Cloud based video conferencing for small businesses

[Seizure1990]

Hello all,

 

I have been tasked with doing some research on video conferencing systems for our small organization to use. I have no experience or real knowledge of this industry, and there seems to be dozens of options to sift through, so I wanted to check in here first and see if there is a small list of solid suggestions I can do some more indepth research on.

 

If this is the wrong forum section, please move it. I just wasn't sure where to put it, since the Internet and Networking section seemed to be more about lower level technologies, and the cloud subsection seemed all about VM management.

 

Anyways, we are a small organization with our core staff based out of our HQ, but with a lot of people who constantly travel, as well as lots of partners and people who work around the world. We want a simple, solid cloud-based video conference system for connecting all these  traveling and "outside" people to our main office for meetings. We will probably have at most 25 people connected at a time, though who those people are will change from meeting to meeting.

 

It is important that that the conferencing platform support browser-based access in addition to whatever other supported platforms they might have, as well as having a simple management interface for conference leaders.

 

The ideal setup would involve having a large TV/Monitor on the meeting room wall where local staff could see an overview of who was in the conference from outside HQ, with each individual (both local and outside) tied into the conference with their own computer.

 

If there's any other important information about our needs and environment that I missed, please let me know so I can elaborate.

 

Some of the big names I have seen around already that seem like potential candidates are:

• Polycom
• BlueJeans
• Adobe Connect
• Cisco Webex
• Lifesize

 

Is there anything special I should know about any of those, or any reasons to strike them from my list of considerations? Conversely, are there any other services which you highly recommend based on my requirements?

 

Thanks for any help!

[Anibal P]

We use WebEx routed through our SSO system and it works fine, we have meetings that will hit the 100+ participants with no issues 

 

Plus the Outlook integration is nice for scheduling and the rare spot meeting that arises 

[Rippleman]

I am not into it much, but how does https://www.skype.com/en/business/skype-for-business/ compare to the solutions that you have already looked into?

[GrayW]

After spending a large number of hours in interviews with a company using BlueJeans - I would advise against it. There was nothing but issues with video stuttering, audio dropping out and echoing and the maximum that was ever in a call was 4. I dread to think what the quality would be like if more jumped in.