Top 6 best video conferencing services of 2017

Finding the best video conferencing service for your business can net you huge savings, as according to research from LyteSpark, businesses across the UK could save (on average) £27,000 per year (around $33,000, AU$43,000) on business trips.

With many businesses involving offices and employees from all over the world, the ability to use video conferencing services to allow workers to meet and collaborate no matter where they are in the world, can have a huge impact on the productivity of your workforce.

Gone are the days when conference calls needed complex dial-up procedures and login numbers, as there is now a large range of video conferencing services that make holding meetings over the internet, and collaborating between offices, easy, flexible and convenient.

In this guide we’ve chosen six of the best videoconferencing services that offer a range of features, from fast start to enterprise applications that enable you to hold large meetings from dedicated conferencing rooms. No matter what your needs or your budget, you can start using videoconferencing today.

• You might also want to read our article on buying videoconferencing technology

Anyone who has used the consumer version of Skype will feel right at home with Skype for Business. As a replacement for Microsoft’s Lync, the videoconferencing application is pitched at Office 365 users. Being able to jump onto a video call with clients or colleagues from within Outlook makes the whole experience seamless.

As a meeting tool it offers the ability to use a digital whiteboard and also access standard Microsoft Office documents. And if you need enterprise-level SharePoint and Exchange support, this is readily available.

RingCentral may not be as recognisable a brand name as some of the other video conferencing services, but it comes with a range of features that put some of its more established competitors to shame. Office compatibility, video conferencing and - most importantly - a reliable backbone of servers, means this is a video conferencing service you can depend on for your business. It offers a range of subscription tiers, which makes it a flexible service for businesses of all sizes, and it runs as a hosted Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) provider, which means you need compatible phones - or use the provided mobile apps. There's also a robust Quality of Service (QoS) feature that helps you set up your network for the best possible results.

The core aim of LyteSpark is to remove the complexity of hosting a videoconference. Completely hosted, there is no need to download and install any specialist apps, or circulate dial-in numbers. Simply give your ‘room’ a name and you are instantly ready to invite colleagues or clients into your conference.

The ability to open and create new Microsoft Office documents on the fly makes this system effortless to use. And if your business has adopted Slack as its comms tool, the integration with LyteSpark will add video as a rich communications channel.

As one of the leaders in videoconferencing, WebEx is aimed at larger businesses even though it has a free plan that enables just two people to connect for free. The WebEx Meeting Centre is infinitely more useful, as you can set up personalised videoconferencing rooms.

The application offers VoIP audio and integration with MS Outlook on Windows or Mac platforms. If you are new to videoconferencing and VoIP for that matter, beginning with WebEx and then graduating to WebEx Meetings, and subsequently onto WebEx Meeting Centre is a logical progression.

As part of the GoTo suite of applications that includes GoToWebinar and GoToTraining, the meeting component offers easy switching between the types of meeting you want to hold. If you have experience of any of the other products in the suite, adding video is a breeze and requires a very shallow learning curve.

With desktop and mobile equally supported and integration with standard office applications, GoToMeeting is a middleweight videoconferencing service that small businesses in particular will find a great boon to their communications across teams and with clients and customers.

All of the latest videoconferencing applications strive to remove any technical hurdles that might trip up the user. Not having to install apps or plugins, or remember dial-in codes and phone numbers is what makes Join.me a powerful and attractive way to get into videoconferencing for the first time.

You can try the system out with ten other people for free before opting for a premium service. It’s also the ability to share documents (including Evernote) that makes this offering a very practical way into videoconferencing for smaller businesses in particular.

Contributer : Techradar - All the latest technology news http://ift.tt/2f2cxjm