Item: Webex Meetings
Rating: 9
Author: Ravinder Beniwal

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Cisco Webex Meetings is used in our organization to conduct online collaboration meeting when the participant size is large such as for conducting organization-wide training or global all hand meeting. Yes, it is used across the whole organization. The platform solves the problem of collaboration. Specifically, in a work from home scenario, work collaboration is much needed at the team level and at the management level for smooth work flow. The platform enables all our team members to collaborate in real-time from anywhere and anytime using different end points such as Mobile, laptop, or video systems. Team collaboration and communication are two main business problems solved with this tool.

Pros and Cons

Provide High quality audio and video sharing using advanced codecs.
Meeting scripts can be accessed later in case you missed any important point discussed in the meetings.
Content sharing such as Screen share, document share, video share works well on the platform.
The platform provides advanced security to the content shared over the call using advanced encryption and decryption technologies.

Accessing via web application version or via browser is a bit problematic some time. It is bit problematic as some companies don't allows employees to installs application on office laptops.
Ability to provide good video and content share can be improved for low speed internet connections.
More customization options can be enabled for the user for his ease of access on the main User interface.

Return on Investment

Positive impact is that online collaboration and communication has improved really well.
Client communications, presentations, and delivery of cross geography pieces of training have become an easy task.
Negative impact on the personal side is that you get distracted from your usual work whenever you receive a notification or chat message on the platform.

Alternatives Considered

Google Hangouts Meet and Microsoft Teams

Cisco Webex Meeting is one product that has been on the market earlier than the launch of Google Meet service and Microsoft Teams. Cisco Webex Meeting has some exciting features such as polling the audience, whiteboards, customization of meeting participants on the user interface during a meeting, and adequate security via encryption techniques for the content shared via the meetings, etc.. All these features make this product a good package.

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?

I wasn't involved with the selection/purchase process

Did implementation of Webex Meetings go as expected?

I wasn't involved with the implementation phase

Would you buy Webex Meetings again?

Yes

Reliability and Availability

Availablity wise I haven't faced any issues. Sometimes the application hangs at the time when you start sharing the content or when you pick up someone's call. Not sure whether this is a system issue or an application issue but I have to restart the application again in order to use it. The application continuously runs in the background and consumes system resources unless you specifically close the application.

Scalability

As far as I know, the product scalability is really good and it can support around 1000 participants. Regarding the deployment option, I am not sure as I was not involved in the deployment of the application. In my organization, it looks like we are using the cloud-based Cisco Webex application.

Performance

The application performance is really good. The pages load quickly (sometimes the pages lag), audio, video, and screen sharing options work really well. Reports complete in a reasonable time frame. Also, the participants can join you a meeting using their own video systems such as Microsoft Skype for business, Cisco Jabber, using Cisco Webex mobile/desktop, and other Cisco Telepresence endpoints.

Likelihood to Recommend

For a meeting where participant size is large the platform really does well as the host has full control over the meeting. [You] can enable and disable audio of anyone based on [your] requirements. [They] can pass the host control for other members to share content and can create breakout sessions. There seem [to be] scenarios where the Cisco Webex Meetings are less suited. One scenario could be low-speed internet connectivity where the platform does not perform well.

Cisco WebEx meetings - a great cloud based collaboration and video conferencing tool for organizations

Overall Satisfaction with Cisco Webex Meetings