As the Unified Communications (US) market increases so do the offering of UCaaS, the key compete scenario which we find most customers discussing with me is no longer CISCO vs Skype for business, rather two new titans have emerged and the business world is now discussing Microsoft Teams vs Zoom. Two excellent yet very different products.
Microsoft Teams and Zoom are now two of the biggest competitors on the market when it comes to cloud communications, both offering an excellent solution to the demand for collaboration within a work environment. Zoom is a leader in the video communications industry, having steady growth since it’s IPO in April 2019.
What transpired me to write this article is the privilege I had of writing a client report that looked at the differences between the top 5 online meeting solutions – Microsoft Teams, Zoom, Webex, GoToMeeting, BlueJeans – I say a privilege because rarely do I really get a chance to have a deep dive into truly comparing these UCaaS products. With the remote environments that have been developed against COVID-19 I thought it would be a great time to put my findings between my two favorites (Teams/Zoom) into an article.
Before I get to the breakdown between Zoom and Microsoft Teams, during my report writing I found this comparison chart from Gartner done on September 2019 detailing the top 5 Software as a Service (SaaS) solutions based on the Gartner Magic Quadrant below:
Winners:
– Microsoft Teams
– Zoom
– Cisco Webex
– GoToMeeting
– BlueJeans
My Summary
Out of the time that I took to put together a report detailing my findings between these tech giants, I found there to be very little difference in the feature sets they offered. Within my research I found that many of the products mentioned addressed most customers’ online meeting requirements however, it was the accessibility and ease of use that I was also assessing. The user interfaces were easy to navigate, and in most cases, felt modern with excellent designs and control.
It really comes down to what you’re really looking for in a long-term solution. Microsoft Teams gets an extra note as it is not just an online meeting platform, it’s pitched as a team-based collaboration workspace that includes Unified Communications (UC) capabilities. Webex (Cisco) and Zoom do also offer collaboration and UC capabilities however, a key difference is that they have a meeting-only client. Microsoft Teams comes with considerable advantaged features and capabilities outside of meetings such as; file-sharing capabilities leveraged through SharePoint and OneDrive for business for streamlined collaboration within your organization. Now I understand that this may add complexity for some, but it could align to the long-term UC objective of your business. There are no rules against using multiple vendors across your UC strategy but from my research, I would say that as an all in one UC solutions, Microsoft Teams win.
Pricing
Are you currently leveraging Microsoft Office 365 or Microsoft 365? Because if you are, a key benefit of choosing Microsoft Teams is that it is already included so there is no additional cost for you to outlay. It is true that Webex and Zoom both offer a free tier however, they limit the meetings that you have on the freemium to 40 minutes and exclude some features such as single sign-on active directory sync.
Feature Overview
Keys:
✔️ Yes
❌ No
📍 Road mapped
Both Microsoft Teams and Zoom have a lot of value to offer for those in search of simple and effective collaboration tools. You can use each platform to build a comprehensive environment for communication, complete with integrations, and even telephony too.
Zoom is an excellent video meetings platform however, Microsoft Teams is an all-encompassing workstream collaboration plus unified communications platform – combining meetings, chats, calls, and file sharing with the Office 365 application stack that brings your entire organization together in a shared workspace and because of that, and for what you get from the price point, I recommend Microsoft Teams over Zoom as a true Unified Communications tool for business.
If you’d like more info on either product, feel free to message me. I generally respond within the hour.
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