Lifesize Video Conferencing vs. Skype for Business / Lync (discontinued)

I think there's much better options out there. In a small setting, they might be suitable but I don't believe they scale very well in any medium-large size businesses. We wanted to take advantage of things like a Microsoft Exchange calendar, a "Join Now" button and integrating with Teams. These are all things that our company made a sizeable investment on and in order to take things to the next level, we had to move on from Lifesize Video Conferencing.

Incentivized

Skype is useful for collaborations across distances, including work from home, as well as a more convenient way to communicate with a large group of people. Skype is also useful to communicate with specific parties quickly, rather than relying on cellular service in areas where not as available. Skype is less useful if the team does not use computers , tablets, smartphones, etc in daily workflow as it would rarely be used.

Incentivized

• The touchpad makes it extremely easy to join or start conference calls with a single pushbutton.
• The Lifesize solution is affordable and has been extremely reliable for our video conference calls.
• Camera quality is great and provides clear video for our organization.
• The pan/tilt/zoom features are very helpful to focus in on specific people or items during a training or demonstration.

Incentivized

• Group Chat option allows multiple people to have a conversation away from the main presentation
• Integration with Microsoft Office allows easy usage of excel, PowerPoint and other MS programs
• Easy calendar integration for Microsoft Outlook
• Mobile interface is very easy and intuitive

Incentivized

• International users have experienced spotty/jittery sound and video.
• Connecting to meetings that are on different conferencing services is very clunky and not end user friendly.
• Being able to remote control the camera from a mobile device would be nice. If a change is needed during a meeting, the menu is pretty large and draws plenty of attention and distracts the audience.

Incentivized

• Probably the biggest area is the video element as it has historically struggled in this area.
• The need to be forced to federate with another organisation by providing yours and enabling the other organisation settings is a bit tedious but once done, allows for simple collaboration between third-parties.
• Functionality wise, as it's an older product and being superseded by MS Teams, it feels as if it's run its course but was very good for what it does/did at the time.

Incentivized

I have a lot of Lifesize hardware and I do like Cloud but I am always watching the market for a company that will finally nail this space. I feel like Lifesize has a solid head start but I hope they can create a vision for the marketplace and execute in a meaningful way.

Incentivized

I honestly feel that with most people using iPhone nowadays, it's easy to just call or use FaceTime if you need to be in touch with a client. Unless you need to have a conference call, there are plenty of ways to get in touch with a client otherwise besides using a somewhat inefficient program.

Incentivized

Overall experience with Lifesize Video Conferencing has been great. While it serves it's basic purpose of allowing smooth video/audio meetings of people located at different places with option of screen sharing/chatting/ recording, what add to it's pros are it's accessibility from various platforms, flexibility to switch to a listen only mode in case of network issues and ease of operation.

Incentivized

Very easy to use. Even though Microsoft Teams has a lot of features and integrations, as a user I feel completely comfortable on finding what I need, getting information about the app extensions and using them. It's a very comprehensive tool, intuitive design and does not make me feel tired to be using it. I am glad with the current experience.

Since we are an educational institution we not only have scheduled classes which must be available, but we have staff members in a variety of areas ranging from recruiting and admissions to advancement and the President's office who need to connect with students, alumni and other interest groups, often at odd hours. I have not, since using Lifesize had anyone complain of not being able to connect

Incentivized

Lifesize is an amazing platform for VC. However, it is a costly solution for any scaling startup. However, implementation and user acceptability was fairly easy and worth the additional spend. Quality has always been on point and support has always taken care of us. Our account manager also ensured a seamless transition process for Google Hangouts. Will go with this solution again at any other organization.

Incentivized

Most of the front-line call takers are only as knowledgeable enough to tell you to reboot or reset. If your issue is more complicated than that, it will need to be escalated. On the other hand - most of our problems have been on our network side. The techs are ALWAYS super nice and try to be as helpful as possible. They do care about fixing the problem.

Incentivized

I have only had to reach out to the Support team at Skype for Business once with an issue, and I was pleasantly surprised and encouraged by the quickness and thoroughness of their response. The wait time was short and my question was dealt with politely and clearly, so I would say the support team has it together.

Incentivized

Sensus was really helpful in the initial setup and training of our technical Support Team. Sensus gave us training on site so that it would be our own equipment that was set up. Then the in house tech team took over to train other users who would be using the system. When needed the Sensus and Lifesize tech support were really helpful in trouble shooting or guiding us through any difficulty.

Incentivized

I gave this rating because Lifesize's website offers multiple quality videos that shows you exactly how the software works. The videos are divided into different categories which makes searching for a video fairly simple! If for some reason you have a question not answered in one of the how-tos you can always contact support. Excellent product, excellent service!

Incentivized

Great for companies that need to accomplish multiple things at once while at different places. From our experience, broadcasting news is most favorable considering the level of excellence you get with the product plus the affordability. It can be used both privately amongst employees, or shared publicly through covering events

Incentivized

Skpe for business is utilized company wide in regards to my company. Everyone not only uses it, but uses it often. It is an effective way of communicating. It also integrates very nicely with outlook and all conversation history is pushed to a folder within the outlook system. We also have it so that if someone misses a message, they are sent an email reminder saying that there is a message that went unread.

Incentivized

Select Lifesize Video Conferencing because it is an online meeting software that has a robust interface, a pleasant interface, and solutions that we can take full advantage of, it offers immediate solutions for screen sharing communication through the web or app. It has worked perfectly for me, offering quality and security as well as being fast and with a free trial, which adjusts to the needs of its users.

Skype for Business, now part of Microsoft Teams is just better for us since we were already a Microsoft productivity suite (Office) user. No additional cost when we went from traditional product license model to SaaS. Continuous integration and upgrades with MS 365 make it even easier to use and therefore stickier.

Incentivized

With LifeSize Cloud, it's very easy to simply add another Icon to your system and join it to your cloud. You can easily and instantly create meetings and add users both in your organization and out without any difficulty. The cooperation between the Icons and cloud users running on their laptops makes it easy to scale this out to your entire company, including joint venture without difficulty.

Incentivized

• First the cost of licensing was significantly lower than other applications. We were able to experience an almost immediate return on investment now having the ability to bill the health plans for Virtual Visits.
• Again, the lower cost of licensing allowed us to provide more users within the company with license. I am unable to share the specifics of our contract with Lifesize Video Conferencing. What I can say is the price made it easy for us to subscribe to Lifesize.

Incentivized

• In the move to WFH for the over 90000 employees of the firm in 13 different timezones, Skype for [Business], as the primary communication tool has been the most critical factor in ensuring there's not a communication breakdown.
• An average of 7 calls a day and around 50-60 text messages are sent via Skype for [Business]. These communications are critical for [the] continued delivery of our services.
• Video/voice calling and screen sharing features of Skype have played a great role in simulating a shared workspace scenario in the virtual mode as best as possible.