Microsoft & Google offering free Conferencing tools during outbreak

The outbreak is causing employers to think differently about getting together in a building with hundreds or thousands of other fellow employees. Is this the new normal, what lessons will we learn about working from home?

Is it really necessary to build massive sky scrapers just so people can be in the same room? Is the new open office trend really to the employee’s benefit or the employer’s? Do open open offices make us more vulnerable to outbreaks like the coronavirus? We get in our cars everyday, spew emissions on the way into work and on the way back home?

During our time dealing with the outbreak what will we discover about the way we work and where we work. Perhaps those questions are better left for another day.

Video conferencing is vital when you work from home and the need to work from home is greater than ever right now. Both Microsoft and Google are acknowledging that by offering their premium services to users for free for an extended period of time.

Microsoft Teams

Microsoft is offering a 6 month trial for the premium version of Teams. On March 10th, Microsoft will allow an unlimited number of users to join a team using the free version. Everyone you added to your team on the free version will be allowed to schedule video calls and conferences.

Google Hangouts Meet

Google announced it would offer free access to its premium features for anyone who uses G-Suite or G-Suite for Education. The fine print reveals some limitations. You can have larger meetings but only limited to 250 participants per call. You will be able to live stream for up to 100k views within a domain. You will also have the ability to record meetings and save them to Google Drive. These features are usually reserved for Enterprise level G-Suite clients. You or your G-Suite Admin can enable each of these free upgrades starting today and freely use the premium features until July 1st.

Where’s Slack?

So far Slack has not offered any extended free trials of its premium services. Maybe the will given more pressure.

By Platform De.Central