Reply to: COVID-19 Remote Interviews/Gigs: 'MS Teams', Skype Or Something Else ?

[Old Greg]

YG1 has audio calls working from the Raspberry Pi now. Better than schoolwork.

[unixman]

Interview next week. Hooray! I am expecting the familiar "it will be on Skype", meaning Skype for business.

Now I have Skype personal, and Zoom. But my heart sinks when they say "Skype for business" because (a) all my home systems are Linux and (b) I don't have Office 365 or a SFB business account. I can run Windows in a VM though, so purchasing is a possibility.

Clinging to the faint hope that, as it is a Unix systems administration role, they will be impressed that I run entirely on Linux. ("Wow this guy must know Linux, he uses it 24/7!"). Or will it be "what a dolt! He can't even use his own PC!"

Unless they agree to Zoom, I'll be forking out £60.

For the record, no purchase is needed to join a Skype for Business meeting from Linux. I ran a virtual windows 10 machine and within that, opened up the invitation email in Firefox->Outlook.com. Expand the event by clicking the double arrow head. The "Join Skype Meeting" is revealed. Click it and the Skype web app downloads and runs (within the Windows VM, it isn't available for Linux). Hey presto you are in the meeting. Make sure windows permissions allow access to the camera and mike, eg. by running a basic recording/camera app.

[Andy Hallett]

I have a Zoom Pro account now, when I just needed something basic and free I used https://whereby.com/

[northernladuk]

Substitution - great for any future IR35 investigation! Make sure you have it documented.

Outsourcing is not substitution :

[Paralytic]

The only one I've managed to get my Mum using is whereby. Even then I had to stop her downloading and printing a manual so that she could find the '/' key (actually I outsourced that to my brother)/

Substitution - great for any future IR35 investigation! Make sure you have it documented.

[Old Greg]

It's actually not - my go to none technical people (i.e. my wife and parents) all found teams easier to use

The only one I've managed to get my Mum using is whereby. Even then I had to stop her downloading and printing a manual so that she could find the '/' key (actually I outsourced that to my brother)/

[PerfectStorm]

WebEx: the (kinda) original and best, well polished, increasingly rare
Teams: kinda OK, until you want to start multitasking with it. Often free with MS stuff. External people often have trouble connecting to the voice element.
Skype: Dying, but survives even in some companies that have Teams, with some staff on one, some on the other or both
Zoom: Installed by contractors often as an alternative to filling in 10 forms to get Webex/Teams installed. Not strictly speaking in accordance with IT regs, but who cares
Discord: Used by more developer-y times and in some companies with a mixture of different suppliers. Don't normally need to visit IT for access. Usually no one bothers to boot you out of the group after you leave.

[unixman]

Interview next week. Hooray! I am expecting the familiar "it will be on Skype", meaning Skype for business.

Now I have Skype personal, and Zoom. But my heart sinks when they say "Skype for business" because (a) all my home systems are Linux and (b) I don't have Office 365 or a SFB business account. I can run Windows in a VM though, so purchasing is a possibility.

Clinging to the faint hope that, as it is a Unix systems administration role, they will be impressed that I run entirely on Linux. ("Wow this guy must know Linux, he uses it 24/7!"). Or will it be "what a dolt! He can't even use his own PC!"

Unless they agree to Zoom, I'll be forking out £60.

[LondonManc]

We're using Teams for more formal stuff and discord for general chit chat (text and voice).

[MonkeysUncle]

Zoom and party time are no way secure. Your data is used elsewhere. All my clients who are major companies use teams and who have invested into 365. 365 is gaining a lot of momentum especially in large organisations where they were worried about the data being held in the cloud.

All my interviews are done by teams.

+1 This

It was the MOD who petitioned (if thats the right word) Microsoft to build the UK data centres so they could start using O365.

Been rolling out Office 365 and Teams across various public sector gigs and it meets more security checks than NHS own mail solution (NHS Mail). Zoom is shiny and pretty but will be forgotten about just as quickly.

[sal]

Zoom is gaining ground rapidly. I never liked Skype but Teams seems even worse. I wouldn't be surprised if Zoom took over for all interviews and non-confidential use because it is so easy to use. I've had Skype and Teams meetings fail quite often in the past. If IT staff can't use them effectively what chance has everyone else got?

The fact is that Teams is effectively free for most large enterprises that are firmly in MSFT's grip, even if it's inferior to Zoom (which it really isn't, or at least not in a significant way) it's hard to beat "free"

[cosmic]

As with a lot of these things Webex is brilliant if it actually works but getting it to work can be blooming painful (especially if you need to get it working in a hurry). If you are organised though, Webex is good.

It's funny how an individuals view of the world is used by them to paint the whole world in a colour not recognisable to others. It reminds me of when someone says "how can you not have seen that, it was all over social media!!" without realising what they are consuming is largely self-selected content.

In my view of the world, Zoom is the new toy in town. I've had a very limited number of clients using Teams.

That's not necessarily borne out by market share, however:

Top 10 Collaboration Software Vendors, Market Size and Market Forecast 2018-2023

Zoom and party time are no way secure. Your data is used elsewhere. All my clients who are major companies use teams and who have invested into 365. 365 is gaining a lot of momentum especially in large organisations where they were worried about the data being held in the cloud.

All my interviews are done by teams.

[eek]

I'm not sure if it's true but a psychiatrist friend said Skype wasn't secure enough for consultations so she uses Zoom.

That's about the reverse of reality. Zoom sends facebook a record of all calls made. So that psychiatrist has just told Facebook that all her clients have psychological issues.

And Zoom has a lot of security issues, many created in their rush to make things easy to use (their mac installer is almost malware in it's own right ss Zoom quickly fixes ‘malware-like’ macOS installer with new update - The Verge).

[woohoo]

Used teams for an international meet and worked well. Used Skype in the past with mixed success.

Use slack a fair bit for calls and its fine.

I'm not sure if it's true but a psychiatrist friend said Skype wasn't secure enough for consultations so she uses Zoom.

[eek]

I've used Zoom a few times over the years, and even have an account that I will activate the subscription on about once in a blue moon.

I don't use personal Skype (which still exists, confusingly) and do use Teams for work on a daily basis. Some clients have a hybrid of Teams and Skype (old ClientCo used Skype for messaging and Teams for the other stuff).

Another tool I've used, and also have an account for, is Cisco Webex which I think, from a purely video conferencing perspective, seems to work the most seamlessly.

As with a lot of these things Webex is brilliant if it actually works but getting it to work can be blooming painful (especially if you need to get it working in a hurry). If you are organised though, Webex is good.