Item: Webex Meetings
Rating: 9
Author: Verified User

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Cisco Webex Meetings is being used heavily across our entire company. We host a wide range of types of meetings: legal conferences where our partners can discuss client matters internally and externally, staff meetings, IT meetings, troubleshooting sessions, and general open discussion/happy hour/get togethers. During the pandemic, we have used Cisco Webex Meetings for everything from formal meetings/presentations, to interviews for new staff, interviews with politicians/celebrities, and as our new water cooler.

Pros and Cons

Simple to schedule, host, and join
Mobile app and desktop app make it seamless to join and participate
Sharing presentations or screens to collaborate more effectively
Video conferencing for more intimate conversations

More testing on new releases (newest releases are sometimes buggy)
Focus on improving the current functionality before bringing out the superficial upgrades (backgrounds are causing multiple crashes right now)
Being more upfront with their customers about some of the issues they are facing

Return on Investment

Allowed us to continue running our business as usual during the pandemic while no travel is allowed
Lowered the cost of travel
Increased the traffic on our network, causing a need for better network bandwidth management

Alternatives Considered

Zoom, BlueJeans and Microsoft Teams

Cisco Webex Meetings blows Zoom and BlueJeans out of the water for quality and security. Zoom does have the upper edge on releasing new features that are shiny to the user base, but I would rather have the more tested product like Cisco Webex Meetings rather than the shiniest, untested one. Microsoft Teams is a completely different product, but from their meeting perspective, I do think the video quality is better in Microsoft Teams than Cisco Webex Meetings. I do however like how Cisco Webex Meetings handles grid view and the multiple views better than Microsoft Teams.

Support Rating

At times it is very hard for Cisco TAC or our partners to pinpoint some of the issues we have, and they will just chalk it up as a network blip or a bug in Cisco Webex Meetings without really coming to a conclusion as to what the issues were. They are however pretty responsive and quick in answering the tickets.

Key Insights

Do you think Webex Meetings delivers good value for the price?

Yes

Are you happy with Webex Meetings's feature set?

Yes

Did Webex Meetings live up to sales and marketing promises?

Yes

Did implementation of Webex Meetings go as expected?

Yes

Would you buy Webex Meetings again?

Yes

Reliability and Availability

Our outages have been very minimal and hardly ever happen. I believe we have only had one actual outage this year that affected our userbase where nobody was able to start meetings. For most of the year, it is flawless.

Usability

Usability is very simple. After a quick and easy scheduling (or using personal room) everything is very straightforward. The new icons with the text clear any kind of confusion as to what the buttons mean. The new breakout rooms are super simple and work great.

Likelihood to Recommend

Hosting video conferences between colleagues or external clients/participants is a very simple and easy thing to do in Cisco Webex Meetings. Now that not many people are in their offices, this has become that office. A typical meeting in an office boardroom is now being hosted in Cisco Webex Meetings. The ease of use makes it simple to do for anything formal or informal.

Cisco Webex Meetings is the new boardroom, interview space, and water cooler

Overall Satisfaction with Cisco Webex Meetings