As the demand for remote working continues to increase, business leaders are more dependent than ever on tools to keep employees connected. In recent months, we’ve seen a massive influx in vendors releasing more immersive collaborative tools, with options from everyone from Google, to Avaya.
The biggest question for many companies right now, is which product should they choose?
Two of the market leaders offering easy and accessible meeting technology today are Zoom and 8×8. Zoom is one of the best-known video conferencing tools in the world. The company has aggressively expanded its range of cloud calling and collaboration services lately. Zoom now comes with access to instant chat, and even Zoom Phone.
On the other hand, 8×8 is one of the market leaders in cloud communication technology. The Meetings service comes with various features to make your meetings more convenient and secure, including custom team domain links, and even access to 8×8 dedicated meeting rooms.
Which one should you choose?
8×8 Meetings Features
8×8 Meetings is the all-in-one meetings solution designed to simplify the way that people meet. As one of the leading UCaaS providers in the world today, 8×8’s meeting solution is built on an enterprise-grade environment for cloud communications. 8×8 promises all the reliability and resiliency that today’s business leaders need, including an exceptional uptime.
Additionally, 8×8’s video meetings solution comes with free meeting options without any of the limits imposed by Zoom. With Zoom, you can only have a group meeting lasting up to 40 minutes on the free tier. 8×8’s complete offering comes with things like persistent team collaboration through chat, and dozens of tried-and-tested integrations with leading workplace tools. Features include:
- Individual phone numbers with each user license
- Local service in 47 countries and international calling across 32
- Fast and easy set-up
- Video collaboration with HD video
- Easy screen sharing and remote desktop control
- Cloud recordings for conversations
- Native integrations with leading apps
- X Series support with chat and unified cloud
- Immersive 8×8 Meeting Rooms
8×8 offers a fantastic meeting room experience for businesses of all shapes and sizes, built on a legacy of excellent communication.
Zoom Features
Zoom has less of a history in the communication space than 8×8, but it still has a lot to offer. The company is one of the best-known video collaboration providers in the world. 8×8 earned it’s reputation for delivering quick and simple communication methods to internal and external employees alike. Zoom communication makes starting a HD video meeting as simple as clicking a button.
With access to everything from dedicated Zoom Rooms for your internal meetings, to communication features like instant messaging and chat, Zoom ensures that everyone can communicate using the tools that they like best. What’s more, like 8×8, there’s a free tier available to help you get started. Features include:
- Easy web-based meeting experiences
- Zoom Phone for VoIP
- Zoom Chat for instant messaging
- Webinar hosting
- Integrations with leading tools
- Easy search functionality
- Dedicated hardware with Zoom Rooms
- Fantastic high-quality video
- Local service in a range of 17 countries
Zoom is the perfect service for any business that wants a simple click to call system for video conversations with clients, colleagues and contractors alike.
8×8 Meetings vs Zoom: Telephony
Both 8×8 and Zoom ensure that you can make the most of your communication and collaboration landscape by combining them into a single pane of glass. With each of these services, you can easily add phone functionality to your collaboration tools.
Zoom Phone provides local calling services in 17 countries, and also provides international calling as an add-on. Although the service is relatively new, it comes with features like auto-attendants, IVR, and call routing. Additionally, you can access Zoom Phone through devices from leading companies like Yealink and Polycom. Bring your own carrier from Zoom is great for flexibility.
Alternatively, 8×8 provides an excellent global service to companies of all sizes. If you have teams in multiple countries, 8×8 provides local service to 47 countries, along with international calling across over 32 countries. You can access advanced features like SIP trunking, number porting, and even multi-continent Quality of Service. 8×8 even includes individual phone numbers with each license.
8×8 Meetings vs Zoom: Experience
Both 8×8 Meetings and Zoom are designed to make your collaboration experiences as simple and accessible as possible. The 8×8 landscape comes with everything you need to build an excellent collaboration experience, including rich security and advanced features.
With 8×8, you can rest assured that you’re getting a collaboration platform that’s built on tried and tested UCaaS. 8×8 delivers its UCaaS offering to more than 1 million users and 100,000 businesses in over 100 countries. The company is constantly expanding and improving its tech stack to make it more compelling for today’s business leaders.
On the other hand, Zoom has always focused on delivering an easily accessible form of video conferencing from day one. The company rose to fame as an easy alternative to the aggravating and often complicated video set-ups of the past. Although Zoom has had some issues with things like security in the past, however, it is taking steps to improve this.
With various fantastic features like custom backgrounds to explore, and hand-raising functionality for video meetings, the Zoom landscape is a go-to option for many business leaders. You can even communicate easily with people from outside of your team like contractors and freelancers. There’s no software to download, just a simple link to click!
Which Option Should You Choose?
Making the right choice between 8×8 Meetings and Zoom will mean thinking carefully about what you need as a business leader. If you’re looking for a comprehensive UCaaS solution that offers bundled options for conferencing, then 8×8 may be for you.
With 8×8, you get all the extensibility of the X-Series, along with a fantastic heritage of state-of-the-art communication and collaboration tools to rely on. 8×8 ensures that businesses can expand and upgrade their communication and collaboration offerings to suit their growing brands.
On the other hand, if you’re looking for something quick and simple that will allow you to connect with external contractors, then Zoom is a great choice. With quick access and free services to explore, Zoom is one of the most compelling choices for those in search of simplicity and ease-of-use.
Which service will you be using? Let us know in the comments.
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