Enghouse Vidyo vs. Highfive (discontinued) vs. Skype (discontinued)

I've had HR professionals ask about using it for interviews. Gone are the days where we have to spend hundreds of dollars to fly candidates in or limit ourselves to phone interviews. Vidyo with it's high reliability has saved the organization thousands in travel costs with candidate recruitment. Business meetings that can often be troubling to get leaders and executive all in one room, Vidyo has functioned extraordinarily well in bringing in people from home, on the road, or the airport. Mobile capabilities are easy and fast. Quick daily calls and chats in the office are probably best suited for the free options out there as Vidyo is not a free service like others. Better yet general phone calls will suffice.

Incentivized

The free version I would absolutely recommend, we've had some great use out of it for the past few years. Presenting, sharing screen, the conference line and some other features are all free. If we did need more analytics and more features, perhaps making it easier for the potential customer to share screen, we might re-start the search and we'd potentially rate UberConference lower, but for the free version it's been great for us.

Incentivized

Having interacted with a new replacement tool, Microsoft Teams, it is challenging to recommend Skype, as it lacks some essential features, such as being less equipped with the latest updates, and it is not platform-independent, causing issues on PCs and phones, as well as during calls that might hinder work.

Incentivized

• I didn't have to sign up, I just need to log into the "room" I was supposed to, so unlike Skype or other instruments, I didn't need to spend time and create my own account.
• To be honest, the largest online class I've attended had 10 people in it (besides the teacher), but it was a good quality connection.
• I enjoyed the ability to ask questions or clarifications in the chat (without having to turn on my microphone, so that the teacher could answer the question when he/she finished the thought).

Incentivized

• I appreciate being able to select a local phone number: it adds credibility and convenience for in-market clients/prospects.
• I like being able to customize the hold music. One of our employees wrote and produced custom hold music for Anvil, which generates discussion and engagement as an ice-breaker.
• The screen sharing is easy-to-use and is far more reliable than in the past. Prospects and clients do not have to download any app to make it work properly.

Incentivized

• The instant chat function is great. Very straightforward, easy to use, easy to learn, no technical issues.
• Video calls are pretty easy also, user friendly and a mostly stable connection with no issues.
• Voice calls are easy also, eliminates the need for an external landline or the need to use your cell phone. Clear connections, not really any dropped calls.

Incentivized

• The design and the branding give little to be desired
• Customer support is below average
• The API must be rewritten and add more functions that are commonly requested.
• Project codes are not well maintained and hard to find.

Incentivized

• Can be very laggy - I have been part of screen share conferences where the connection keeps dropping.
• Call quality is not always the best.
• Limited functionality - this cannot be your all-in-one go-to conferencing solution because there are no video call capabilities.

Incentivized

• Skype is a RESOURCE hog. People who have limited bandwidth will have poor call quality.
• It is hard to figure out how to use emojis and upload images in the chat.
• The background images do not fool anybody....it is clearly not your real background.

Incentivized

UberConference is more expensive than some of its competitors and we have not found a real advantage to using UberConference over certain less-expensive applications. UberConference charges per month per organizer and those costs add up quickly, so we will be moving forward with a more budget-friendly option in the coming months.

Incentivized

I have given this rating as this need to give more than that as it's very helpful for us and makes our work more efficient and fast.

Though not as widely used as Zoom or Google Hangouts, it is very competitive as far as features and usability

Incentivized

The interface is intuitive and stupidly simple, no complicated sub-menus or configuration settings. Easy to create a meeting space and then have others join with a link or dial-in PIN on the free tier. On the paid tier it's even easier with PIN-less joining and automatic reminder calls to get participants to join.

Incentivized

Skype is not as good as Facetime in terms of ease to glance at it and figure out how it works. I think that's a result of Skype trying to be too many things at once. A lot of the menu and UI could be streamlined, and I would jettison some of the additional functions that have been tacked on over the years to simplify. That being said, while some options are slightly hard to find, they all work flawlessly once found.

Incentivized

We have an internal tech team dedicated to setup and troubleshooting of Vidyo. This makes it very easy, because we have access to our own employees for help. Rarely have I or anyone I work with had to escalate something to Vidyo themselves, and we're lucky to have the internal administrators that run the show. Almost like Vidyo is ours and ours alone.

Incentivized

I haven't needed support for the most part, which is a positive for Highfive. It's intuitive and most features are straightforward to use. In the one instance that I did contact them, it took them longer then expected to respond, but they were able to answer my question once they did.

Incentivized

I am not aware of the current support level for Skype for business, as I have never used even though I have the product. However, the support for Skype's personal paid users is not where it could be. Users who pay for Skype features do not have a clear path to reach out to support. So, rating 6, can be better as soon as I need to use Skype for business support and get a good experience. I will say that I will renew Skype for Business subscription, which is a significant inconsistency on my end. The explanation is that Skype for Business comes bundled with Office for Business, with no additional cost, so why not.

Incentivized

It can be used on the phone via mobile application as well as on the desktop by logging in to the website. Easily installed and ready to use.

Incentivized

Vidyo gives all of the competitors a run for their money. Since it works seamlessly, is easy to use, and has a clean UI. Screenshare could benefit from some work, like the ability to share multiple screens from different users at the same time. The search function could be improved, but overall, it's a great software.

Incentivized

Uberconference is by far more reliable and has a better quality of service than the other providers in this space. I have never had a dropped call with Uberconference (unlike Skype and Hangouts). I do think they need to do more marketing because fewer people know about them than others and sometimes people decline to use the service so we have to use one of the other platforms to connect.

Incentivized

We use Skype in combination with Grasshopper. While Grasshopper acts as a routing toll free number with extensions, if we are making calls directly, we do it through Skype. Skype's desktop and mobile apps are easier to use, and provide unlimited local calls at a flat, affordable rate. Allowing our team to use their existing mobile or desktop devices without additional hardware for business office phone calls is important, and Skype makes that possible

Incentivized

The service provided is up to date, as discussed before buying.

• It did help us reach the objective of education - after a while, everyone had a chance to connect and the quality of video/audio once you're in is great. It's just getting there that isn't up to par (but hopefully would be changed in next versions).

Incentivized

• Our teams use this every day. It makes it easy to meet with clients and share a screen and display analytics.
• Some of my clients thought that they need to register first to be able to contact me. It's bad that they are not notified in any way that it's enough just to enter its names and that's it.

Incentivized

• Skype made keeping in touch with an advisor in Mexico very easy. The initiative there resulted in 5 new partnerships.
• Skype has helped me with account management for at least 3 customers in LATAM--usually it's a fast way to answer a question about a support renewal.
• For about 9 months Skype helped me stay in touch with a colleague in Prague. We would meet once a week to go over sales activities.

Incentivized