Six months working from home
My, how time flies! We have essentially been working from home for six months now and in this time, we’ve all become more reliant on video conferencing as the new normal.
I thought it might be timely to give a personal review of the platforms I’ve come across in various guises.
Microsoft Teams
This is Optima’s default which we have as part of our Office 365 application and subscription. Very much tried and tested and, as you would expect, it has great integration with the rest of the Office 365 package. If you’d like us to assist you with this please call the office on 01293 562 700.
Zoom
We’ve all probably seen Boris and co at the daily news conference. Various free and paid options are available. The free option includes upto 100 participants but is limited to a maximum of 40 minutes.
I’ve joined a (paid for) gig and had mixed results. My iPad said “no” but my iPhone was fine. It obviously made the vision smaller than ideal but the sound through my headphones was the same.
For the few conferences I’ve joined it has worked absolutely fine and overall offers a similar user experience to Teams.
StarLeaf
I’ve found this to be like Zoom in my experience. Again, there are free and paid options depending on requirements and integration with calendars.
FaceTime
Only of use if everyone is iOS equipped of course; I’ve found it impossible to get my Mother-in-Law to successfully use it, so we’ve reverted to the good old telephone!
Facebook live
Ok, not strictly video conferencing, but I’ve joined free and paid gigs using this. Overall, the experience has been good. There have been the occasional buffering issues but that was as much to do with the performer's end as opposed to the platform being used according to the live chat at the time.
In summary, as ever with these types of things, to me, it seems very much down to personal preference and cost.
What experience with these and other platforms have you had?
Operations Director
One of the Directors of Optima, Kevin is responsible for the day-to-day running of the company. He is also responsible for the company’s Corporate Governance, financial planning and budgetary control, resource planning and our compliance with Health and Safety laws. He is, to say the least, analytical and highly organised. More about Kevin.
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