The cultural seachange towards remote and home working over the last year has made video conferencing software the hot technology ticket.
Given that the tech has been around for well over a decade, it was surprising to note that no one software had an unassailable lead. Granted, Zoom was out in front early on. But not for long as other providers upped their game to tap into the massive upsurge in working from home necessitated by the global pandemic.
However, one meeting option that was sadly overlooked in the video conferencing stampede was Cisco Webex Meetings.
This omission was a crying shame as Cisco had been an early pioneer, and their app is pretty good. They just seemed to miss the beat slightly in pandemic pile-on from Zoom, Google, Microsoft, et al.
While others were grabbing the headlines and playing catch up to meet the skyrocketing demand, Cisco Webex Meetings were quietly delivering over 25 billion meetings per month. Quite why they weren’t garnering the headlines and column inches devoted to others is a bit of a mystery.
Industry-leading video and voice calls
Compatible with Google Assistant and Home Hub for hands-free operation
Join meetings directly from your calendar or widget
Screen sharing
File sharing
Customizable video layouts
Virtual backgrounds
Although the app is free, there are limitations. You may wish, therefore, to upgrade to a subscription package depending on your needs.
The free app is limited to one host, and meetings can only last a maximum of 50 minutes. However, you can have up to 100 people, including the host.
If you are an attendee rather than a host, then you can probably live with the limitations for quick dirty team meetings and catch-ups. However, you should be aware that the free app does not include the following:
File transfers
Cloud recording storage
Recording transcriptions
Adding another host
To get these, you will need to upgrade to a subscription package that starts at $13.50 per month.
It’s free
High definition video and audio
In-app meeting recording
Whiteboarding
Noise reduction
Multi-language support
Free online training
Not available in all countries
Not the most user friendly
Cisco Webex Meetings is downloadable from Google Play and Apple’s App Store for iOS. There’s also a Windows version you can download from the webex.com website.
Android 6.0 or later is required as well as 70 MB of storage space on your mobile device. The app has been rated over 1.3 million times, giving it a Google Play rating of 4.1 out of five, which is very creditable.
Over at Apple’s App Store, Cisco Webex Meetings gets a very solid 4.3 out of five from over 243,000 reviews.
Apple iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch fans need to have iOS 11.0 or later and a spare 182.9 MB of storage space. The app is also compatible with the Apple Watch.
If you have a meeting link, you can join a meeting directly from the webex.com website.
