[Software] Microsoft Teams vs RingCentral: Which video conferencing and collaboration service is best?

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https://www.techradar.com/news/microsoft-teams-vs-ringcentral-which-video-conferencing-and-collaboration-service-is-best

RingCentral may be better known as a unified communications or VoIP solutions provider, but that’s not the only service that the company provides. In fact, RingCentral Video is certainly a video conferencing solution worth considering.

Of course, companies do have a number of collaboration tools to consider these days. In addition to RingCentral, Microsoft Teams is another solution that many businesses have adopted. Deciding between the two is not an easy task, with each platform having its pros and cons. 

The integration of Google Workspace, Microsoft 365, and Slack makes RingCentral Video a promising option for businesses, but Teams has its advantages too. Plus, RingCentral Video now comes as part of the RingCentral Office solution in Europe for added functionality.

In this guide, we’ve collected all the information you need to decide whether Teams or RingCentral Video is best for your business, comparing plans and pricing, features, security and more.
The free version of RingCentral Video is pretty extensive compared to other free versions. It includes up to 24 hours of meeting time, which is much more than a lot of other platforms offer - the free limit for Teams, for example, is just 60 minutes. RingCentral Video also allows up to 100 participants with its free version and offers robust host controls.

Teams 

As well as its free offering, Microsoft Teams comes in three pricing packages. Microsoft 365 Business Basic is priced at $5.00/£3.80/AU$6.90 per user per month, Microsoft 365 Business Standard costs $12.50/£9.40/AU$17.20 per user per month, and Microsoft 365 Premium is priced at $20.00/£15.10/AU$27.50 per user per month.

For these prices, businesses receive different levels of functionality. Basic lets you schedule and record meetings and your file storage capacity is increased to 1TB per user. Standard also comes with desktop versions of Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, while Premium comes with advanced security and privacy features.

RingCentral Video comes in three payment tiers: Standard, Premium, and Ultimate. The Standard package costs $24.99 per user per month. The Premium package will set businesses back $34.99 per user per month, while the ultimate package is priced at $49.99 per user per month.

The Standard package includes integration with Microsoft 365, Google Workspace, and Slack, while Premium doubles the number of participants to 200, and provides further third-party integrations such as Canvas, Smarsh, Salesforce, Zendesk, and more. Ultimate, however, comes with advanced administrator analytics and unlimited storage for all users.

Features
Integrations are the order of the day with both Teams and RingCentral. Of course, Teams offers great functionality with other Microsoft services, but RingCentral has some useful integrations of its own, including Slack, G Suite, and Microsoft 365. Users can schedule and launch calls directly from these services. They can also integrate their calendars and visualize their schedules. There’s also a built-in analytics dashboard for RingCentral administrators to locate performance issues and ensure optimum performance. 

Teams features are extensive and include one-to-one messaging, group chat, contact search, access control, activity feed, and assistant bots. Teams also integrates with OneDrive and Sharepoint, so users can share files easily. It’s also worth remembering that Teams has added a host of other features over the past year. 

Some of the functionality that has been added include the ability to present from PowerPoint to Teams, conduct meetings from Apple CarPlay, and spotlight multiple participants. These are just some of the most recently added features, so expect many more to come in the next few months.

Security
In terms of the security on offer, the most disappointing aspect of RingCentral is the fact that there is no option for end-to-end encryption. Data is encrypted in transit and rest, but that might not be enough for some businesses. With Teams, on the other hand, end-to-end encryption was rolled out for Teams calls. 

In terms of other security features, RingCentral still has a pretty good reputation and comes with advanced administrative controls, threat detection, and rigorous applications security testing. Similarly, Teams also gives administrators a large degree of control over who can join meetings and what they can access. This is particularly handy given the fact that many organizations will have employees based in various locations (some in the office, some at home), and this will make access management more important than ever.

Support
If you’re a RingCentral user that is in need of support, there’s an online community forum, how-to guides, and even a RingCentral university. There’s also a hub for video guides and tutorials all available online. Online help chat is also on-hand and a customer service representative is available for more persistent problems.

Microsoft Teams, on the other hand, has a number of support options, from step-by-step setup guides, training videos, and classes. There’s also support from other customers that are a major help. Microsoft users are a supportive bunch and there are plenty of forums that can be accessed whenever individuals have a query or problem that needs resolving.

Teams users can also source assistance from the Microsoft 365 support channels, which include an online forum, phone support and a dedicated Get Help app. The lack of a live chat service is disappointing, however. 

Verdict
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RingCentral Video is certainly worth exploring further as it is easy to overlook among the number of different video conferencing tools out there. Its free version, in particular, offers a very generous list of features. The integrations with other digital solutions are also impressive.

Having said that, it is difficult to say that RingCentral Video provides a better offering than Microsoft Teams. If you are desperate to keep going with the free version, then it might be worth checking RingCentral out, but if you want added functionality, then Teams is the way to go.