Zoom Meetings
Zoom leads the world in video conferencing. It is the most popular solution available for video conferencing, having seen growth in its user base starting in 2020, when most of the world was forced to move from in-person meeting to using remote conference calls to conduct business.
Zoom was founded in 2011 by Eric Yuan, whose experience as an executive and engineer at Cisco gave him a solid foundation for creating a solution for video conferencing. Cisco released the first version of its video conferencing software in 2013. The company is headquartered in San Jose, California, and employs 2,700, and has offices in the United States, Europe, Asia, and Australia.
Zoom Company Info
Headquarters: San Jose, California
Company Size: 2,700 Employees
Launched: October, 2011
Use Base: 300 million active daily users
Here’s a quick intro to the Zoom Meetings app from Zoom Video Communications, which is the official name of the company that produces Zoom meeting software.
Zoom Pricing
Zoom standard pricing plans range from Free to $250/year/user for the four different Zoom product solution:
- Free
- Pro: $149.90/year/user
- Business: $199.90/year/user
- Business Plus: $250/year/user
In addition to these standards pricing plans from Zoom, there are Enterprise plans whose pricing tiers are dependent upon specific needs. Pricing for custom Zoom Enterprise plans can be obtained by talking with a Zoom sales rep and negotiating a price based upon necessary features and expected usage.
Differences between the various Zoom pricing tiers focus mostly on the number of attendees allowed for a meeting.
Here we will cover Zoom pricing options for the product that has made Zoom a household name: Zoom Meetings. More information about the features of Zoom Meetings can be found below.
Zoom Meetings Free
Zoom’s free plan for videoconferencing allows a user to host a meeting with up to 100 participants for up to 40 minutes. Once the 40 minute time period expires, the meeting automatically ends.
Zoom Meetings Pro
Price: $149.90/year/user
Zoom Meetings Pro removes the time limit from meetings. It also provides 5GB of cloud storage for automatically recording meetings. The user limit of 100 participants is the same as with the Free Zoom Meetings plan.
Zoom Meetings Business
Price: $199.90/year/user
The Business plan for Zoom Meetings increases the meeting participant limit to 300. It is designed for organizations that are larger than the small- to medium-sized entities that use the Pro version of Zoom Meetings.
Zoom Meetings Business plan adds a few extras beyond Zoom Meetings Pro, including:
- Unlimited whiteboards
- Single Sign-on to make logging in easier
- Managed domains to make it easier to manage Zoom users
- Company branding for meetings
Zoom Meetings Business Plus
Price: $250.00/year/user
The Business Plus plan from Zoom Meetings allows the same number of participants (300) as the $199.90 Business plan, but adds features included with Zoom Phone. Business Plus also provides additional storage (10GB versus 5GB) above what’s included with the standard Zoom Business plan.
Zoom Solutions
Zoom Meetings
Zoom Meetings is what people normally think of when referring to Zoom. Zoom One allows people to hold videoconferencing meetings with capabilities that include screen sharing, chatting among members of the meetings, and using whiteboards that can be saved to be referenced after the meeting.
The Zoom Meetings solution has a free plan that is popular for people whose video conferencing needs aren’t too stringent. With the Zoom One plan, a meeting host can hold a meeting that lasts up to 40 minutes, and that can have up to 100 attendees. For the casual user, Zoom Meetings free plan is highly attractive.
Zoom Phone
Zoom Phone does not have a free plan. It is a paid solution designed for business users.
Zoom Phone is a business phone system that makes interacting by phone easier and more accessible for lots of different business uses. Zoom Phone integrates phone calls, video conferencing, and other forms of communication to help businesses be effective at communicating within the company as well as with partners and customers.
Zoom Phone call management can be done with any of the following:
- VOIP desk phone
- computer
- mobile device
The description of Zoom Phone in the intro video shows some of the other important features of Zoom Phone.
Zoom Events and Zoom Webinars
Zoom Events and Zoom Webinars are video conferencing solutions for businesses and other organizations to hold large meetings (with up to 500 attendees) that can last up to 30 hours. In addition to the in-session features for webinars and events, Zoom provides reporting and other business functions, including integration with CRM and other software used for marketing automation.
Zoom Events has features that go beyond Zoom Webinars, including customizable ticketing and registration. Zoom Events is designed to extend live events to both on-premise and remote audiences, and to allow users to measure audience engagement.
Zoom Rooms
Zoom Rooms allows organizations to turn almost any workspace into a meeting room.
Implementation of Zoom Rooms requires the use of specific hardware for many of its features, including huddle room kits, interactive whiteboards, and other devices that give a particular workspace the functionality required for a specific purpose.
The intro video below for Zoom Rooms will give you an idea of how they work and what you need to set them up.
Zoom Contact Center
Zoom Contact Center is a new solution released by Zoom in 2022 to allow companies to be much more accessible to their customer base, including through video calls. Zoom Contact Center integrates Zoom Meetings, chat, phone call, and text communication such that companies can be available to customers in such a
