Microsoft, Google Offer Free Conferencing Tools Due To Coronavirus

Coronavirus has caused a lot of fears and worries worldwide, pushing people to avoid crowded places. Companies looking to protect the safety of their workers are also slowly adopting remote work as a viable means to help them avoid being infected while staying productive.

Tech giants Microsoft, Google and Cisco saw this and, in an effort to aid in keeping people safe from COVID-19, have offered to let workers use their teleconferencing and collaboration tools for free. These tools will allow employees and their superiors to continue communicating and working with each other from the relative comfort and safety of their own homes.

Teams

In a tweet, Jean-Philippe Courtois, Microsoft Executive Vice President and President for Microsoft Global Sales' Marketing and Operations, announced that Microsoft's Teams collaboration platform will be free for six months so that the company's employees, customers, partners and communities can continue working remotely.

Microsoft Teams' free version offers unlimited chat, search, one-on-one audio and video calls, NDTV reported. In addition, the platform gives users 10GB of team file storage so they can upload and share files to on another. It also offers 2GB of personal file storage per user.

Hangouts Meet

Google's Sundai Pichar also announced via a tweet that the company is offering its Hangouts Meet collaboration platform for free until July 1 this year. The video teleconferencing tool will be free for all G-Suite customers around the world.

In a blog entry, Google announced that Hangouts Meet's video-conferencing abilities will be free for users. The platform will allow users to hold meetings with large groups of up to 250 participants per call, livestream for up to 100,000 viewers within a domain, and record meetings and be able to save record ings to Google Drive.

Webex

Cisco also announced that it is making its video conferencing tool Webex free wherever it is available, not just in countries where COVID-19 has been recorded. The tech company is also giving away free 90-day licenses for non-Webex customers so they will have a way to use the platform for remote work.

In a blog entry, Sri Srinivasan, SVP and GM, Team Collaboration Group at Cisco, said the platform offers unlimited usage, supports up to 100 participants in one conference call, and also offers toll dial-in in addition to the platform's existing VoIP capabilities.