Author: Security – Computerworld

Microsoft introduces Phi-4, an AI model for advanced reasoning tasks

December 13, 2024 /

Microsoft has announced Phi-4 — a new AI model with 14 billion parameters — designed for complex reasoning tasks, including mathematics. Phi-4 excels in areas such as STEM question-answering and advanced problem-solving, surpassing similar models in performance.

Phi-4, part of the Phi small language models (SLMs), is currently available on Azure AI Foundry under the Microsoft Research License Agreement and will launch on Hugging Face next week, the company said in a blog.

The company emphasized that Phi-4’s design focuses on improving accuracy through enhanced training and data curation.

To put into perspective, large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT 4 and Google Gemini Ultra operate with hundreds of billions of parameters.

“Phi-4 outperforms comparable and even larger models on tasks like mathematical reasoning, thanks to a training process that combines synthetic datasets, curated organic data, and innovative post-training techniques,” Microsoft said in its announcement.

How does it stack up against competitors?

The model leverages a new training approach that integrates multi-agent prompting workflows and data-driven innovations to enhance its reasoning efficiency. The accompanying report highlights that Phi-4 balances size and performance, challenging the industry norm of prioritizing larger models.

“The goal with Phi-4 is to explore the efficiency of smaller models while maintaining accuracy,” Microsoft researchers noted in the technical documentation.

Microsoft’s Phi-4 competes directly with models such as OpenAI’s GPT-4o Mini, Anthropic’s Claude 3 Haiku, and Google’s Gemini 1.5 Flash, each catering to specific applications in the small language model landscape.

While GPT-4o Mini is designed for cost-efficient customer support and operations requiring large context windows, Claude 3 Haiku excels in summarization and extracting insights from complex legal or unstructured documents. Meanwhile, Gemini 1.5 Flash offers better performance in multimodal applications, thanks to its ability to handle massive context windows, such as analyzing video, audio, and extensive text datasets.

Phi-4 achieved a score of 80.4 on the MATH benchmark and has surpassed other systems in problem-solving and reasoning evaluations, according to the technical report accompanying the release.

This makes it particularly appealing for domain-specific applications requiring precision, like scientific computation or advanced STEM problem-solving.

Focus on responsible AI

Microsoft emphasized its commitment to ethical AI development, integrating advanced safety measures into Phi-4. The model benefits from Azure AI Content Safety features such as prompt shields, protected material detection, and real-time application monitoring. These features, Microsoft explained, help users address risks like adversarial prompts and data security threats during AI deployment.

The company also reiterated that Azure AI Foundry, the platform hosting Phi-4, offers tools to measure and mitigate AI risks. Developers using the platform can evaluate and improve their models through built-in metrics and custom safety evaluations, Microsoft added.

Broader implications

Phi-4’s efficiency and reasoning capabilities may prompt organizations to reconsider the relationship between model size and performance. The release is expected to play a role in advancing applications requiring precise reasoning, from scientific computations to enterprise automation.

With Phi-4, Microsoft continues to evolve its AI offerings while promoting responsible use through robust safeguards. Industry watchers will observe how this approach shapes adoption in critical fields where reasoning and security are paramount.

Scale AI sued by former worker alleging unlawful business practices

December 12, 2024 /

A new class action lawsuit alleges poor working conditions and exploitive behavior by AI data processing company Scale AI, saying that workers responsible for generating much of its product were mischaracterized by the company as independent contractors, rather than full employees.

Scale A’s services include providing the human labor to label the data used in training AI models and in shaping their responses to queries. For instance, a worker might label images from a car’s LIDAR detector to help create an AI that more accurately identifies objects.

To get this kind of human input, according to a complaint filed Tuesday in the Superior Court of California, Scale AI outsources work through services like Outlier, where named plaintiff Steve McKinney worked until June. Tasks for Scale AI, the complaint alleges, were assigned algorithmically, with payments reduced or denied for projects that exceeded a designated time limit. McKinney’s suit said that this amounts to a bait-and-switch in terms of promised compensation. In addition, it noted, workers were not paid for peripheral functions such as reviewing project guidelines, seeking clarification, or attending required training webinars.

Moreover, the subject matter of many prompts, some of which involved suicidal ideation and violence, among other disturbing topics, coupled with restrictions from Scale AI around break times and outside research, created a grueling, authoritarian workplace in which workers could be terminated for complaining about working conditions, payments, or company processes, the complaint said.

Additionally, the suit says that McKinney and the many others in his position were misclassified under California law as independent contractors, rather than employees. Generally speaking, employers have fewer legal responsibilities to independent contractors than they have to full employees, who are more likely to be subject to state and federal laws about overtime payment, among other things.

California’s legal standard for deciding which workers are independent contractors and which are employees is fairly strict, and is referred to as an ABC test, for its three-pronged nature. According to the California Labor and Workforce Development Agency, workers are employees unless they are free from the control and direction of the hiring entity, are doing work outside the usual course of the hiring entity’s business, and are “customarily engaged” in an independent business of the type they’re being hired for. None of those standards, the lawsuit argues, are met in the case of McKinney and the other Scale AI workers in his position.

“Sordid underbelly”

“Scale AI is the sordid underbelly propping up the generative AI industry,” said the suit filed on McKinney’s behalf by the Clarkson Law Firm, based in Malibu, California. The firm has been at the forefront of civil litigation against the tech industry where AI is concerned, appearing for multiple plaintiffs in cases around copyright, privacy, and more.

Ryan Clarkson, the firm’s managing partner, said that the rapid growth of generative AI as a business has had corrosive effects on tech workers around the world.

“Scale AI has built its business on a model of exploitation, relying on thousands of workers from across the globe to be paid less than a living wage to train AI applications for hours on end,” he said in a statement. “These workers operate under strict company control and are being cheated out of labor code protections. It’s unlawful and unacceptable.”

Scale AI’s marketing materials advertise that it works with some of the biggest players in the AI space, including Microsoft, Meta, Alphabet, and Nvidia, although none of these companies had responded to requests for comment about the matter by the time this article was published. Earlier this year, Scale AI shut down its RemoteTasks subsidiary in several countries, including Nigeria, Kenya and Pakistan, without notice to its regular gig workers in those countries.

Scale AI under fire in suit filed by former worker alleging unlawful business practices

December 12, 2024 /

A new class action lawsuit alleges poor working conditions and “exploitive” behavior by AI data processing company Scale AI, saying that workers responsible for generating much of its product were mischaracterized by the company as independent contractors, rather than full employees.

Scale AI’s core business centers on using human input to label and shape AI responses to queries, helping to make responses more accurate and usable. For instance, a worker might label images from a car’s LIDAR detector to help create an AI that more accurately identifies objects.

To get this kind of human input, according to a complaint filed Tuesday in the Superior Court of California, Scale AI outsources work through services like Outlier, where named plaintiff Steve McKinney worked until June. Tasks for Scale AI, the complaint alleges, were assigned algorithmically, with payments reduced or denied for projects that exceeded a designated time limit. McKinney’s suit said that this amounts to a bait-and-switch in terms of promised compensation. In addition, it noted, workers were not paid for peripheral functions such as reviewing project guidelines, seeking clarification, or attending required training webinars.

Moreover, the subject matter of many prompts, some of which involved suicidal ideation and violence, among other disturbing topics, coupled with restrictions from Scale AI around break times and outside research, created a grueling, authoritarian workplace in which workers could be terminated for complaining about working conditions, payments, or company processes, the complaint said.

Additionally, the suit says that McKinney and the many others in his position were misclassified under California law as independent contractors, rather than employees. Generally speaking, employers have fewer legal responsibilities to independent contractors than they have to full employees, who are more likely to be subject to state and federal laws about overtime payment, among other things.

California’s legal standard for deciding which workers are independent contractors and which are employees is fairly strict, and is referred to as an ABC test, for its three-pronged nature. According to the California Labor and Workforce Development Agency, workers are employees unless they are free from the control and direction of the hiring entity, are doing work outside the usual course of the hiring entity’s business, and are “customarily engaged” in an independent business of the type they’re being hired for. None of those standards, the lawsuit argues, are met in the case of McKinney and the other Scale AI workers in his position.

The suit, which describes Scale AI as the “sordid underbelly propping up the generative AI industry”, was filed on McKinney’s behalf by the Clarkson Law Firm, based in Malibu, California. The firm has been at the forefront of civil litigation against the tech industry where AI is concerned, appearing for multiple plaintiffs in cases around copyright, privacy, and more.

Ryan Clarkson, the firm’s managing partner, said that the rapid growth of generative AI as a business has had corrosive effects on tech workers around the world.

“Scale AI has built its business on a model of exploitation, relying on thousands of workers from across the globe to be paid less than a living wage to train AI applications for hours on end,” he said in a statement. “These workers operate under strict company control and are being cheated out of labor code protections. It’s unlawful and unacceptable.”

Scale AI’s marketing materials advertise that it works with some of the biggest players in the AI space, including Microsoft, Meta, Alphabet, and Nvidia, although none of these companies had responded to requests for comment about the matter by the time this article was published. Earlier this year, Scale AI shut down its RemoteTasks subsidiary in several countries, including Nigeria, Kenya and Pakistan, without notice to its regular gig workers in those countries.

Microsoft: No support or updates for Windows 11 PCs without minimum hardware requirements

December 12, 2024 /

Microsoft has offered a miniscule concession to users determined to install Windows 11 on PCs that don’t meet its minimum hardware requirements: you will be able to do it, but on your own head be it should things go wrong.

The apparent moderation of its previously hardline upgrade policy appeared on a support page update which lists the numerous disadvantages of pressing ahead with a Windows 11 on an unsupported system.

These include unspecified compatibility problems, and a watermark noting a PC’s non-compliant status that will appear on the Windows 11 desktop. More significantly, it states:

“If you proceed with installing Windows 11, your PC will no longer be supported and won’t be entitled to receive updates.”

This is unambiguous – no security updates. And that’s in addition to the rather alarming warning that any “damages to your PC due to a lack of compatibility aren’t covered under the manufacturer warranty.”

Those are serious gotchas, the same ones Microsoft has been warning about for some time. Only a week ago, a blog by Microsoft senior program manager Steven Hosking described the most important element of the Windows 11 requirements, support for Trusted Platform Module (TPM) 2.0, as “non-negotiable.” That remains the case.

Not sugarcoating it

What has changed? Despite some optimistic news reporting on this issue, nothing. Microsoft doesn’t want users to upgrade to Windows 11 on unsupported hardware, but is now acknowledging that some people will push ahead regardless. That being so, it wants to tell them what might happen, so they can’t say they weren’t warned.

The date Windows 10 is due to stop receiving updates, Oct. 14, 2025, remains the same. Upgrading to Windows 11 without meeting the hardware requirements won’t change the negative consequences of this. Nor does the update explain how users can bypass the minimum requirements, should they choose to do so.

Importantly, users who regret upgrading will only have ten days to revert to Windows 10. After that, the files enabling this function will be deleted to save disk space, and the “go back” button in Recovery options will disappear.

Microsoft also doesn’t elaborate on what it means by Windows 11 “compatibility issues,” so this is a matter of guesswork. However, it’s possible to imagine that new features that assume a TPM is available could cause instability on a machine lacking this facility. It could also affect drivers for older hardware no longer supported in Windows 11, although this would be likely to be an issue over the longer term.

Meet the TPM

Microsoft’s minimum requirements for Windows 11 cover several hardware components, including having enough RAM and a powerful enough microprocessor. But the most contentious issue is whether a PC contains or supports a Trusted Platform Module (TPM), specifically version 2.0, released in 2014.

A TPM is a secure enclave for storing data such as cryptographic keys, certificates, and biometric information fundamental for the security of a PC, including those required for low level PC checks such as Secure Boot, or for the use of Microsoft’s BitLocker in its more secure mode. Having one is somewhere between a good idea and essential, as more and more software systems going forward assume one will be there at the root of trust. For a summary of the arguments in favor of upgrading to a system with TPM 2.0, Hosking’s blog is a good place to start.

When it comes to TPMs and Windows, PCs divide into three categories, the first of which supports the functionality using a TPM 2.0 chip installed on the motherboard. The second doesn’t have a TPM chip, but can either have one installed using a chip upgrade kit from the motherboard vendor or can have TPM enabled through firmware at UEFI level. The third are PCs that don’t support either option, which means they can’t be upgraded to Windows 11 without a registry hack.

Intel and AMD PCs from about 2017 onwards should support a hardware or software TPM 2.0, while earlier ones going back to Intel’s Skylake 6th generation in 2015 might do so, depending on the specific processor and support at motherboard and UEFI level.

Extended support

For anyone who doesn’t want the risk of a Windows 11 upgrade on unsupported hardware, or just prefers Windows 10, after October 2025 the most secure option will be to pay for an Extended Security Updates (ESU) subscription at an unconfirmed cost of $30 per annum for individuals. That way, updates won’t disappear abruptly, putting the PC in peril as vulnerabilities pile up over time.

Not surprisingly, a lot of users are happy with the status quo and don’t feel they should be forced to upgrade to Windows 11 or to pay to remain on Windows 10. This, arguably, is Microsoft’s fault. It hasn’t always clearly explained the benefits of its minimum requirement. That, unfortunately, includes explaining why TPM 2.0 is a good idea, and how its software increasingly depends on it for security.

Apple updates MDM tools for new Apple Intelligence features

December 12, 2024 /

Apple has introduced significant improvements for enterprise IT admins in the newly-released iOS 18.2, including the power to manage the latest salvo of additional Apple Intelligence features and more.  Here’s a swift look at what’s new.

Giving you control of Apple Intelligence

Apple’s approach to generative AI (genAI) is all about combining convenience with privacy. That means it has built large language models (LLMs) that work on the device, supplemented by highly secure cloud-based models that use highly secure Apple servers in data centers, and partnerships with third-party services to handle tasks the company’s own models can’t accommodate.

That last thing — use of third-party services — is where some Apple customers might need reassurance. That’s because people might at times share what should be confidential data with these services, which could place companies or individuals at risk of running afoul of data protection laws. Apple has only one genAI partner at this time, OpenAI, and to help mitigate such issues the ChatGPT developer says it does not keep private information pertaining to a request. With cloud queries heavily encrypted, Apple keeps no information at all, which is part of the attraction of using its own LLM models, and users can choose not to work with ChatGPT at all, if they prefer.

But what about unauthorized use of ChatGPT? Or even Apple’s own genAI models? Is there any way a data security-conscious company can try to protect its data against unauthorized sharing?

Now, there is. Starting in iOS 18.2, Apple has, as promised, introduced tools that let Mobile Device Management (MDM) services manage all the latest Apple Intelligence integrations, including ChatGPT, which itself includes search.

What this means is that IT admins can permit use of some, none, or all of the available Apple Intelligence tools, including the capacity to generate images in Image Playground. How this control is made available will likely differ between MDM providers, but you should see tools to manage iOS 18.2’s newly-added Apple Intelligence features arrive in your management console soon. Apple introduced MDM controls for Writing tools, Mail summarization, phone call recoding, and hiding apps in iOS 18.1.

Setting a default browser

While it took time to be convinced, Apple is beginning to allow people to use more browsers than before, potentially opening up competition in the browser industry. The thing is, not all browsers are created equal and it’s possible that some companies might require employees to use a specific browser on a managed device. This has now been made possible with an MDM tool that lets admins set a default browser and prevent users from modifying that browser, or choosing an alternative. (This should help companies maintain specified browser security policies, for example.)

What else is new?

These additions supplement an earlier wave of enterprise-focused admin enhancements introduced with iOS 18.1. 

  • Hardware-based MFA in Safari is now more reliable when used with security keys.
  • You can disable RCS messages on managed devices — essential, given the standard doesn’t yet support encryption.
  • It is possible to prevent users from deactivating VPN use on a per-app basis.
  • Admins can prevent apps from being locked or hidden by users.
  • Service discovery in enrollment can request well-known resources from alternative locations specified by MDM 

Tell it from the rooftops

Each time Apple makes one of these iterative enhancements for enterprise deployments of its devices, it shows the extent to which it now deeply supports enterprise markets. If I’m honest, the company should try to make more out of this, particularly as its approach toward building an ecosystem for trusted AI marries so well and so deeply with its existing reputation around security, ease-of-use, customer satisfaction, employee loyalty and TCO advantages in contrast to other platforms. 

But for most admins, the critical piece in the company’s most recent MDM updates will likely be the control it gives them over Apple Intelligence, which should reassure business users that limited deployment of these tools can be accomplished in a deliberate and responsible manner.

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Kazakhstan’s Carpet CCTV: Pioneering the future of AI-powered public safety

December 12, 2024 /

In a world where technology increasingly shapes how cities manage safety and security, Kazakhstan’s Ministry of Internal Affairs is leading the way with its groundbreaking “Carpet CCTV” project. This ambitious initiative has revolutionized public safety by combining a massive surveillance network with advanced analytics and artificial intelligence, creating a system that shifts the focus from reactive responses to proactive prevention.

Over the past four years, the scope of Kazakhstan’s surveillance infrastructure has expanded dramatically. The number of cameras has grown from just 40,500 to an impressive 1.3 million, with 313,000 cameras now directly accessible to police. These cameras are strategically positioned to monitor key areas, enhancing law enforcement’s ability to detect, prevent, and respond to incidents in real time. The system has already shown its effectiveness: since early 2024, it has detected over 8,200 criminal offenses and recorded 7.1 million traffic violations, resulting in significant improvements in public safety and road management.

At the heart of this transformation is the use of artificial intelligence. By integrating cutting-edge technologies such as facial recognition, license plate detection, and crowd monitoring, the system provides actionable insights that allow authorities to address risks before they escalate. For example, facial recognition capabilities enable real-time identification of persons of interest, while AI-powered traffic monitoring contributes to improved road safety and generates public revenue through fines. These features highlight the system’s ability to go beyond passive recording, transforming it into a dynamic tool for crime prevention and urban management.

The implementation of the Carpet CCTV project, however, was not without challenges. Managing the enormous volume of data generated by over a million high-definition cameras required significant upgrades in communication networks and data storage infrastructure. The integration of public and private camera networks demanded a unified approach to data sharing and management, while privacy concerns necessitated robust regulatory frameworks to ensure citizen trust. Through a combination of strategic planning, public-private partnerships, and transparent communication, the Ministry successfully addressed these obstacles, setting a model for other nations to follow.

One of the project’s most significant achievements lies in its deterrent effect. Administrative offenses, such as public disturbances, have decreased sharply, indicating that the visible presence of surveillance cameras is influencing behavior. This demonstrates the power of technology not just to react to incidents, but to prevent them altogether. Furthermore, the use of video evidence has increased case resolution rates, further solidifying the system’s impact on law enforcement effectiveness.

Looking ahead, Kazakhstan plans to build on the success of Carpet CCTV by expanding its geographic coverage and enhancing its analytical capabilities. New developments will focus on leveraging advanced AI to improve the accuracy and scope of surveillance, while also incorporating adaptive privacy measures to protect civil liberties. This forward-thinking approach ensures the system remains at the forefront of public safety technology, balancing innovation with accountability.

Kazakhstan’s Carpet CCTV project represents more than just an investment in technology—it’s a vision for smarter, safer cities. By blending state-of-the-art solutions with thoughtful governance, the Ministry of Internal Affairs has created a system that not only addresses today’s challenges but also lays the groundwork for a secure and sustainable future.

For those interested in learning more about this transformative initiative, the full spotlight paper offers an in-depth exploration of the strategies and technologies behind its success.

Kazakhstan’s Carpet CCTV: Pioneering the Future of AI-Powered Public Safety

December 12, 2024 /

In a world where technology increasingly shapes how cities manage safety and security, Kazakhstan’s Ministry of Internal Affairs is leading the way with its groundbreaking “Carpet CCTV” project. This ambitious initiative has revolutionized public safety by combining a massive surveillance network with advanced analytics and artificial intelligence, creating a system that shifts the focus from reactive responses to proactive prevention.

Over the past four years, the scope of Kazakhstan’s surveillance infrastructure has expanded dramatically. The number of cameras has grown from just 40,500 to an impressive 1.3 million, with 313,000 cameras now directly accessible to police. These cameras are strategically positioned to monitor key areas, enhancing law enforcement’s ability to detect, prevent, and respond to incidents in real time. The system has already shown its effectiveness: since early 2024, it has detected over 8,200 criminal offenses and recorded 7.1 million traffic violations, resulting in significant improvements in public safety and road management.

At the heart of this transformation is the use of artificial intelligence. By integrating cutting-edge technologies such as facial recognition, license plate detection, and crowd monitoring, the system provides actionable insights that allow authorities to address risks before they escalate. For example, facial recognition capabilities enable real-time identification of persons of interest, while AI-powered traffic monitoring contributes to improved road safety and generates public revenue through fines. These features highlight the system’s ability to go beyond passive recording, transforming it into a dynamic tool for crime prevention and urban management.

The implementation of the Carpet CCTV project, however, was not without challenges. Managing the enormous volume of data generated by over a million high-definition cameras required significant upgrades in communication networks and data storage infrastructure. The integration of public and private camera networks demanded a unified approach to data sharing and management, while privacy concerns necessitated robust regulatory frameworks to ensure citizen trust. Through a combination of strategic planning, public-private partnerships, and transparent communication, the Ministry successfully addressed these obstacles, setting a model for other nations to follow.

One of the project’s most significant achievements lies in its deterrent effect. Administrative offenses, such as public disturbances, have decreased sharply, indicating that the visible presence of surveillance cameras is influencing behavior. This demonstrates the power of technology not just to react to incidents, but to prevent them altogether. Furthermore, the use of video evidence has increased case resolution rates, further solidifying the system’s impact on law enforcement effectiveness.

Looking ahead, Kazakhstan plans to build on the success of Carpet CCTV by expanding its geographic coverage and enhancing its analytical capabilities. New developments will focus on leveraging advanced AI to improve the accuracy and scope of surveillance, while also incorporating adaptive privacy measures to protect civil liberties. This forward-thinking approach ensures the system remains at the forefront of public safety technology, balancing innovation with accountability.

Kazakhstan’s Carpet CCTV project represents more than just an investment in technology—it’s a vision for smarter, safer cities. By blending state-of-the-art solutions with thoughtful governance, the Ministry of Internal Affairs has created a system that not only addresses today’s challenges but also lays the groundwork for a secure and sustainable future.

For those interested in learning more about this transformative initiative, the full spotlight paper offers an in-depth exploration of the strategies and technologies behind its success.

Enterprise buyer’s guide: How to choose videoconferencing software

December 12, 2024 /

When most businesspeople think of videoconferencing software, the first thing that comes to mind is probably Microsoft Teams or Zoom, but there are many other choices, each with its own strengths. Sometimes the choice of what tool to use comes down to what’s standard corporate issue — more often than not, that’s Teams — but it’s not uncommon for businesses to use a mix of tools.

“Some organizations don’t want to be reliant on Microsoft for everything, or sometimes an executive likes another tool better,” says Will McKeon-White, senior analyst for unified communications and conversational AI at Forrester Research.

[ Download our editors’ PDF videoconferencing software buyer’s guide today! ]

In this buyer’s guide

  • Videoconferencing software: What it is, why enterprises need it
  • Current trends in videoconferencing software
  • What to look for in videoconferencing software
  • Before you shop: Key questions to ask yourself and your stakeholders
  • Key questions to ask videoconferencing vendors
  • 14 videoconferencing tools to consider
  • Essential reading

Videoconferencing software: What it is, why enterprises need it

Videoconferencing services enable users to conduct online video meetings with one or more people who may join the call from their computers, phones, tablets, and room conferencing systems. They integrate with calendaring software for scheduling purposes, and usually include an audio call-in option, screen-sharing capabilities, and nonverbal communication features such as text chat, whiteboarding, and the ability to add reaction emojis.

Business-grade tools also allow for administrative controls that restrict who can join and what can be shared, and offer enhanced security features such as multifactor authentication (MFA), bring your own key (BYOK) end-to-end encryption, and single sign-on (SSO). Many videoconferencing systems integrate with conference room video hardware from the same vendor and/or third-party vendors.

Videoconferencing software has long been a useful tool for remote employees who needed to engage with their teams, and it was a nice-to-have for communicating with customers and partners when face-to-face meetings were impractical. Then, in 2020, everything changed. Videoconferencing rose to critical infrastructure status when, during the COVID-19 pandemic, nearly all office employees suddenly found themselves working from home. Licensing of videoconferencing software and services soared — Zoom nearly doubled its revenue in 2021 — and innovation increased as vendors competed for a piece of a much larger pie. The software saw rapid improvements as vendors raced to add new features, including better audio and video quality and enhanced security.

Nearly five years later, large numbers of employees have returned to the office, but many still telecommute one or more days per week. Videoconferencing software remains an essential part of business communications.

Current trends in videoconferencing software

Nowadays, videoconferencing software may seem like a well-defined, mature product space, but change is still afoot. “The weird thing about the videoconferencing software market is that it’s being subsumed into unified communications [UC],” says McKeon-White.

IDC’s term for this software category is unified communications and collaboration (UC&C), which the research firm describes as “an advanced telephony solution integrated with messaging (i.e., email, voice, and fax), instant messaging (IM) or chat, presence, and conferencing platforms for web conferencing, audioconferencing, and/or videoconferencing.” Many UC&C suites include additional collaboration features such as file sharing and virtual whiteboards. And while chat sessions in traditional, standalone videoconferencing systems typically end when the call terminates, vendor-hosted UC as a service (UCaaS) systems often include persistent chat functions that continue even after a videoconferencing session ends.

Like Forrester, IDC says most standalone videoconferencing software is being folded into larger UC&C suites. Videoconferencing apps are also found in productivity app suites such as Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace, which is one reason why Microsoft Teams has dominated the space. It has a 44.7% share of the $69 billion UC&C software market, according to IDC, while Zoom, its nearest competitor, sits at 6.4%.

That domination was also driven by the fact that, until this year, Microsoft bundled Teams with most Microsoft 365 licenses. “That got pushback from regulators,” Forrester’s McKeon-White says, so now new enterprise customers must pay $5.25 per user per month for Teams as an add-on. “But most companies already have Teams now and can purchase it through existing licenses,” he adds.

Innovative AI-based features such as real-time transcription, text insertion, and multiparty translation have also changed the user experience, according to McKeon-White. With some products, “each user can see a translation of what’s said in their native language through captioning. That’s happening now,” he says.

Another feature, image upscaling, sends lower-resolution audio and video to other participants’ devices, which can then “upscale” the quality. “It’s much easier now to have a smooth experience over poor connections,” McKeon-White says.

Finally, emerging AI features are “closing the loop between what users say in a videoconferencing session and action items,” he says. For example, if a participant needs to look up an account record in the CRM system to determine its status, “a bot says, ‘Would you like me to do that for you?’ or it identifies that it needs to be done and pulls the record right into the conversation.” It can do so by rendering the CRM interface right into a chat window or by extracting the information and presenting it.

Early experiments with AI didn’t go well because the AI didn’t comprehend exactly what people were asking in conversation, but the technology has seen “massive improvements” of late, McKeon-White says. While vendors are still experimenting with this function, you can expect to see more and better capabilities like this going forward, he says.

What to look for in videoconferencing software

Every vendor offers similar features, but the user experience can vary significantly. Consider both user familiarity with a given tool and whether the user experience is “good enough.” If it doesn’t meet expectations, some users may turn to more familiar, easy-to-use options such as Zoom.

“I see standardization on Teams,” McKeon-White says, but sometimes an exception is better for the business, such as when communicating with people in external organizations who use different software.

While a company standard is good to have, there’s no reason to force everyone to use one videoconferencing service exclusively, says Jitesh Gera, research manager for UC&C at IDC. It’s OK to opt for different tool choices that meet the needs of each kind of user, such as for sales, customer service, developers, or IT.

Consider whether a given tool is the dominant one in your industry. For example, Zoom has a big footprint in healthcare and financial services, for Cisco it’s government, GoTo is the preference for IT teams because of its advanced screen-share capabilities, and Microsoft is virtually everywhere, says McKeon-White. And some tools offer Slack integration that lets users keep an audio or video line open while working on their own screens. That “more Discord-like experience” is a plus for software development teams, he says.

Also, consider how well a product fits in with your UC&C suite, and what new and innovative AI-based features may be available or planned.

Finally, the videoconferencing software you choose needs to integrate well with your existing meeting room conferencing systems. “Companies have started to prioritize AI meeting room videoconferencing capabilities such as adaptive speaker framing [which zooms in on the participant who’s talking], multiple camera layouts, and virtual meeting zones,” which are the top three factors when choosing a UC&C system, says Gera.

Before you shop: Key questions to ask yourself and your stakeholders

  • Do you already have software that you can use for videoconferencing? For example, is there a videoconferencing component in your UC&C suite?
  • Are there needs that aren’t being met by your current solution? Is the tool currently in use easy to use, or do users dislike the user experience so much that they turn to other videoconferencing options?
  • What types of communication needs does your organization have? Do they include internal only or also internal-to-external partners and customers? Are there specific needs for certain groups, such as sales, finance, IT, or software engineering?
  • What types of room conferencing system hardware do you have and what are the compatibility options for videoconferencing software?
  • What’s your budget?

Key questions to ask videoconferencing vendors

  • How effective is the videoconferencing software at enhancing productivity and collaboration? Do you have any metrics?
  • In what ways is the experience better than the product(s) my organization already has?
  • Is the software easy to use? How many clicks does it take to start a meeting?
  • Does it support screen sharing?
  • Is there a whiteboard function?
  • Are there browser, desktop, and mobile app options?
  • Does it integrate with my organization’s calendaring system and other key systems, such as our project management software?
  • Does it integrate seamlessly with our room conferencing system hardware?
  • How do you secure it for enterprise use? Does it support SSO MFA? LDAP? Watermarking for shared documents? What type of encryption is offered? Does it support BYOK encryption?
  • What administrative and data access controls does the software offer? For example, does it offer data sensitivity labeling, and can we restrict user or group access to specific documents?
  • What regulatory compliance standards does it meet?
  • What session quality enhancements does it support (image blurring, noise suppression, image upscaling, etc.)?
  • Does it support session recording and retention policies?
  • What is the vendor’s feature road map and plan for AI evolution? “Are they too dependent on external providers for AI? If so, they may not be very innovative,” says Gera.
  • Does the software have features specifically tailored to my industry vertical?
  • Where is data associated with videoconferencing sessions routed and hosted geographically? “We’ve seen instances where traffic was routed through countries that were less than desirable,” says McKeon-White.
  • What are the uptime and reliability guarantees?
  • Does the software support hybrid on-premises/cloud deployments for high availability? For example, Microsoft offers the Survivability Branch Appliance for Teams that can keep sessions going when the cloud-based service is unavailable.
  • What are my pricing options?

14 videoconferencing tools to consider

The top four videoconferencing software products by market share are Microsoft Teams, Zoom, Cisco Webex, and Google Meet, according to IDC and Forrester. Some tools are available only as part of broader UC&C offerings. Here’s a brief summary of products from 14 vendors, listed alphabetically, that have offerings in the videoconferencing services space.

8×8 Communications Platform

8×8’s videoconferencing software is just one feature of its 8×8 Communications Platform, a UC&C offering tailored to the needs of contact centers. It includes a 99.999% service level agreement with 24×7 technical support; can live stream meetings on YouTube; includes its own mobile, desktop, and web apps; and integrates with Teams as well as major CRM and service and support applications. The 8×8 Communications Platform supports polls and virtual break-out rooms for meetings; includes an intelligent assistant; and offers administrative controls, analytics, and reporting.

Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise Rainbow

Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise, the French telecommunications hardware and software company, describes its Rainbow offering as “a secure ‘à-la-carte’ cloud-based communications and collaboration platform.” It supports meetings of up to 120 participants and 12 simultaneous video streams; is compliant with ISO 27001, GDPR, and CCPA; and can be deployed in on-premises or hybrid configurations. It offers integrations for Microsoft Teams as well as on-premises telephone systems. Other options include a system designed for use in conference rooms and another designed for virtual classrooms.

Avaya Spaces

Avaya Spaces, Avaya’s UC&C platform, includes “one-click” voice and videoconference calling as well as text chat, and supports meetings with up to 1,000 people. It’s compatible with Google, Microsoft 365, Teams, Salesforce, and Slack and offers an API for custom integrations. Spaces can record meetings, has retention policy controls, is HIPAA and GDPR compliant, and offers single sign-on and encryption for data in transit and at rest.

AI-driven features include background noise cancellation, meeting transcription, and closed captioning. Users can connect via browser, desktop, or mobile app, with user interface versions available in 26 languages.

Cisco Webex Meetings

Webex Meetings is part of Cisco’s comprehensive UC&C suite that also includes calling, event management, whiteboards, polling, messaging, webinar support, and other features. The software integrates with a wide array of general-business and vertical-specific enterprise apps.

A free version supports meeting durations of up to 40 minutes. The entry-level paid version includes an AI assistant that can translate conversations through closed captions, write messages, and summarize meetings and messages. All versions offer end-to-end encryption and HIPAA/BAA compliance; the enterprise version is FedRAMP authorized and offers bring your own key end-to-end encryption and watermarking. Cisco also sells several Webex-compatible desktop and meeting room video hardware devices.

Dialpad

Dialpad’s videoconferencing service includes enterprise, small business, and free versions, with UC&C editions designed for general business, sales, and contact centers. “Dialpad is strong in chat intelligence…business analytics…international support and real-time user insights,” according to Forrester. It integrates with Google Workspace, Microsoft 365, Microsoft Teams, and several CRM tools, and includes AI-driven meeting and call transcription, screen and meeting recording, data retention policies, and analytics and reporting functions.

Dialpad adjusts video resolution to available bandwidth for each connection to reduce video freeze-ups. It can support up to 150 participants through browser, desktop, and mobile apps. A meeting room version is also available. Session encryption and single sign-on are supported, and Dialpad is HIPAA compliant.

Google Meet

Google’s cloud-based Google Meet videoconferencing software includes a free version that supports meetings up to one hour long. The Google One Premium version includes call recording, noise cancellation, and the ability to live stream meetings on YouTube. Chat is a separate app.

The business version, bundled into the Google Workspace collaboration suite, supports longer meetings, offers higher-quality video and includes meeting recording with transcripts. It works with Google’s Gemini AI assistant (which requires a separate subscription) for real-time translation and generating meeting summaries. The enterprise version of Meet includes more advanced security features such as bring your own key end-to-end encryption.

GoTo Meeting

GoTo Meeting (formerly LogMeIn), available in business and enterprise editions, is one element in a collaboration suite of UC&C offerings that also includes GoTo Webinars and GoTo Training. The GoTo UC&C offerings fall into three categories: business communications, contact centers, and IT management and support. The vendor promotes its security and privacy features (single sign-on, end-to-end encryption, HIPAA compliance, one-time meeting passwords, meeting locking) and 99.9999% uptime SLA.

Key features include recordings and transcriptions for meetings with up to 250 participants, background noise suppression, screen sharing, drawing tools, and virtual breakout rooms. GoTo Meeting also works with H.323-enabled room conferencing systems. A14-day free trial version of GoTo Meeting Business is available.

Microsoft Teams

Microsoft’s Teams dominates in the enterprise videoconferencing space because it’s tightly integrated with Microsoft 365, the office productivity suite that many large organizations already use. Teams offers VoIP calling, webinar hosting, a whiteboard, and integration with PowerPoint, and it’s compatible with a wide range of room conferencing systems. Calls, meetings, chat sessions, and files can be encrypted.

Another element, Microsoft Mesh, creates “immersive 3D spaces” where participant avatars can interact in a virtual meeting room. The optional Microsoft 365 Copilot AI assistant can summarize, suggest action items, and provide real-time translation for videoconference and chat sessions.

Microsoft is “increasingly dictating the direction of the UCaaS market,” with many other vendors offering Teams integration, Forrester reports, although it adds that “licensing is needlessly complicated.” A basic version of Teams is available for free.

Mitel MiCollab

Videoconferencing is one element of the Mitel MiCollab UC&C suite, which includes voice, video, chat messaging, SMS messaging, web conferencing, and team collaboration tools. It can run on-site or over virtualized public or private cloud infrastructure. It integrates with the company’s business phone system offerings as well as Microsoft 365, Teams, and the Zoom Workplace Platform. MiCollab apps are available for Windows, macOS, and mobile devices.

Ooma Meetings

VoIP phone system provider Ooma offers Ooma Meetings as part of its Ooma Office Pro and Ooma Office Pro Plus collaboration and small business phone system services. It offers client software for macOS and Windows desktops as well as browser-based access. Features include a dashboard for scheduling meetings with up to 100 meeting participants, background noise cancellation, screen sharing, whiteboarding, chat, meeting recording (stored for three months), and integration with Microsoft and Google calendars.

RingCentral Video

UC&C platform vendor RingCentral offers a standalone enterprise edition of its videoconferencing offering, RingCentral Video Pro+, as well as a more limited, free version. Video Pro+ supports meetings of up to 200 participants for up to 24 hours’ duration. Features include a whiteboard, content sharing, meeting recording, a collaborative notes space, and background noise cancellation.

An AI assistant creates real-time closed captions, transcriptions, and meeting summaries. Security and administration features include end-to-end encryption, single sign-on, data retention policy controls, and usage and performance analytics. Versions for conference rooms and webinars are available as add-ons.

Vonage Meetings

Part of the Vonage Business Communications (VBC) software suite, Vonage Meetings supports meetings with up to 200 participants; includes chat, whiteboard, and recording features; integrates with both Google and Outlook calendars; and has desktop and mobile clients for macOS, Windows, iOS, and Android. Security and privacy features include support for SSO, MFA, and encryption. VBC is HIPAA and GDPR compliant.

Zoho Meeting

Zoho Meeting supports both videoconference meetings with up to 250 participants and webinars with up to 5,000 attendees for Windows, macOS, Android, and iOS devices. It integrates with the Zoho Workplace calendar and offers chat, digital whiteboards, screen sharing, session recording, virtual breakout rooms, live polls, and AI-generated meeting transcriptions and summaries.

Sessions can be streamed live on YouTube, and a version for meeting rooms is available as an add-on. It also offers session encryption and analytics for administrators. A feature-limited, free version supports up to 100 users per session for up to 60 minutes.

Zoom

Zoom, which rose to fame during the pandemic for its easy-to-use interface, remains a major player in the videoconferencing software space — Forrester says it offers a “best-in-class video experience.” Like its competitors, Zoom has expanded beyond video meetings, now offering a UC&C suite called Zoom Workplace that includes include chat, a whiteboard, meeting recording, email, a calendaring system for scheduling, and Zoom Docs, a built-in document creation tool.

While consumers may gravitate to the basic, free version, the business versions allow for longer meetings and provide an AI assistant, Zoom AI Companion, that can summarize meetings (including a catch-up summary if a user comes into a meeting late), draft messages, and provide real-time translation. Zoom Phone, the company’s VoIP telephony offering, is included with enterprise Zoom Workplace subscriptions and available as an add-on for small-business plans.

A one-year subscription to Essential Apps, a set of third-party add-ons with functions ranging from meeting summarization to gamification to virtual breakout rooms, is also included with enterprise licenses, except for organizations in government, education, and healthcare. Bring-your-own-key end-to-end encryption is a standard feature.

Essential reading

Enterprise buyer’s guide: How to choose videoconferencing software

December 12, 2024 /

When most businesspeople think of videoconferencing software, the first thing that comes to mind is probably Microsoft Teams or Zoom, but there are many other choices, each with its own strengths. Sometimes the choice of what tool to use comes down to what’s standard corporate issue — more often than not, that’s Teams — but it’s not uncommon for businesses to use a mix of tools.

“Some organizations don’t want to be reliant on Microsoft for everything, or sometimes an executive likes another tool better,” says Will McKeon-White, senior analyst for unified communications and conversational AI at Forrester Research.

In this buyer’s guide

  • Videoconferencing software: What it is, why enterprises need it
  • Current trends in videoconferencing software
  • What to look for in videoconferencing software
  • Before you shop: Key questions to ask yourself and your stakeholders
  • Key questions to ask videoconferencing vendors
  • 14 videoconferencing tools to consider

Videoconferencing software: What it is, why enterprises need it

Videoconferencing services enable users to conduct online video meetings with one or more people who may join the call from their computers, phones, tablets, and room conferencing systems. They integrate with calendaring software for scheduling purposes, and usually include an audio call-in option, screen-sharing capabilities, and nonverbal communication features such as text chat, whiteboarding, and the ability to add reaction emojis.

Business-grade tools also allow for administrative controls that restrict who can join and what can be shared, and offer enhanced security features such as multifactor authentication (MFA), bring your own key (BYOK) end-to-end encryption, and single sign-on (SSO). Many videoconferencing systems integrate with conference room video hardware from the same vendor and/or third-party vendors.

Videoconferencing software has long been a useful tool for remote employees who needed to engage with their teams, and it was a nice-to-have for communicating with customers and partners when face-to-face meetings were impractical. Then, in 2020, everything changed. Videoconferencing rose to critical infrastructure status when, during the COVID-19 pandemic, nearly all office employees suddenly found themselves working from home. Licensing of videoconferencing software and services soared — Zoom nearly doubled its revenue in 2021 — and innovation increased as vendors competed for a piece of a much larger pie. The software saw rapid improvements as vendors raced to add new features, including better audio and video quality and enhanced security.

Nearly five years later, large numbers of employees have returned to the office, but many still telecommute one or more days per week. Videoconferencing software remains an essential part of business communications.

Current trends in videoconferencing software

Nowadays, videoconferencing software may seem like a well-defined, mature product space, but change is still afoot. “The weird thing about the videoconferencing software market is that it’s being subsumed into unified communications [UC],” says McKeon-White.

IDC’s term for this software category is unified communications and collaboration (UC&C), which the research firm describes as “an advanced telephony solution integrated with messaging (i.e., email, voice, and fax), instant messaging (IM) or chat, presence, and conferencing platforms for web conferencing, audioconferencing, and/or videoconferencing.” Many UC&C suites include additional collaboration features such as file sharing and virtual whiteboards. And while chat sessions in traditional, standalone videoconferencing systems typically end when the call terminates, vendor-hosted UC as a service (UCaaS) systems often include persistent chat functions that continue even after a videoconferencing session ends.

Like Forrester, IDC says most standalone videoconferencing software is being folded into larger UC&C suites. Videoconferencing apps are also found in productivity app suites such as Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace, which is one reason why Microsoft Teams has dominated the space. It has a 44.7% share of the $69 billion UC&C software market, according to IDC, while Zoom, its nearest competitor, sits at 6.4%.

That domination was also driven by the fact that, until this year, Microsoft bundled Teams with most Microsoft 365 licenses. “That got pushback from regulators,” Forrester’s McKeon-White says, so now new enterprise customers must pay $5.25 per user per month for Teams as an add-on. “But most companies already have Teams now and can purchase it through existing licenses,” he adds.

Innovative AI-based features such as real-time transcription, text insertion, and multiparty translation have also changed the user experience, according to McKeon-White. With some products, “each user can see a translation of what’s said in their native language through captioning. That’s happening now,” he says.

Another feature, image upscaling, sends lower-resolution audio and video to other participants’ devices, which can then “upscale” the quality. “It’s much easier now to have a smooth experience over poor connections,” McKeon-White says.

Finally, emerging AI features are “closing the loop between what users say in a videoconferencing session and action items,” he says. For example, if a participant needs to look up an account record in the CRM system to determine its status, “a bot says, ‘Would you like me to do that for you?’ or it identifies that it needs to be done and pulls the record right into the conversation.” It can do so by rendering the CRM interface right into a chat window or by extracting the information and presenting it.

Early experiments with AI didn’t go well because the AI didn’t comprehend exactly what people were asking in conversation, but the technology has seen “massive improvements” of late, McKeon-White says. While vendors are still experimenting with this function, you can expect to see more and better capabilities like this going forward, he says.

What to look for in videoconferencing software

Every vendor offers similar features, but the user experience can vary significantly. Consider both user familiarity with a given tool and whether the user experience is “good enough.” If it doesn’t meet expectations, some users may turn to more familiar, easy-to-use options such as Zoom.

“I see standardization on Teams,” McKeon-White says, but sometimes an exception is better for the business, such as when communicating with people in external organizations who use different software.

While a company standard is good to have, there’s no reason to force everyone to use one videoconferencing service exclusively, says Jitesh Gera, research manager for UC&C at IDC. It’s OK to opt for different tool choices that meet the needs of each kind of user, such as for sales, customer service, developers, or IT.

Consider whether a given tool is the dominant one in your industry. For example, Zoom has a big footprint in healthcare and financial services, for Cisco it’s government, GoTo is the preference for IT teams because of its advanced screen-share capabilities, and Microsoft is virtually everywhere, says McKeon-White. And some tools offer Slack integration that lets users keep an audio or video line open while working on their own screens. That “more Discord-like experience” is a plus for software development teams, he says.

Also, consider how well a product fits in with your UC&C suite, and what new and innovative AI-based features may be available or planned.

Finally, the videoconferencing software you choose needs to integrate well with your existing meeting room conferencing systems. “Companies have started to prioritize AI meeting room videoconferencing capabilities such as adaptive speaker framing [which zooms in on the participant who’s talking], multiple camera layouts, and virtual meeting zones,” which are the top three factors when choosing a UC&C system, says Gera.

Before you shop: Key questions to ask yourself and your stakeholders

  • Do you already have software that you can use for videoconferencing? For example, is there a videoconferencing component in your UC&C suite?
  • Are there needs that aren’t being met by your current solution? Is the tool currently in use easy to use, or do users dislike the user experience so much that they turn to other videoconferencing options?
  • What types of communication needs does your organization have? Do they include internal only or also internal-to-external partners and customers? Are there specific needs for certain groups, such as sales, finance, IT, or software engineering?
  • What types of room conferencing system hardware do you have and what are the compatibility options for videoconferencing software?
  • What’s your budget?

Key questions to ask videoconferencing vendors

  • How effective is the videoconferencing software at enhancing productivity and collaboration? Do you have any metrics?
  • In what ways is the experience better than the product(s) my organization already has?
  • Is the software easy to use? How many clicks does it take to start a meeting?
  • Does it support screen sharing?
  • Is there a whiteboard function?
  • Are there browser, desktop, and mobile app options?
  • Does it integrate with my organization’s calendaring system and other key systems, such as our project management software?
  • Does it integrate seamlessly with our room conferencing system hardware?
  • How do you secure it for enterprise use? Does it support SSO MFA? LDAP? Watermarking for shared documents? What type of encryption is offered? Does it support BYOK encryption?
  • What administrative and data access controls does the software offer? For example, does it offer data sensitivity labeling, and can we restrict user or group access to specific documents?
  • What regulatory compliance standards does it meet?
  • What session quality enhancements does it support (image blurring, noise suppression, image upscaling, etc.)?
  • Does it support session recording and retention policies?
  • What is the vendor’s feature road map and plan for AI evolution? “Are they too dependent on external providers for AI? If so, they may not be very innovative,” says Gera.
  • Does the software have features specifically tailored to my industry vertical?
  • Where is data associated with videoconferencing sessions routed and hosted geographically? “We’ve seen instances where traffic was routed through countries that were less than desirable,” says McKeon-White.
  • What are the uptime and reliability guarantees?
  • Does the software support hybrid on-premises/cloud deployments for high availability? For example, Microsoft offers the Survivability Branch Appliance for Teams that can keep sessions going when the cloud-based service is unavailable.
  • What are my pricing options?

14 videoconferencing tools to consider

The top four videoconferencing software products by market share are Microsoft Teams, Zoom, Cisco Webex, and Google Meet, according to IDC and Forrester. Some tools are available only as part of broader UC&C offerings. Here’s a brief summary of products from 14 vendors, listed alphabetically, that have offerings in the videoconferencing services space.

8×8 Communications Platform

8×8’s videoconferencing software is just one feature of its 8×8 Communications Platform, a UC&C offering tailored to the needs of contact centers. It includes a 99.999% service level agreement with 24×7 technical support; can live stream meetings on YouTube; includes its own mobile, desktop, and web apps; and integrates with Teams as well as major CRM and service and support applications. The 8×8 Communications Platform supports polls and virtual break-out rooms for meetings; includes an intelligent assistant; and offers administrative controls, analytics, and reporting.

Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise Rainbow

Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise, the French telecommunications hardware and software company, describes its Rainbow offering as “a secure ‘à-la-carte’ cloud-based communications and collaboration platform.” It supports meetings of up to 120 participants and 12 simultaneous video streams; is compliant with ISO 27001, GDPR, and CCPA; and can be deployed in on-premises or hybrid configurations. It offers integrations for Microsoft Teams as well as on-premises telephone systems. Other options include a system designed for use in conference rooms and another designed for virtual classrooms.

Avaya Spaces

Avaya Spaces, Avaya’s UC&C platform, includes “one-click” voice and videoconference calling as well as text chat, and supports meetings with up to 1,000 people. It’s compatible with Google, Microsoft 365, Teams, Salesforce, and Slack and offers an API for custom integrations. Spaces can record meetings, has retention policy controls, is HIPAA and GDPR compliant, and offers single sign-on and encryption for data in transit and at rest.

AI-driven features include background noise cancellation, meeting transcription, and closed captioning. Users can connect via browser, desktop, or mobile app, with user interface versions available in 26 languages.

Cisco Webex Meetings

Webex Meetings is part of Cisco’s comprehensive UC&C suite that also includes calling, event management, whiteboards, polling, messaging, webinar support, and other features. The software integrates with a wide array of general-business and vertical-specific enterprise apps.

A free version supports meeting durations of up to 40 minutes. The entry-level paid version includes an AI assistant that can translate conversations through closed captions, write messages, and summarize meetings and messages. All versions offer end-to-end encryption and HIPAA/BAA compliance; the enterprise version is FedRAMP authorized and offers bring your own key end-to-end encryption and watermarking. Cisco also sells several Webex-compatible desktop and meeting room video hardware devices.

Dialpad

Dialpad’s videoconferencing service includes enterprise, small business, and free versions, with UC&C editions designed for general business, sales, and contact centers. “Dialpad is strong in chat intelligence…business analytics…international support and real-time user insights,” according to Forrester. It integrates with Google Workspace, Microsoft 365, Microsoft Teams, and several CRM tools, and includes AI-driven meeting and call transcription, screen and meeting recording, data retention policies, and analytics and reporting functions.

Dialpad adjusts video resolution to available bandwidth for each connection to reduce video freeze-ups. It can support up to 150 participants through browser, desktop, and mobile apps. A meeting room version is also available. Session encryption and single sign-on are supported, and Dialpad is HIPAA compliant.

Google Meet

Google’s cloud-based Google Meet videoconferencing software includes a free version that supports meetings up to one hour long. The Google One Premium version includes call recording, noise cancellation, and the ability to live stream meetings on YouTube. Chat is a separate app.

The business version, bundled into the Google Workspace collaboration suite, supports longer meetings, offers higher-quality video and includes meeting recording with transcripts. It works with Google’s Gemini AI assistant (which requires a separate subscription) for real-time translation and generating meeting summaries. The enterprise version of Meet includes more advanced security features such as bring your own key end-to-end encryption.

GoTo Meeting

GoTo Meeting (formerly LogMeIn), available in business and enterprise editions, is one element in a collaboration suite of UC&C offerings that also includes GoTo Webinars and GoTo Training. The GoTo UC&C offerings fall into three categories: business communications, contact centers, and IT management and support. The vendor promotes its security and privacy features (single sign-on, end-to-end encryption, HIPAA compliance, one-time meeting passwords, meeting locking) and 99.9999% uptime SLA.

Key features include recordings and transcriptions for meetings with up to 250 participants, background noise suppression, screen sharing, drawing tools, and virtual breakout rooms. GoTo Meeting also works with H.323-enabled room conferencing systems. A14-day free trial version of GoTo Meeting Business is available.

Microsoft Teams

Microsoft’s Teams dominates in the enterprise videoconferencing space because it’s tightly integrated with Microsoft 365, the office productivity suite that many large organizations already use. Teams offers VoIP calling, webinar hosting, a whiteboard, and integration with PowerPoint, and it’s compatible with a wide range of room conferencing systems. Calls, meetings, chat sessions, and files can be encrypted.

Another element, Microsoft Mesh, creates “immersive 3D spaces” where participant avatars can interact in a virtual meeting room. The optional Microsoft 365 Copilot AI assistant can summarize, suggest action items, and provide real-time translation for videoconference and chat sessions.

Microsoft is “increasingly dictating the direction of the UCaaS market,” with many other vendors offering Teams integration, Forrester reports, although it adds that “licensing is needlessly complicated.” A basic version of Teams is available for free.

Mitel MiCollab

Videoconferencing is one element of the Mitel MiCollab UC&C suite, which includes voice, video, chat messaging, SMS messaging, web conferencing, and team collaboration tools. It can run on-site or over virtualized public or private cloud infrastructure. It integrates with the company’s business phone system offerings as well as Microsoft 365, Teams, and the Zoom Workplace Platform. MiCollab apps are available for Windows, macOS, and mobile devices.

Ooma Meetings

VoIP phone system provider Ooma offers Ooma Meetings as part of its Ooma Office Pro and Ooma Office Pro Plus collaboration and small business phone system services. It offers client software for macOS and Windows desktops as well as browser-based access. Features include a dashboard for scheduling meetings with up to 100 meeting participants, background noise cancellation, screen sharing, whiteboarding, chat, meeting recording (stored for three months), and integration with Microsoft and Google calendars.

RingCentral Video

UC&C platform vendor RingCentral offers a standalone enterprise edition of its videoconferencing offering, RingCentral Video Pro+, as well as a more limited, free version. Video Pro+ supports meetings of up to 200 participants for up to 24 hours’ duration. Features include a whiteboard, content sharing, meeting recording, a collaborative notes space, and background noise cancellation.

An AI assistant creates real-time closed captions, transcriptions, and meeting summaries. Security and administration features include end-to-end encryption, single sign-on, data retention policy controls, and usage and performance analytics. Versions for conference rooms and webinars are available as add-ons.

Vonage Meetings

Part of the Vonage Business Communications (VBC) software suite, Vonage Meetings supports meetings with up to 200 participants; includes chat, whiteboard, and recording features; integrates with both Google and Outlook calendars; and has desktop and mobile clients for macOS, Windows, iOS, and Android. Security and privacy features include support for SSO, MFA, and encryption. VBC is HIPAA and GDPR compliant.

Zoho Meeting

Zoho Meeting supports both videoconference meetings with up to 250 participants and webinars with up to 5,000 attendees for Windows, macOS, Android, and iOS devices. It integrates with the Zoho Workplace calendar and offers chat, digital whiteboards, screen sharing, session recording, virtual breakout rooms, live polls, and AI-generated meeting transcriptions and summaries.

Sessions can be streamed live on YouTube, and a version for meeting rooms is available as an add-on. It also offers session encryption and analytics for administrators. A feature-limited, free version supports up to 100 users per session for up to 60 minutes.

Zoom

Zoom, which rose to fame during the pandemic for its easy-to-use interface, remains a major player in the videoconferencing software space — Forrester says it offers a “best-in-class video experience.” Like its competitors, Zoom has expanded beyond video meetings, now offering a UC&C suite called Zoom Workplace that includes include chat, a whiteboard, meeting recording, email, a calendaring system for scheduling, and Zoom Docs, a built-in document creation tool.

While consumers may gravitate to the basic, free version, the business versions allow for longer meetings and provide an AI assistant, Zoom AI Companion, that can summarize meetings (including a catch-up summary if a user comes into a meeting late), draft messages, and provide real-time translation. Zoom Phone, the company’s VoIP telephony offering, is included with enterprise Zoom Workplace subscriptions and available as an add-on for small-business plans.

A one-year subscription to Essential Apps, a set of third-party add-ons with functions ranging from meeting summarization to gamification to virtual breakout rooms, is also included with enterprise licenses, except for organizations in government, education, and healthcare. Bring-your-own-key end-to-end encryption is a standard feature.

Related:

Federal judge slaps down Automattic, granting temporary injunction to WP Engine in ongoing WordPress squabble

December 11, 2024 /

The battle between WordPress owner Automattic and WP Engine seemingly struck US federal Judge Araceli Martinez-Olguin as rather one-sided, as she ruled against Automattic on Tuesday and granted WP Engine the preliminary injunction it sought.

“Judge Martinez-Olguin’s ruling clearly explains why [Automattic founder] Matt Mullenweg’s campaign against WP Engine has been so misguided,” said IDC research manager Michele Rosen. “By going to war with one vendor that is engaging in a common business practice, Mullenweg caused irreparable damage to the WordPress ecosystem.”

The ruling

Martinez-Olguin ordered Automattic to reverse many of its actions against WP Engine, and gave Automattic 72 hours to:

  • Remove a list of exiting WP Engine customers that Automattic was publicizing to show how many of WP Engine’s customers were leaving.
  • “Restore WP Engine’s and Related Entities’ access to wordpress.org as it existed as of September 20, 2024, including: reactivating and restoring all WP Engine employee login credentials to wordpress.org resources (including login credentials to login.wordpress.org) as they existed as of September 20, 2024.”
  • Disable “any technological blocking of WP Engine’s and Related Entities’ access to wordpress.org that occurred on or around September 25, 2024, including IP address blocking or other blocking mechanisms”
  • “Restore WP Engine’s and Related Entities’ access to wordpress.org in the manner that such access existed as of September 20, 2024, including:
    • functionality and development resources;
    • data resources (WordPress Plugin, Theme, and Block Directories, repositories, listings, and other password-protected resources within wordpress.org);
    • security resources (login.wordpress.org);
    • support resources (trac.wordpress.org and slack.wordpress.org);
    • removing the checkbox at login.wordpress.org that Defendants added on or about October 8, 2024 asking users to confirm that they are ‘not affiliated with WP Engine in any way, financially or otherwise.’”
  • Return and restore “WP Engine’s “access to and control of its Advanced Custom Fields (“ACF”) plugin directory.”

The judge further ordered Automattic to:

  • Stop “blocking, disabling, or interfering with WP Engine’s and/or its employees’, users’, customers’, or partners’ access to wordpress.org.”
  • Stop “interfering with WP Engine’s control over, or access to, plugins or extensions hosted on wordpress.org that were developed, published, or maintained by WP Engine, including those that had been published, developed, or maintained by WP Engine as of September 20, 2024.”
  • No longer interfere with “WP Engine’s and Related Entities’ WordPress installations (i.e., websites built with WordPress software) by using auto-migrate or auto-update commands to delete, overwrite, disable, or modify any WP Engine plugin without the express request by or consent of WP Engine and/or its users, customers, or partners.”
    However, she added, “The above does not preclude wordpress.org’s ability to ensure the security and operability of its site consistent with procedures and policies in place as of September 20, 2024.”

In her detailed decision, Martinez-Olguin reviewed every claim that WP Engine made against Automattic, and found for WP Engine in just about every instance, arguing that WP Engine “is likely to succeed on the merits.”

For example, Automattic had argued that there were no contracts between WP Engine and key customers. 

Although Automattic representatives “press WP Engine to identify specific contracts, there is no credible argument that contracts do not exist between WP Engine and its customers,” Martinez-Olguin wrote. “At a minimum, by seeking to entice WP Engine customers to move away from the company … defendants at least acknowledge that WP Engine has existing contracts with the customers Defendants are targeting.”

Additionally, she said, Automattic’s argument “that the interference WP Engine alleges consists of acts they had a right to take fares no better. They insist that Mullenweg was under no obligation to provide WP Engine access to some or all of the sources on the Website and that he had a right, under the Website’s developer guidelines, to fork the ACF plugin as he did, including to address outstanding issues.

“Mullenweg’s statement that he had the right to disable WP Engine’s account access and to make changes to the ACF plugin for the sake of public safety is belied by the declarations of WP Engine’s executives stating that the claimed vulnerability was minor, patched well before the fix-it window set by industry standard, and showing that Defendants tried to pass off the rating and reviews for the ACF plugin as those for their new purportedly forked SCF plugin.”

WP Engine ‘wins a battle but everyone continues to lose the war’

Automattic responded with a statement saying that the ruling “is a preliminary order designed to maintain the status quo. It was made without the benefit of discovery, our motion to dismiss, or the counterclaims we will be filing against WP Engine shortly. We look forward to prevailing at trial as we continue to protect the open source ecosystem during full-fact discovery and a full review of the merits.”

WP Engine also shared a statement on X (formerly Twitter), saying, “We are grateful that the court has granted our motion for a preliminary injunction that restores access to and functionality of wordpressdotorg for WP Engine, its customers, and its users. This ruling provides much-needed stability for the WordPress ecosystem. We deeply appreciate our customers for their continued trust and support. We remain committed to serving them and their sites with the performance, availability, and integrity they deserve, while collaborating to ensure a vigorous, thriving and stable WordPress community.”

The case has concerned many in the open source community, as the acrimonious war of actions and words between Automattic and WP Engine scared various open source companies, along with enterprise CIOs, who worry that these companies might become too toxic and they might need to keep their distance. 

One open source executive read the judge’s decision and said he was concerned that the ruling might have come too late to halt the damage done to the open source community.

“WP Engine wins a battle, but everyone continues to lose the war. WP Engine has had (about a) 15% increase in cancellations in the last few months, and 159 WordPress employees have quit. No doubt these distractions will negatively impact the innovation and evolution of the WordPress solution for months, if not years to come. It’s not hyperbole to say 40% of the internet is and will be losing in some way,” said Michael Sonier, general manager at ButterCMS.

“As a 20-year-old technology, WP remained ubiquitous because of its ecosystem, but now it’s turned on its own. Hard not to see this accelerating the adoption of technologies that are 20 years younger,” he noted. “More broadly, it sets back the open source movement, which was always about community, collaboration, and contribution. Now it’s going to be associated with potential legal battles, finger pointing, and volatility.”