Coronavirus outbreak: Tools that let you work, study from home

Webex registers traffic boom
Cisco owned-Webex which makes video-conferencing applications has seen a spike in traffic since the spread of the Coronavirus with companies asking employees to work from home. Sri Srinivasan, senior vice president and general manager for the Team Collaboration Group at Cisco, said the company saw a 22-times increase in traffic to Webex from Japan, Singapore, and South Korea after the Lunar New Year celebrations in China.

Zoho builds Remote CRM Tool Suite

The cloud-based application maker said it has released a suite of products that allow remote working. The company has packaged eleven of its tools including those used for word processing, making presentations, spreadsheets and project management tools – the suite is meant to target smaller companies and startups which have not invested in remote working tools and which may want an alternative from Google and Microsoft’s products.

Zoom Shares see a Spike

Virtual meetings app Zoom is also seeing an unprecedented increase in usage as shares of the company also see a rapid rise with executives from Chinese firms collaborating from home with usage from China growing. The chief financial officer of the company, Kelly Steckelberg said that the adoption of the app has significantly risen. The company has lifted the 40-minute time limit on the app for users in are China and has been extending the service to education institutions in the US on request.

Google Extends Advanced Tools from G-Suite

Google’s CEO Sundar Pichai said earlier this month that the company would give free access to “advanced” G Suite features that allow businesses and schools to connect to employees and students from home. Some of these advanced features include live-streaming facilities with up to 250 participants. The feature will be free for businesses and schools till July 1, he said. While Google is yet to make it mandatory to work from home in India, the internet firm has allowed over 100,000 people in US and Europe to do remote working using its hangouts to collaborate with colleagues.

Microsoft Teams Expects More Live Document Collaboration, File Storage

The Microsoft Teams platform used for workplace chat, video meeting and file storage is also seeing higher usage. The company expects live document collaborations to increase among its enterprise clients due to the spread of the pandemic and is now offering an upgrade on file storage. Earlier, the free Teams app had limits on file storage and the ability to record meetings, which have been lifted off since March 10 allowing a free six-month trial of the more adavnced version of the app.

Cloud Telephony Allows Homebased Mobile Call Centres

Hyderabad-headquartered cloud telephony company, Ozonetel has started offering the option to its clients to switch their call centres into work-from home models without letting prospective customers know that the call is being taken from home. It offers an ‘offline mode’ option which allows call centre agents and sales personnel to route calls to their mobile phones instead of them taking calls via desktop.