The current global outbreak of Coronavirus COVID-19 has forced businesses to take new measures to prevent the spread of the pandemic.
This has forced companies to change the way they market to customers, manage employees, and complete projects.
Many companies, including Google, Twitter and Apple, have now focused on providing remote work options for their employees.
Why?
As most of the workforce works from home, there’ll be minimal physical contact – ensuring that they contain the spread of the disease.
As a result, there’s reportedly an increased usage of remote working tools like Slack, Zoom, Time Doctor and Dropbox in affected countries.
In a bid to encourage more teams to work remotely during this crucial phase, some of these tech providers have made significant pricing changes.
Here are some examples:
1. Microsoft Teams
What is it?
Teams is a collaboration tool in Office 365 to keep your team’s chats, meetings, files, and apps together in one place.
What’s changed since the Corona outbreak?
Microsoft reported a 500% increase in Teams usage in China since the end of January.
While there’s a free version of Microsoft Teams, the company has now allowed free access to the paid version for six months.
If your organization is licensed for Office 365, you can sign into it automatically. If your organization isn’t licensed for Teams, you can log into the product and automatically receive a free license for Teams, valid through January 2021.
This includes
- Video meetings for up to 250 participants.
- Live Events for up to 10,000.
- Unlimited chat and search.
- Built-in group and one-on-one audio or video calling.
- 10 GB of team file storage and 2 GB of personal file storage per person.
More details and sign up here.
2. Google Meet
What is it?
Google Hangouts is a video conferencing tool that helps people get on call, live stream, and record video conferences.
What’s changed since the Corona outbreak?
Google has offered free access to the advanced features of Hangouts to all G Suite and G Suite for Education customers.
This includes
- Larger meetings for up to 250 participants per call.
- Live streaming for up to 100,000 viewers within a domain.
- The ability to record meetings and save them to Google Drive.
However, these features will only be available for free until July 1, 2020.
3. Cloudflare
What is it?
Cloudflare is a web performance and web security platform for on-premises, hybrid, cloud, and SaaS applications.
What’s changed since the Corona outbreak?
Cloudflare noted that peak traffic in the coronavirus-impacted regions increased by around 10%, as people started to work from home. This naturally put a strain on each region’s IT infrastructure and IT security.
The company has offered enterprise-grade features on Cloudflare for Teams to small businesses at no cost until September 1, 2020.
Here’s what the offer includes:
- Free seats of Cloudflare for Teams for small businesses through September 1 2020.
- An optional 30-minute onboarding session with a technical expert.
To sign-up, click here.
4. GoToMeeting
What is it?
GoToMeeting is an online meeting, desktop sharing, and video conferencing software from LogMeIn.
What’s changed since the Corona outbreak?
LogMeIn has offered its GoToMeeting desktop tool for free for three months through their Emergency Remote Work Kits. It is available to government, educational, healthcare, and non-profit organizations, and existing LogMeIn customers.
This includes
- Video conferencing, webinars, virtual events.
- IT support.
- Remote access to devices and apps (including access from devices in multiple locations).
- Assistance with training users who are new to remote working.
Go here to read the details, and to contact a remote work expert.
5. Cisco Webex
What is it?
Cisco Webex is an enterprise solution for video conferencing, online meetings, screen sharing, and webinars.
What’s changed since the Corona outbreak?
Cisco has expanded the list of features in its free Webex version. The company is also offering free 90-day business licenses for advanced features.
The additional features are:
- Supports up to 100 participants.
- Unlimited usage.
- Toll dial-in numbers in addition to the existing VoIP capabilities.
Read more details on the free Webex offer here.
6. Zoho Remotely
What is it?
Remotely is a cloud-based collaboration and productivity platform from Zoho.
What’s changed since the Corona outbreak?
Zoho built and released Remotely in response to the Coronavirus outbreak. And they plan to offer it free of cost till July 1, 2020.
Interestingly, the entire product was put together remotely within a week (in the first week of March 2020) by packaging some of Zoho’s existing tools.
The platform includes 10 applications including
- Cliq team communication software.
- Zoho Meetings for virtual meetings.
- ShowTime for conferences.
- Project management tools – Zoho Projects and Sprints.
- Office suite (Writer, Sheet, Show).
- Online file management WorkDrive.
Find more details and sign up for Zoho Remotely here.
7. Zoom
What is it?
Zoom is a video-first unified communications platform that provides video meetings and web-chat across desktops, phones, mobile devices.
What’s changed since the Corona outbreak?
Zoom has lifted the 40-minute limit on free video calls in China. The company has also scheduled informational sessions and on-demand resources to familiarize new users with the platform.
The free version in China also includes
- An unlimited number of video meetings with up to 100 participants.
- Unlimited video call time.
- Breakout rooms.
- Private and group chats.
- Online support.
Apart from this, Zoom has lifted the 40-minute video calling limit for schools in the US, Japan, Italy, and many other countries, by request.
Sign up here.
8. Loom
What is it?
Loom is a screen and video recording software for Mac, Windows, and Chromebook.
What’s changed since the Corona outbreak?
Loom has announced a few price changes in response to the coronavirus situation.
Apart from making Loom Pro free for all students and teachers, they have
- Removed the recording limit on the free plan (what was 25 records is now unlimited).
- 50% discount on Pro subscriptions (what was $10/month is now $5/month).
- Extended all trials of Loom Pro from 14 to 30 days.
More details here.
9. Box
What is it?
Box is a cloud content management and file sharing platform for businesses.
What’s changed since the Corona outbreak?
Box’s secure file sharing and collaboration platform is free for three months.
The offer is for the Business plan and includes
- Unlimited storage.
- Mobile access.
- Advanced user and security reporting.
- 5 GB file upload limit.
Click here to sign up.
10. Breezy HR
What is it?
Breezy HR is a recruiting software and applicant tracking software that will help you do your hiring remotely.
What’s changed since the Corona outbreak?
Breezy HR has made video assessments and live video interviewing capabilities free of charge for a period of at least 60 days.
Here’s more information on their video interviews and video responses.
11. GanttPRO
What is it?
GanttPRO is a Gantt chart-based project planning tool that helps teams effectively manage and collaborate on projects.
What’s changed since the Corona outbreak?
Apart from lifetime special offers for nonprofit, noncommercial, and educational organizations, GanttPRO has offered free accounts for hospitals and healthcare-related organizations till August 15, 2020.
Also, businesses that suffered from the current situation can apply for custom offers.
Free accounts include:
- An unlimited number of projects.
- An unlimited number of team members.
- Team collaboration.
- Resource workload.
- Time tracking.
More details here.
Keep your business running by using remote working tools
While businesses always want to maintain profitability, public health always comes first.
However, ensuring the safety of your workforce doesn’t necessarily have to come at the cost of your business.
Slashed prices will encourage more companies to offer remote working opportunities until we tide over this crucial period. Remember, a flexible working culture aided by technology could be the best way to operate in these uncertain times.
It’ll help your workforce safely manage this pandemic while ensuring that your most essential processes still run unaffected.
