RingCentral Meetings vs. Skype for Business / Lync (discontinued)

I would recommend RingCentral for any business that looking to make the jump to Voice over IP and also want business essentials like video meetings all in one app. RingCentral Meetings integrates very well with its other communication tools which makes it very easy for a business to manage their communications in a single platform. The only scenario I see where RingCentral Meetings not being a good fit is if a business will be using video meetings as a marketing tool where they need extra marketing features like lead form captures and notification emails to be sent out.

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

• Screen sharing is wonderful in [RingCentral] Meetings. It makes presenting easy.
• Being able to mute and turn off cameras when necessary is a nice feature too.
• Switching from the computer to the cell phone when on the go is a nice benefit.

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

• It's easy to end up accidentally trying to run multiple meetings under the same account, which can cause churn and confusion for participants
• Interacting with people outside the organization is sometimes hard because RingCentral Meetings requires them to download and install software - there's no plugin-free way to get in to the conference (other than just dialing in via audio)
• A lot of our end users are repeatedly confused with how to select phone vs computer audio, so we end up losing time at the start of a meeting dealing with echoes on the line
• There's only two roles in a meeting - Host and Guest. When we have large meetings with remote team members, it'd be useful to be able to manage subgroups of participants - i.e. Team Members vs Executives, to be able to control who gets muted or who gets dropped at different times in the call.
• From time to time we encounter notifications of instability of the underlying internet connection, but then RingCentral isn't able to tell us if the issue was on our local network, intermediary sources, or their main service.
• Because RingCentral Meetings is just a white label of Zoom, RingCentral's support for the platform is more limited than for their other services.

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

We are grandfathered into an unlimited toll-free minutes plan with RingCentral, so as long as we have them as a VoIP provider, we get Meetings free. If they ever start to charge us for using meetings as well, we'll drop that part in a second and switch to Skype for Business, which we currently have as well part of our Office 365 package.

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

Extremely intuitive and easy to use. Very minimal onboarding needed (ie training ) as most clients implement and use RingCentral Meetings in their environment within weeks of implementing it. This is the power of cloud computing where as applications are feature rich, flexible. Also, RingCentral can be branded with other technologies with their skins.

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.

RingCentral is a great tool for everyone interested in making animations. The thing that appealed to us most about it is that it is very simple to use and works with much perfection. Like lip-synchronization goes so well with the character as soon as we add voice-over in it. Also, we can add characters and scenes without any hardship. We highly recommend this software.

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

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

We use RingCentral Meetings only because our consultants have standardized on it and it allows us to not have to manage temporary accounts for those consultants in our local meeting platform. It's not a bad platform, just not what our organization has standardized on. Our primary platform for meetings is Microsoft Teams, which integrates very well with our other business software.

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

• Reduced time spent managing technical support issues (instead of customers describing problems, they can screen-share to help with the diagnosing process)
• Whiteboarding has been exceptionally helpful to sketch new concepts and save them for future reference
• Lack of capability to remote-control smart phones has limited it's screen sharing functionality for us, requiring the need for another software subscription to utilize that function.

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.