My good friend, Jeffrey Tebele of RCS Professional Services, recently sent me a copy of his company’s newsletter. The newsletter discusses the difference between Microsoft Teams and Zoom. In the era of COVID-19, business is conducted remotely through these two main technologies. I get asked which is better regarding Microsoft Teams vs Zoom. Since Jeffrey did such an outstanding job of explaining the differences, I am sharing his newsletter here. Of course, with his permission.
Microsoft Teams
If your workspace already is taking advantage of the benefits of the Microsoft Office 365 suite, then Teams will be your best option for web conferencing. Microsoft Teams is a tool designed for strengthening internal communication among the employees of an organization. It provides robust chat services that help you to connect with your team members without necessarily connecting to the web conference.
Syncing Microsoft Teams with Microsoft Office 365 suite helps you to share files with a group of people without any additional restrictions and worries. Once you join any web conference, there is no time limit. You can continue the same discussion for hours on end in the free version of the Microsoft Teams. We have seen individuals using UCaaS worried about what happens with their data collected during the subscription. However, since Microsoft erases all the data once your subscription ends there is no reason to worry.
We have always heard that Microsoft Office 365 suite is an integration with several applications. Well now it’s time for you to enjoy its benefits with Microsoft Teams. Microsoft Teams has more than 70 integrations like ticket management, surveys, weather, and many more. The suite brings all the apps together in one place for you to use easily. For example, you can open a ticket, enjoy web conferencing or check the weather outside – all from the same app.
When it comes to security, you really don’t need to be very concerned about it while using Microsoft Teams as we have hardly heard about any security issues in the buzz around Microsoft Teams.
If you have Office 365, Teams is free. Otherwise, the cheapest paid version of Microsoft Teams is $5 per user.
Limitations of using Microsoft Teams
- You can only connect with the internal team members.
- You will likely need to engage in a bit of training in order to use Microsoft Teams. Utilizing every benefit of Microsoft Teams is not easy. It’s a learning curve. You get used to it as you keep on using it.
- You cannot see everyone who is on the web conference.
- If you want to use Microsoft Teams without Office 365 suite, then you may find some unwanted loss in its utilities.
Zoom
If your organization is not using Microsoft Office 365 Suite, and your main aim is to connect with individuals internally & externally, then Zoom is the better option. It is a platform that provides you with high-quality video and audio conferencing.
The user interface and the functionalities are so easy that you can organize a meeting or conference without any pre-knowledge. You do not need to be a veteran to use Zoom.
Zoom gives us the provision of external integrations to get our work simplified – for example, its integration with Slack allows us to connect individuals on chat. There is not much effort needed to connect with some external agents using Zoom.
You can see multiple individuals who joined the conference on one screen. And it provides a facility to invite 99 individuals in a single conference hosted by you in the free version.
The free version is good for most basic needs (provided that your call is limited to the 40 minutes). The cheapest version of the paid one is $15 per host per month.
Limitations of using Zoom
- We have not heard of any confirmation of what Zoom does with our data post-subscription.
- A rumor surfaced recently of security issues and software vulnerability that led many companies to start finding an alternative.
- There is a time limit of 40 minutes while using the conferencing feature in the free version of the tool.
- You cannot chat with any individual without joining the conference. (Unless you utilize external tools like Slack)
- You might face some problems with international conferences if the connection is not perfect.
When considering Microsoft Teams vs Zoom, I hope the above helps in making your decision. Whichever platform you use, make sure you do it right.
