Video Conference Apps

May 13, 2020 Source - CNET

Source: CNET

Image Courtesy: Pixabay

With the lockdown in places across India and world over it is time we looked at making choices to connect virtually via video to ensure our teams are in sync and can collaborate effectively. In this article we are going to review 2 video chat apps that are available to conduct video conferencing and collaboration

Microsoft Teams:
Teams is a platform for chat, video conferencing and collaboration. All major Office apps like Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint are easily integrated along with other 3rd party apps that are available as part of Teams ecosystem for presenting and file sharing. Similar to Slack we can talk to team members privately or in groups and have a real time chat at a team level or individual level and have a Synchronous connect

You can video chat up to 250 people at once with Teams and present live up to 10,000 people. Meetings can be scheduled, we can track status of activities planned via Microsoft planner and can even set reminders. We can also record meeting sessions and take notes when a meeting is ON.
One key security aspect that has been handled well in Teams is that it does not track participant attention and deletes all your data after the subscription ends.
Teams also provides option to download a free trial version with restricted features

The Zoom video conference app works for Android, iOS, PC and Mac. You can adjust meeting times, and select multiple hosts. Up to 1,000 users canp in a single Zoom video call, and 49 videos can appear on the screen at once.
The app has HD video and audio capabilities, collaboration tools like simultaneous screen-
sharing and co-annotation, and the ability to record meetings and generate transcripts.
However, if you use Zoom, it’s important to take into consideration the security issues that have come to light. Privacy experts have expressed concerns over the video-conferencing software’s privacy risks (tracking participant attention that got removed recently) and hacking vulnerabilities, as well as zoombombing (where uninvited attendees break into and disrupt meetings)

Government of India has issued advisory not to use Zoom until these security concerns get addressed, however we can take some steps like enabling “Waiting Room” feature in order to track who is attempting to join a meeting before allowing access