooth and high quality with good video and audio playback and very little lag.
Which makes Cisco Webex Meetings a better fit for business users aiming for collaboration.
Still, while Zoom Meetings may have fewer features, that means it has less of a learning curve, which is why it has become the popular choice for consumers during this pandemic. Edge: Zoom Meetings.
4.
And The Winner Is...
Zoom Meetings is not without its issues.
The sudden shift from a business-focused solution to chosen videoconferencing tool for the masses was quick and unexpected.
There are pros and cons to the sudden adoption of Zoom Meetings for everything from office and family video calls, education and remote learning, and even broadcasting and media.
The overwhelming adoption of the product has revealed vulnerabilities like "Zoom-bombing." but the company has responded quickly. Zoom will freeze all new product development until it can address privacy and security issues.
Cisco Webex Meetings remains a solid, reliable, and overall secure video conferencing solution that's ideal for businesses and teams.
It is a worthy Editors' Choice pick when viewed through this lens.
The momentum, however, is on our other Editors' Choice selection's side, and Zoom Meetings already has a widespread adoption anchored on its simplicity.
This makes it a better video conferencing solution for general use. Winner: Zoom Meetings.
