The COVID-19 crisis has caused numerous businesses to close because they had to send all of their workers home. But there are solutions. In recent months, telecommuting with VoIP and meeting software has increased ten-fold. Those are the businesses that can still succeed. One such software giant called Zoom has swept the nation. Zoom has quickly become one of the top teleconferencing and remote management software apps. Zoom is being used in both businesses (large and small) and schools. And more importantly, right now, it is entirely free for schools. They also have paid “Pro” plans available for businesses. But what do you get when you use Zoom? Let’s find out!
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What is Zoom?
Zoom is just a web conferencing app, much like that of GoToMeeting, Skype, and other apps out there these days. The users can record sessions for use later, and Zoom allows for multiple users to collaborate, as well as share screens, files, and much more in one handy video conferencing platform.
The app has a lot of tiers available, ranging from free up to their Enterprise Plans. The plans are based on a monthly fee per host, so it’s an excellent general practice that if you’re a small business, you start with the free plan, and then maybe get the Pro or Business versions. Just make sure that there is only one host on the account with a universal login, and problem solved – no need to have to pay multiple fees for a ton of users/hosts.
What Do You Get with Free?
The Basic plan is its free plan. This plan is compelling compared to most other products out there. You can host a meeting with up to 100 people at once. You can also have unlimited one-on-one meetings, an unlimited number of meetings overall, online support, HD video and voice, view of the active speaker, as well as full-screen and gallery modes to see more than one person at a time. More than one person can share their screen at a time, which is something that platforms like GoToMeeting and others simply can’t do.
There are options to call into the meeting for those who are only able to join by phone, and you can put a virtual background on the screen. The downside? You’re limited to only 40 minutes during a group meeting. But do keep in mind that you can simply restart a meeting and do it all over again, or just be sure to keep meetings under 40 minutes. In terms of most company briefings, this isn’t hard to do.
What About Paid Versions?
The videoconferencing prices range from $15 and $20 per month per host. If you get Business, you have to have at least ten hosts, and Enterprise requires you to have and pay for at least 50 hosts. These versions can get quite expensive, so many small businesses in the Phoenix area can benefit from using the “Pro” plan. The main difference is that you get some extra admin features with the Pro version, scheduling, reporting, can customize your meeting ID, and you get 1GB worth of MP4 or M4A cloud video recording. The meeting duration limit is also increased, and you can have a meeting duration of up to 24 hours.
Business plans can host up to 300 participants. It gives you a custom URL for your meeting room, a unique phone support system and admin dashboard, your own managed domains, and allows you to install company branding to your meeting as well as have a custom email to send notifications and newsletters to meeting participants. Note that if you plan on hosting a Zoom channel, please make sure it is set to private. There have been a growing number of “Zoom-Bombings” in the last few weeks. A “Zoom-Bomber” is a hacker or someone who stumbled upon your public Zoom channel and interrupts your private conversation.
If there is one thing you don’t want it is Conan Zoombombing your Zoom happy hour.
Enterprise simply unlocks more features of the previous tier. It gives unlimited cloud storage, customer success management, executive reviews, and you can get 500 video conferencing participants at once with Enterprise, or 1,000 participants if you purchase Enterprise+.
Zoom has 3 tiers of plans to offer any sized business access to video conferencing software.
How Is the Zoom Free for Phoenix Schools?
Eric Yuan, the creator of Zoom, decided to step in and offer these video conferencing tools for free for schools. If you’re a school that uses any of our managed services in the Phoenix area, you can get on the ball with this to offer remote meetings and support management to students and faculty alike. Simply create a basic account and fill out a simple form. It must be done using a school administrator’s email address and can take 72 hours, but once approved, the 40-minute time limit disappears to allow teachers to have online remote classes.
Exciting news! Zoom is now free for schools K-12!
Our Take on Zoom?
While we can offer a plethora of online video conferencing recommendations, the fact that Zoom is taking the step ahead to become one of the most largely and widely used software apps for video conferencing around the globe is a good move. But is Zoom secure enough to handle their increased load? We hope the answer is yes, but we will soon find out in the coming weeks. We predict that as more users use Zoom, security flaws will be exposed. Therefore, we highly encourage you to utilize everything you can during this pandemic but be careful.
There are many online video conferencing apps to choose from. Some can even improve your business or school’s quality of communication and are more secure than others.