Ep. 62 Tools Review: Zoom vs Microsoft Teams
Dante Healy [00:00:04]:
Welcome to another episode of Business Breaks Tools for Success, where we dive deep into the essential tools that help shape the landscape of modern business. I'm your host, Dante Healey. And alongside me as always is the expertise of John Byrne. Today, we're tackling a hot topic in the world of remote working and communication. The debate on whether Zoom versus Microsoft Teams is the best tool. Now, both these platforms have become crucial in our day to day work, especially in the current climate where distributed teams are more prevalent than ever and heavily dependent on these tools which support collaboration. We'll be comparing these tools across 10 key criteria, including cost effectiveness, functionality, user experience, and scalability to name a few. And to see which might be the best fit for your business needs.
Dante Healy [00:01:06]:
So let's go further into the specifics and kick things off with John. So, John, what are your initial thoughts and scores on our first criteria, which is pricing and cost effectiveness?
John Byrne [00:01:22]:
Hi, Dante. I suppose just before I I start, I I will, give the little caveats to to, you know, my, opinions on this. I've tried my best to be as, neutral as possible for marking the 2 of them, but I think when we get to the end and we're kind of summarizing, it'll come out then. I I think they both are excellent tools, and it will depend on what your use case is for them, what your needs are, will the pet will will very much be key to, to the scoring. So so for example, I've tried to be as neutral as possible, and I think I've succeeded with that. But if I had it been just purely marketing it from my own usage point of view, Zoom would have won hands down because I'm a small business. The the use cases for Zoom suit my needs best. That hasn't been the case with the scoring that that I've given because I as I said, I tried to be as neutral as possible.
John Byrne [00:02:24]:
I think if you were a large business, and that would probably come true from your side because you work day to day in large. I haven't seen your scores yet. I could be completely wrong, but I would expect that you were to score purely on your needs. Microsoft Teams will probably come out quite a bit ahead because of that. So I think that will come true. So with regards to, the the initial criteria, pricing and cost effectiveness, This I I found this a little tough to do because, Microsoft Teams I have, a a Microsoft 365 subscription, and it's part of that. But it it's it's gonna be getting withdrawn from that, so it's hard to tell what the new I haven't actually seen what the new, pricing will be as an independent thing. So, I I've just kind of used everything.
John Byrne [00:03:13]:
It's generally at the moment, it is still included in in the 365, and that gives it makes it excellent value for money that it is effectively free. You know, I didn't get 365 for Teams. I got it for all the other stuff. So I've scored that 8 out of 10. With Zoom, I've I've given Zoom the same price the same score, 8 out of 10, even though the pricing is obviously going to be more expensive because of it's not free, a bundle, but they do have a free tier. While the the features are limited in that free tier, it is good enough for 90% of small business usage, I would say. I I think it's 40 minutes of a call that you can have, a a a video call, and as many of them as you want. And worst case scenario, if you did need to go over that 40 minutes and you just start a fresh call straight away, there's no I don't think so.
John Byrne [00:04:08]:
Even though it's it's a more expensive subscription service, it's I I gave it the same boat 8 out of 10 for for, price because, well, a, you don't know what's gonna happen with with Teams when it comes unbundled, and, b, you do have that free tier with Zoom that, you know, probably 90% of people could get away with using, without paying a subscription. And the subscription itself is not huge for an annual subscription, I think, including the whiteboards I I pay is it about €170 a year or something like that? So it's not going to break blank, whatever the equivalent in dollars and pounds are. It's it's for a year, it's not bad. So that's that's where where I got my score from. So how about you, Dante? How did you score on that criteria?
Dante Healy [00:04:56]:
Well, to start off with, yes. You're right. I, I was heavily, should we say, biased towards teams just because that's the only tool I use in my day to day work working for a large organisation. And, you're right. It's it's it's very difficult to kind of, should we say, ring fence Teams as a standalone tool when you it's heavily embedded into the Microsoft ecosystem. That being said, I did my best to try and provide an unbiased opinion as well. And when I look at pricing as what do you get for your money, if you look at the Teams essentials pricing, and this is UK price prices only. It's £3.30 plus VAT, which then puts you up to about just under £4 or thereabouts versus £10.82 for a monthly subscription on Zoom.
Dante Healy [00:06:03]:
So you've got more than 2a half times the price, for a very similar product because you can both record. And then that being said, there are caveats to that as you quite rightly say. Because, the Teams version that's free, albeit it's not really free. It's just free because you have an office account and then the bundled for your personal or family plan teams. You can't do things like recording. You can send chats to other teams accounts, but it's not that great in terms of features. There's no recording or transcription or any of that stuff, and it's certainly not integrated at all. It's almost like an afterthought.
Dante Healy [00:06:50]:
So, I think in this regard, that's where Zoom excels in terms of having a relatively generous free tier every 40 minutes. So I think, in terms of pricing, if we're looking for a a stand alone, I gave Teams the edge just because it's so cheap, to get started with a, an essentials plan. Obviously, even the business basic, which is the 1st tier where you get everything plus, plus the rest of the Microsoft Office Suite is about close to £5, I believe. So even that you're still looking at about half the cost of a monthly Zoom subscription. So, I think overall, on balance, I would just edge it out to Teams. So I've given Teams an 8 and Zoom a 7.
John Byrne [00:07:51]:
Okay. Very interesting. Well, not too too if I I've given them exactly level and and you've given them, you know, close enough. I mean, one point in the difference. So pretty good, Gong, I I think on both parts. So the our next, category then is functionality and features, and, you know, evaluating specific features and capabilities for to solve business problems. How did you score the the device the each system and, that category and why?
Dante Healy [00:08:26]:
Right. I think in terms of features, both have more or less the same features, and it's just really boils down to the way they work. I find that, when you're looking at Zoom, it has a much richer whiteboard with more templates. Teams, the whiteboard is something that is intuitively there in the sense that how do you introduce it. And that might be the way that the corporate company I I work for has set it up. But it's like you need to find the app, you need to add the app to the meeting so it's not it's not as simple to actually include. So whilst the functionality is there, how do you work it? It doesn't feel as intuitive. So for that reason, I've given, Zoom a higher score of 8 and then Teams a slightly lower score of 7.
Dante Healy [00:09:26]:
Although both have the same level of features, I feel like just Zoom ages it out just because of its pure usability. How about yourself, John?
John Byrne [00:09:38]:
Yeah. I am I I would agree with that that the the one thing with the Zoom whiteboard, it's it's an extra add on over and above. I think it's an extra 20 quid a year, over the subscription. But, as you said, when you look at it, once you do have it, it is very easy to find. It's very easy to use. They kind of go almost in 2 opposites with that, whereas Teams has a very low amount of, options of templates. You know, you almost have to make your own up as you go. Zoom have so many.
John Byrne [00:10:11]:
You kind of almost get lost as to where will I start. But once you, you know, you go through it and you find it. I've given Zoom I suppose this is where where my bias will come through a little bit. Teams has has great for collaboration because it integrates with the other 365 apps as long as everybody on it. So if it's an internal team, teams would work, you know, very well. So, again, that that would be where your, enterprise business comes in. But for a small business where you're you're kind of meeting with outside external clients, all the time, you know, Zoom focuses on the video conferencing. It it's much more, you know, the video conferencing is capabilities are much more stable.
John Byrne [00:10:56]:
They're they're better. They're they're, you know Yeah. As as much as as I tried to be neutral, I couldn't help it. For me, Zoom won there. I gave Zoom a 9, because it is brilliant, especially if the person you're meeting doesn't have Zoom. If the person you're meeting doesn't have Zoom, it's very easy for them to get into Zoom. If you send a Teams meeting, if the person you're meeting doesn't have Teams, it's it's more complicated and it's it's less, secure. It's it's less, it's less stable, basically.
John Byrne [00:11:31]:
I I and I I'm I'm not the only person that feels that. I have a few people who, I mean, that's why I pay a subscription for Zoom even though I already have Teams as part of 365 is because I meet with people who who won't necessarily have 1 or the other. And if that's the case, well, then Zoom is the is the safer. Teams, I've given a 7 for that reason. It is, I I don't use it enough for internal team meetings. You know? We're too small of a company. So my bias there is probably showing, that I tried to be as neutral as possible, but it just is not good for what I use, compared to Zoom. Zoom, I felt deserve a 2 point advantage.
John Byrne [00:12:16]:
So that was the story I came up with.
Dante Healy [00:12:19]:
And that makes sense. I mean, as you say, the breakout rooms, they both have them. But if you're looking to run an externally, an ex an event with external participants, I'll definitely pick Zoom over Teams just because, as you say, it's more reliable. It's more stable. It's more of a proven player. Thank you for that. And I guess the next, the next section or scoring criteria is performance and reliability. I guess it's my turn to lead, and oh, no.
Dante Healy [00:13:00]:
It's your turn. Sorry. Performance and reliability, John. Oh, that's my turn. Please kick off.
John Byrne [00:13:08]:
Don't think it it matters too much which one of us goes first. Given that we've already wrote down our scores, we can't we can't go against what we've said just because the other says something. Yeah. You know, both of them are generally reliable with with good performance, but we've come across this a few times between us ourselves and, numerous times outside. Teams can be a little flaky at times. You know, pictures, phrase. It it's very it's very resource intensive. If you if the person who's who's on one of the means doesn't have a a really good quality laptop or desktop, or a really good quality phone if they're if they're on a mobile, It can it can be problematic.
John Byrne [00:13:52]:
So I've only given Teams a 7 there. It is generally reliable, but it's it's not reliable enough, I don't think. Whereas Zoom, I mean, Zoom became known for, you know, from the very beginning almost, it specialized in video conferencing and and and that type of thing. I've never had a problem with with zoo with Zoom. No matter how many people have been on the meeting, it's never frozen. It's never, you know, gone gone bad on me. So, and and it doesn't seem to go bad for any of them either. And even people who are on very, you know, small laptops or wherever that that doesn't have a lot of of bandwidth in it, Zoom seems to be, you know, working for that.
John Byrne [00:14:37]:
Now that's probably because that's what it's designed for whereas Teams wasn't originally designed for that. That kind of came in later on into Teams. So so I've given Zoom a 9, and I've given Teams a 7 for those scores. So how about yourself?
Dante Healy [00:14:54]:
Snap. I've given the same scoring as well, funnily enough, and it's mainly because whilst both have relatively good performance, I see Zoom just edging Teams out because I do notice that when I'm running Teams, it can slow down my overall computer. So other apps I'm running in the background won't work, or they'll work really slowly when Teams is in, is on and soaking up most of your processing power. So, generally, I have it set so that Teams doesn't automatically switch itself on when I turn on my laptop. That being said, I have, seen that there has been a new release of an enterprise version of Teams. And it's got, Teams, but with a new in the corner. So I believe that that is a lighter version of Microsoft Teams, which it has been recently released. I've only seen it last week.
Dante Healy [00:15:56]:
Although, I can't give it a scoring because I haven't had enough experience to test it out properly. Because right now, whilst it might appear lighter, I've noticed things like the integration still isn't working like it should. So I'd probably score it down based on that. So I'm I'm giving it I'm giving the scoring based on the previous version of Teams. So with that being said, yeah, Zoom Zoom's performance is exemplary, and I feel confident sending out links to external participants, with the Zoom with the with the Zoom, meetings. Teams, not so much, but it's not bad. It's competent. It's just, as you say, it's quite resource intensive when you're running it.
Dante Healy [00:16:47]:
So that's, similar identical score to yours. 9 for Zoom, 7 for Teams.
John Byrne [00:16:54]:
So so that brings us on to then security and compliance. How did you score them for that?
Dante Healy [00:17:02]:
Well, I think, Microsoft Teams is more of an internal enterprise tool, whereas Zoom is external. So I think just by virtue of the focus, I feel like, and also Microsoft Teams being extremely secure, it does work better when preventing unauthorized access, and also messages. So to the extent that chats can be contained within your organization if you set it that way. So the security features are really down to the organization's policies and how they configure their team's environment. And I feel like with Zoom, there's probably because of its nature, there's a few more backdoors that you could enter into a meeting uninvited if you have the right links. Although, I haven't tested that, but I know that there were in the early stages. This is probably a bit unfair, but back in the, during the pandemic times, there were instances of people, entering meetings uninvited and disrupting them on Zoom. That being said, yeah, I I feel like Microsoft Teams has the edge.
Dante Healy [00:18:20]:
So I've given Teams a 9. I've given Zoom a competent 7. Although, to caveat that I haven't tried breaking either either, either tool by inviting myself to a meeting. How about yourself, John?
John Byrne [00:18:40]:
I have actually absolutely identical score lines as well. I gave t Teams a 9 and Zoom a 7. And for very much the same reasons, I mean, Teams is obviously going to be the much more secure. It's part of the Office suite. You know? Even if you even if you've got the stand alone version, it's still got all that built into the background. Gives you a lot more flexibility. Zoom Zoom can do a lot of the stuff, I think, but, it's very difficult to set her up, you know, to do. And as you said at the beginning, although I'm not sure how strong it is now with the with the, to stop people from from doing that beyond just having a password.
John Byrne [00:19:26]:
You know? That seems to be the the the thing. Now I'm sure people listening who are more tech savvy than us will be able to point out all the things. But in day to day usage, I I I feel bad about marking Teams oh, sorry. Marking Zoom down because of it because I think, actually, that's the intent. I don't think Zoom will ever be as secure as Teams because the whole point of it is to be that you know? I I think that's probably one of the reasons why in the last, segments, we marked Teams down and Zoom up because it made Zoom was easier for outside people to to join your meetings. And I think that's because of the security that in order to do that, you have to sacrifice the security a little bit. And, whereas Teams doesn't sacrifice the security, but then it's weaker on on inviting outsiders, which then makes sense because, you know, when you look at our, if you if you take those two things together, the performance, reliability, and the security and compliance, both of us have scored it in a way identically, whereas the combined score, it's a 97 for for, both. So so each thing got 16, points between those 2, elements.
John Byrne [00:20:45]:
So they they're barely even bought on the opposite sides of the way it is. You know? That one is is is more open to outsiders, less secure, and the other is more secure than us open to outsiders. So, probably makes sense then that we both scored on the way we did and and that the the overall score between the 2 for both of us is the same.
Dante Healy [00:21:05]:
Absolutely. And, yeah, there's no coincidence. I think we're on the same same of the same opinion that on balance, they're both very similar tools. They're both working the same way, but each one has a has more of a bias towards a certain profile of meeting type. So, thank you for that, John. And I guess moving on to data management and analytics, feel free to let me know what you gave it and why.
John Byrne [00:21:42]:
I gave Teams a 9. It's it's part of Office 365 you know, Microsoft 365, whatever you want to call it now. It's integrated with everything. It's it manages the data. It analyzes it. It it it piggybacks on, you know, the other things, but it piggybacks very well on it. And you can't really you know, why does it not get 10? Well, because, you know, Microsoft 365 wouldn't get 10. That's why Microsoft 365, we were doing that.
John Byrne [00:22:11]:
We'd only get 9. So Teams gets that 9. It it's part of it. It does it. Zoom has recently approved its they've added an AI companion, which helps to analyze and do all that. I just haven't had a chance to really use it. We tied with it a few weeks ago on a call that we had, and, it got better as the call went on, you know, the more that I had to work with. But, I think that's still very much a a work in progress.
John Byrne [00:22:52]:
So I don't think it's quite up to, Microsoft Teams. Yeah. So I I I've given it 7. If you give them Zoom, 7 for that. So how about yourself?
Dante Healy [00:23:02]:
Very similar scores, but, not as, favorable on Teams just because I think it could do more. But that being said, the standard analytics on both tools are pretty okay. Nothing exceptional. I mean, for example, I would love to see if they could analyze the cameras, for year for audience engagement. So, for example, if people were looking away the majority of the time while you're presenting, that would be an interesting statistic. And but it would obviously be quite resource intensive, I imagine. That being said, I think, as you said, the fact that Teams is within the Microsoft ecosystem and part of the Office stack just makes it easier to do things that extend beyond a webinar. So Teams is also a better messaging system.
Dante Healy [00:24:01]:
So you can look at engagement of messages, chat history, likes, file sharing, and that all happens within the Teams environment. You can create literally teams that you pull in other team members into a group chat. And then you can have them collaborate and then bring them into a call as needed. So off the back of that, you have the analytics. You can see who do I work with and collaborate with more often than not. So from that perspective, that kinda goes beyond the scope of a stand alone meeting. And and, therefore, I would give Teams the edge and maybe I've been a bit stingy, but I've given Teams an 8 and Zoom a 7. So similar to yours, but maybe not as generous only because I think they could be more done on the actual meeting experience to maybe enhance how meetings are conducted.
Dante Healy [00:25:03]:
But then meetings aren't the only thing in terms of collaboration. They're not the only tool.
John Byrne [00:25:12]:
Sure enough.
Dante Healy [00:25:13]:
Yeah. So I guess, moving on.
John Byrne [00:25:18]:
Our next our next area is scalability. So how did you score them for scalability and why?
Dante Healy [00:25:26]:
I didn't really give it too much thought, but I scored it based on something, a simple metric, which is how many participants can you have in a single call. And, I think, my understanding is where and I haven't tested it because I don't know enough people to go on a a Teams or a Zoom session, and I need to have an enterprise plan for Zoom to compare apples and apples. But my understanding is that you can have 10,000 up to 10,000 participants on a Zoom call. No. Teams call, whereas Zoom only has 1,000 on an enterprise plan. So, I mean, that's a lot of remote participants, but I think if Teams does allow 10,000 participants, then that clearly edges out. That clearly edges out the other option. So you can imagine if you're a global organisation, you'd probably want to use Teams even if Teams is somewhat limited in the features and functionality.
Dante Healy [00:26:36]:
You can still host a broadcast and have people actively participate in the comments if there's 10,000 participants attending. So I think that that gives it, for me, that gives Teams a scoring of about 9 and Zoom a scoring of 7. How about yourself, John?
John Byrne [00:27:00]:
I suppose I came out a little bit differently. I wasn't so much thinking about how big a meeting could be. I was just thinking about for a business scaling, you know, getting her in. So I gave teams a 9 like you simply because most businesses, most large businesses will you know, when somebody new signs up, gets onboarded, they're going to, have a an Office 365 Microsoft 365 subscription, which will have Teams in it. So the Teams just rolls out nice and handy no matter how many people you have. It's part of your your enterprise. And I've given Zoom a 9 as well. And I'm yeah.
John Byrne [00:27:38]:
It's a 9 in theory because I haven't had to use Zoom, But they do have an enterprise, you know, agreement. I'm assuming it's the same as as the Microsoft Teams one that you just pay the extra for the the the new person's license and boom. There you go. But both of them seem to to go fairly, you know, to to be scalable in the sense of as new people come on board, it can be rolled out to them fairly fairly handy. And the pricing as we we said above is not too extortionate. So, you know, you can do it fairly, easily. They, I I'm I'm not going to change my scoring based on I haven't thought of doing doing that, but I'm not gonna change my scoring based on one simple fact. Given the the issues that I've had with smaller Teams meetings, I can't imagine how unstable a 10,000 member Teams meeting would be.
John Byrne [00:28:33]:
So, you know, I I think the the 1,000 people on Zoom will probably, be walkable. The the 10,000 people on Teams, I I would be surprised. But I've met like yourself, I haven't tested it. So, and and it never even occurred to me to scale that that issue of scaling. So that's a, you know, a good a good thought there, Dante, that, you know, at least at least approves that we are independent minded of each other, that we, we we haven't even given the same definitions to what we're gonna judge as scalability. That that's a good one I haven't thought of. And for, let's say, for very large companies, for doing a town hall or something like that, then that would be important.
Dante Healy [00:29:11]:
Absolutely. And you're right. It's probably biased because I've recently been doing a lot of stress testing on systems. So that would be it. It's putting load onto the system. But you're right. Probably, the the current team's architecture might crash the servers or at least generate a huge a a huge amount of revenue for Microsoft at the very least. So, thank you for that insight, John.
Dante Healy [00:29:42]:
I guess now moving on to user experience and interface, how do you rate, both of the tools?
John Byrne [00:29:52]:
Okay. Well, this is this I I I've thrown neutrality out the window. I've made this based on my experience. I have, you know, as as I mentioned at the beginning, I have a Microsoft 365 business basics account, and Teams comes included with that. I don't have it for Teams. I have it for all the, you know, the the Microsoft Office Suite. And, yeah, I have a subscription a paid subscription for Zoom. So that kinda tells you, you know, their them what my preference is going to be.
John Byrne [00:30:24]:
Just for anybody who's listening who doesn't know, you know, I'm a small business owner or consultant, but so nearly all my meetings are going to be external people. And user experience I find, with Zoom is nobody has ever told me that they're having problems getting into a Zoom meeting. With Teams, it has happened. And I'm not the only one who, who taught that. Another consultant, a marketing consultant that I was speaking to a couple of years ago, she actually had the, you know, the exact same situation as me. And I asked her why did she have Zoom? Why not just have a Teams meeting? And she she had the exact same experience as me. So from a user experience and interface, I've given Zoom a 9. It it's excellent.
John Byrne [00:31:14]:
I I I my my only debate there is whether I should be given a 10, but I think that I've knocked it down based on on the whiteboard experience as we kinda mentioned earlier. That's almost too much up too many options there. You know, there are a few things that that could still do do a little bit of improvements, but not major. So I've given that a 9. Teams, on the other hand, I've only given a 6. I, you know, don't when when I send out an invite, I'll send out a Zoom invite, not Teams invite. Even though it'd be just as easy for me to send out probably be easier for me to send out a Teams invite because I'm usually using Outlook and, you know, Teams is integrated or but it's just that the user experience is not great when you have a meeting, even a small meeting if if the other person doesn't have a good bandwidth on on their either their Internet connection or if if like, you've offered in the past Dante, if they have a whole load of other apps running in the background, suddenly Teams starts freezing up on that. So I've scored a very low there, a 6.
John Byrne [00:32:16]:
Maybe I'm being unfair to it, but that is my experience and that is my bias with my use case. So I will have to emphasize that it's my use case that may be very different for your use case. So, how did you score them?
Dante Healy [00:32:29]:
So I gave them equal weighting. So for me, I haven't experienced too many of the reliability issues. And usually it's to do with Internet connection of colleagues. So depending on where they are or what they're doing. And and to be fair, all of them have a Teams account. So you're kind of winning when they're already using Teams from their desktop apps rather than through a browser as a third party, who who doesn't want to install Teams onto their computer just for a single meeting. So I guess the user experience, I haven't I haven't penalised Teams as much as you have. And then on the lost side, I found that because Teams naturally looks and feels like the rest of Microsoft Office, it it for me feels more intuitive, albeit certain features are a little bit more clunky.
Dante Healy [00:33:36]:
But that being said, I've also experienced certain frustrations with Zoom, mainly around setting things up when it's end to end integration, which is probably not a fair comparison. Like, the in inherent experience with Zoom is very very good and I would say superior. Is it superior that I would give it a a much higher score? Probably not because between the two tools, it's for me, it's very subjective. And I'm feeling like the pros of Zoom don't necessarily outweigh its cons when compared to Teams. So I've just given it both tools innate and said that they're both very, very good, in terms of user experience and interface. And, also, the fact that you can insert surveys for both tools and do other things. Reactions are the same. You've got notes.
Dante Healy [00:34:34]:
You've got whiteboards. You've got the transcription you can record. I must admit, you've got the AI companion that seems to be native inside Zoom, whereas Copilot is an optional extra. So I don't know if that's something I would penalise Teams for. But again, it's, that's not what I use it for. So I think overall it's, it's fine. Yeah. So, for me, it's it looks like you've given, Zoom a heavier weighting on the positive side.
Dante Healy [00:35:13]:
I've kind of kept them on par with each other. So,
John Byrne [00:35:18]:
fair enough. I did want to give that caveat at the beginning, you know, that I it's it's my use experience of it that that that that that causes that. As you said, the user experience could be heavily, you know, because it's part of the 365. If you're using it all the time and if you're using, the actual app as opposed to going into the browser. And to be honest, I think that's probably something similar with, Zoom. I would expect that the app is, better than the browser. But the browser doesn't seem to cause as many problems for the people using it through the browser as Teams does.
Dante Healy [00:35:56]:
Yeah. And if you like me, you're scoring it in terms of as a pure if you if you score it as a pure meeting tool, then, yeah, it would be penalised. But if you think about the collaboration Mhmm. So things like the chat features when you are working in Teams, setting up Teams, and then using it for file sharing. I think it it certainly outperforms Zoom because it it's up until recently, Teams was probably completing more with Slack than actual Zoom. And now it's only just started to get into that debate whether you should use Zoom or Teams or or Zoom, or, yeah, Zoom or Teams. And, you know, Slack, really, the video conferencing, etcetera, is just an afterthought. It's mostly for people to set up offline communities, and that seems like Slack is competing with Discord more than it is Teams.
Dante Healy [00:36:55]:
So it's kind of it's funny how the SaaS the SaaS market has evolved. Right? Yeah. So Microsoft use you know, it was Slack for collaboration versus Teams and now it's Zoom versus Teams. Zoom has introduced some chat functionality within its app, but because most people who choose Zoom over Teams of freelancers, that's not really a feature that's needed. Maybe not a feature that's recognized or used within Teams as much as, say, a Slack system.
John Byrne [00:37:35]:
The one thing I will say there with that is, the Zoom chat, I I don't use it much. You know, it is relatively new. But I I have used it, and what I have found, which goes back, which is why I I built that into the scoring of the book, it's it it works a heck of a lot better with, external users that team those teams is very difficult to set. Even when those external users have their own team accounts, if they're part of a separate thing, to get, to get a chat set up with those with with Teams from containing external members. Like, I I'm on a a few of them, and I have to kind of it's not go out of the account, but I'm still in my own account. But I have to kind of if the switch between, I'm a guest in their account, I'm the administrator of my own company's accounts. Mhmm. And and there's no one view where I can see everything.
John Byrne [00:38:35]:
I have to go, you know, there's a view where I can see the ones on, like, external. There's a view where I can see mine, but not one view to see everything. Zoom seems to be different in that. Everything seems to be on the one thing. In large part because Zoom is not really certainly not the subscription I have is not really set up for an internal team itself or a team. There is no internal external to choose in the team, and that's it. So everything seems to be in one view whether it's people in my organization or people external to my organization. They're all whatever way the team's made up, it's in one view And who regardless of who sets her up, that's actually what I should say.
John Byrne [00:39:15]:
If I have set up that those external meetings, that it would all be in one view for me, but it's because the external people set up the team and invited me onto that team. But I have to go switch views in order to see their teams, my teams, and all this. Whereas with Zoom, it seems everything, no matter who sets it up, is all in one view on my screen. So, yeah, that that's, you know, the the I I've taken that into account when I've been soaring the other things that I think Zoom works better if you have external people involved. Teams works better if everybody's internal. And just because of my you know, so I'm part of an internal very small team. Therefore, most of my teams will have external people. So hence my bias towards Zoom.
John Byrne [00:40:02]:
As much as I'm trying to be neutral, that that's that's
Dante Healy [00:40:06]:
Yeah. But we don't apologize for that because at least we admit we're, we have biases where we where we see them, and that's mainly because we know what works best for us. And it might not be the same for someone else, but it gives an indication of where tools are going. And that's valuable. So moving on, John, customization and flexibility. Feel free to share your scores and why.
John Byrne [00:40:39]:
Customization and flexibility. Teams, I have given it a 9. It is very, very flexible. And sorry. Not it's very, very customizable. Actually, sorry. I'm looking at the the wrong, thing. I gave Teams an 8.
John Byrne [00:40:58]:
It's it's very customizable. As in from a security point of view, it's part of, as we've mentioned many times, the Microsoft 365. So it's as customizable as that is. As you you kind of alluded to earlier, your security settings can be totally done, you know, according to the needs of the business. Everything can be done according to to whatever customization you have on the rest of your things. You can apply to Teams. Zoom, I've I've given a 6. It's not it it's real it's good.
John Byrne [00:41:33]:
It's it's just I don't think it's as good as Teams. But then again, it's not really meant to be. And then the other issue is as well, I don't have an enterprise Zoom account. So perhaps that does upgrade its customization on a power with Teams, but but, the Teams the the level of Teams subscription that I have is built on a power with the level of Zoom. So like what like, I think Teams is much more customizable than Zoom is. Having said that, Zoom and Teams, you know, where, Zoom especially, there's not a lot of customization needed. It has almost everything that you you, you know, you you want in the in the standard issue. The customization from Teams, you know, is almost put down as a weakness earlier in that.
John Byrne [00:42:24]:
There's just too many apps. What app do you need to, you know, customize and and things like that? But, so, you know, I'm almost thinking I'm being a little bit, you know, trying to make up for my bias towards Zoom by giving Teams, an 8 and Zoom only a 6. Or, the better way I scored it. So for for them, how about yourself?
Dante Healy [00:42:49]:
Very similar. I gave Teams an 8 as well, but I gave Zoom a 7. And like you, I find Teams infinitely more customizable in terms of setup, as well as the feel. You you can also have different formats. So, for example, you can have a classroom format where, you know, your heads are in a classroom or even in a conference hall or a cinema theatre. So it just adds a little fun element. Not that I use it that often, but I have tried it just for the heck of it. I think flexibility, they're both relatively flexible, but, essentially, they're both tools that that work on one thing or a combination of things.
Dante Healy [00:43:39]:
I feel like flexibility lends itself more towards teams because you can set up people into clusters similar to Slack where you have channels and you you prove you provide access to those channels on the basis of, you know, if you have a team you're working on a project. You can set them up as a group, which is not something that you can do so easily with Zoom, although you might stand to correct me. So, say you're standing up a project team and the resources are within your organisation, You can you can identify the names that you will be working with, and you create a channel. And it's as simple as that. And then you're sharing sharing files. You're sharing documents. You can create, Wiki pages. So for me, that that makes it more flexible.
Dante Healy [00:44:36]:
And, I think I'm gonna extend into the integration piece when we talk about the next category. But for me, I think yeah. I don't I don't think I don't think Zoom is that bad. It's just not as feature rich in this regard as Teams.
John Byrne [00:45:00]:
I think, just the the Zoom does have channels, but it's a it's a relatively new. Yeah. I have tested it. I haven't tested it, so I couldn't tell you whether it's as good or as handy as as Teams. Presume those have them now, but I think that's gonna be the thing. Yeah. We could have this very same podcast, the same Next
Dante Healy [00:45:19]:
next year, and it'll be this it'll be more of an apples to apples comparison.
John Byrne [00:45:23]:
Exactly. They're both stronger. So, yeah, you you do have that issue. So as you you kind of mentioned, the next thing which is very and and, that that was where I I kind of got mixed up myself and and was giving the the score for this section, the integration capabilities. So how did you score for integration and why?
Dante Healy [00:45:51]:
Right. So it's really hard because, and maybe this is coming back to my bias for an enterprise grade solution. If I go on, picking, as a freelancer, one of my biggest frustration is the lack of an automated scheduler that can natively integrate with Teams. So if you've got Calendly and any other scheduler, Calendly will integrate with Zoom natively. I think you only get Teams integration if you upgrade to a paid plan. And then with other, other automated schedulers, then most of them only recognize Zoom for integration. Whereas Teams is something that is beyond most, most tools, albeit you can put in a generic link. But that's not the same as having a dedicated, you know, interfaces.
Dante Healy [00:46:52]:
It creates a unique meeting. Say you're charging for your services on a remote call, doesn't do that not naturally. So, for me, I would give Zoom the edge on that. However, what I've seen in terms of setup of integration on Teams, especially in my main use case, which is standing up a project team, you can integrate it with your project boards, you such as Jira. So you can have Jira within your team that is accessible via link. You can even put in Power BI dashboards within your Teams environment so that if people want to see the status of your project or the status of any KPIs associated with your project, if you set up a dashboard, board, you can automatically hook that up to your team's environment. So within your team, you're able to see how things are progressing. So for me, Teams knocks Zoom out of the park for the integration capabilities in terms of what you can do for collaboration, both on the automated reporting side, as well as, task tracking management and file sharing.
Dante Healy [00:48:04]:
But, again, with the caveat that depending on how you set up enterprise wise, the security features will kick in. So outside of your immediate designated team, you can't easily file share. But then that's not what we're talking about. We're talking about integration within those parameters and guardrails. So for me, that's why I give Teams a 9 and Zoom an 8. How about yourself, John?
John Byrne [00:48:32]:
Absolutely identical in scores. I I gave teams a 9. I I mean, it it it integrates with almost everything. You know, because of Microsoft 365 again and I think that's what's given Teams a lot the the advantage it has over Zoom overall is it's it's part of that, suite, which means everything that Microsoft 365 can integrate with effectively Teams can as well. And the same weakness, that I I have noticed as, you have that external booking systems that, you know, are not Microsoft book booking systems that are, Calendly or or whatever, often don't use it. I I use a thing called TidyCal. That didn't originally. That was one of the reasons as well why I got the Zoom, subscription.
John Byrne [00:49:24]:
Recently, it has added it now. So it does have, Teams as an option to do. There's still a few that don't have Teams. So as as as while Teams can integrate with many, many, many more things than Zoom can, probably from my use case experience that, anyway, booking apps and things like that are the most, likely to be what you'd hook up to a a, you know, a video conferencing type of, software, and it doesn't have as extensive a range for them. So I gave it a 9 and not a 10 because, because of that. Zoom, I gave an 8. It doesn't integrate with as many things as Teams does, but it integrates with the most important things if you're looking looking at it from a video conferencing point of view. There are other uses as you said, and you you mentioned some of them.
John Byrne [00:50:20]:
I just don't use those other uses, you know, and I think and I think probably for most small businesses, they wouldn't either. So I think Zoom gets the a you know, even though, you know, if you're purely gonna score this based on what I can integrate with, Teams will be miles ahead of Zoom. It can integrate with so many more things, but Zoom kinda gets all the important ones. It knocks off all the important ones, and it's niche areas where Teams have the advantage. So if all there is is niche areas that gives it the advantage, then that's a one point difference for me. So that was where I where I got my 9 points for Teams and my 8 points for Zoom.
Dante Healy [00:51:01]:
Makes a lot of sense. And, you know, as a consultant or any whether you're a large organizational consulting firm or even a small one. I've noticed that Zoom seems to be the preferred choice of conferencing. And as you say, because a lot of these consultants will have clients, unless the clients are also on Teams. You wouldn't really use Teams as such for, hosting your own local events, your own locally hosted events, should I say, or calls. Does that make sense? Thank you, John. So to wrap things up, we have the final criteria, which is update frequency and road map. I am so curious to hear what you have to say about this.
John Byrne [00:51:52]:
I think they both do pretty well there. I've given I've given Microsoft Teams a 9. I mean, if if that's it it does get updated very frequently, and there is a clear roadmap. You know, Microsoft do you get you know, as as as you're aware, and and I may have mentioned before, so I don't know whether it is I use Mac for nearly everything, but Microsoft is the the Office suite is is, excellent. So, you know, I I I am not overly, fond of Microsoft software, but you have to give them credit where credit is due. With the Office Suite, they are pretty good. They have a pretty decent road map, and they do update everything fairly frequently, especially security and things like that. So I gave I need to pull up my scores.
John Byrne [00:52:49]:
I gave teams a 9. You know, there there's not a lot more I could do to improve on the, where where it is. Zoom, I've given an a to. It updates very frequently. I mean, I there's there's been, I think, about 3 or 4 updates over the last month, that that you know, when I go in to open Zoom and I just check for updates on there's an update there waiting. It is continuously improving the features. It's, like, recently added to the whiteboards. It's added the chat channels.
John Byrne [00:53:24]:
They are definitely improving on the security where we mark them down a little bit earlier on, but, you know, it's a work in progress. We gave them you know, mark them down based on where they are now, but they are improving. So I I the the one thing I'm not as sure of, is their road map. I think Microsoft are probably a little bit clearer on that. And and then also with the, you know, the the power of of Microsoft, you know, is going to obviously update more frequently. And Microsoft will be quicker to, how would I say it, plagiarize the good ideas that other people come up with. Zoom are getting there, but they're a bit behind. You know? Zoom specialize in the video, and they will update and make sure the video conferencing is spot on.
John Byrne [00:54:13]:
The added little bits, they're they're a bit slower to to add on the chats and and things like that. The AI companion. But they they're getting there now, and they're adding to them, and there's apps and everything, that that they are bringing on board to to rival, Microsoft. Although when they catch up on scores with some of the things in Microsoft, that could cause them to drop back on on scores on other areas where we've given them the advantage because, you know, it is, they're sacrificing one for the other. So they were my scores. So, 9 for Teams and 8 for Zoom. So how about yourself for the update frequency on the roadmap?
Dante Healy [00:54:52]:
I think I've given it exactly the same score, which is, spooky, because, for the same reasons, really, both have regular frequent purview of what's what's coming ahead in terms of when they plan to roll out new features. So it's not just saying these are the releases, which seems to be what Zoom is showing, but also what's what's ahead. So, for example, mobile print on Android phones, This is the first one at the top of the list, so probably the latest release. That's a preview available in December 2024 with the rollout to start in December the next year. So that's it's kind of looking way way ahead in the future. So they definitely know what their what their roadmap looks like. I feel like in terms of the strategy, it's very hard to see where Zoom is heading as an application apart from seems like it's just copying Teams, which was copying Slack more, whilst probably focusing a little bit on its, on its core strength, which is video conferencing for external parties. I would dare say it's probably best to try and think beyond that, but if there is a plan beyond that, they probably wouldn't wanna release it without, giving their competitors some early advantage, shall we say.
Dante Healy [00:56:34]:
But most of these apps, apart from the underlying performance are very much they look and feel and behave the same way, I would say.
John Byrne [00:56:45]:
I think, yeah, we we we may have touched on this in a previous, chat, whether it was a personal chat or or not. I can't remember. But, they are all converging together. That, you know, you give it another couple of years and the Teams, Zoom, probably Slack, and and a handful of others will, will all look absolutely identical. And then what you'll then look for is all our small players will come in and will break out one of the whether it's the chat functionality or the the video functionality, and we'll specialize in that just that and make the their version of it of that area even better than what's in the other things. And then that will start to converge again, and, you know, it'll just be, a constant cycle of every single conversion into 1, then everything breaking back out the specialists, then everything converging back into 1 and, you know, the individuals.
Dante Healy [00:57:38]:
Or this nightmare scenario with generative AI being overlaid on, your virtual conference so we all look look, talk, and sound better Yeah. With music in the background.
John Byrne [00:57:53]:
And so we we'll all be on the, the the the Apple Vision Pros or the the latest versions of them, which means it's an avatar that looks very much like you, but not quite you. So no and and then once that comes in, it's, a situation where, well, sure, we don't actually have to be there in person. The AI tool knows how to just make my voice and just
Dante Healy [00:58:13]:
proxy AI avatar will just represent us using the parameters of our personality. So we'll we'll we'll just give them the prompts. This is the output. This is the end result we want in this negotiation. Just go and negotiate for me AI assistant.
John Byrne [00:58:30]:
That's it. And, and nobody will know nobody will be any the wiser on the call because everybody will be doing the same thing. And then the a the AI companion will just give you a summary of the key. These were the key takeaways from the call, and then that's all you have to read and then get back to your game with all the phone, whatever you were doing instead of being on
Dante Healy [00:58:47]:
the call. Oh, man. That sounds like a nightmare.
John Byrne [00:58:54]:
It's so for for me overall then, I suppose, it's been very, very close. So I think I did a good job in being neutral. Like, total, Teams has 81 points and Zoom has 80 points. So, actually, Teams wins out by a point. I I I'm taking that as a sign that I was very, very successful at being neutral because if I was to pick just be told, if somebody put me on the spot and said, pick 1 and why? I pick Zoom and pick it because of the reasons I've given. I deal with external people mostly, and it is much, much better for organizing external conference calls or even 1 on 1 calls, with people who are external to the organization compared to Teams. And yet I have scored while trying to be neutral. I I've given teams a very slight edge.
John Byrne [00:59:44]:
You want to a so I
Dante Healy [00:59:47]:
think I've failed in that regard and is probably to be fair, my lack of, familiarity with Zoom and my inherent over usage of Teams. It just feels native to me, so I've given Teams an 82 score and Zoom a 76. That's not to say 76 is a bad score. It's just there is a massive gap compared to yours. But then 76, if you were looking at at that as a university score, you're still like a first class degree. So I think I've given Zoom an a. Teams probably more of an a plus. And, yeah, I think, I think it's been a good debate.
Dante Healy [01:00:38]:
I think Zoom as a standalone for what it does, it's focused on more of the pure as a pure meeting tool for collaboration, for freelancers, for dealing directly with the external clients who don't have their own Teams account or Zoom account. It's a much better, much more workable solution. Whereas Teams, if you have a team, as it implies, it's much better for setting up collaboration and working together internally though. So it creates that secure environment where people can share information across team. But outside of the team, then it will struggle.
John Byrne [01:01:21]:
Yeah. I think that's that's your key thing. You you have your if you're somebody who's thinking which which to go where it is, is it gonna be mainly internal teams, in which case, teams has no equal? Or is it gonna be are you are your teams going to involve external people who are not going to be given email addresses from your organization and the rest of it, in which case, Zoom is it. And and that's where my bias is that my my organization is, you know, the teams that I'm part of involve people from several different organizations. And we don't all have the same email domains. We have our own company email domain. So Zoom is what I use. But, you know, they but they're very equal.
John Byrne [01:02:02]:
I I think I mean, even yours is only 6 points in the difference of a 100, you know. Yeah. And with mine, I've only got one point in the difference. So, I I think that comes down to Teams being broader. So Teams has a broader usage whereas Zoom is still currently a very, you know, more video conferencing, meetings. But it's getting broader, which may be a good thing or maybe a bad thing. It could take away from this, you know, the the video conferencing if they're Yeah. Wasting time on resources to chat some things like that.
John Byrne [01:02:37]:
But, you know, we'll we'll see in a year's time, maybe we should revisit.
Dante Healy [01:02:41]:
Yeah. I think it would be worth let's put a mental placeholder to have another look at it again because it it does it does make me wonder if the strategy Zoom are approaching to try and compete directly with Microsoft is the right one. I would suggest maybe play to its strengths. There are opportunities for enhancing the quality of the video conferencing and maybe create and hosting events where you are perhaps an education provider already works well with that, but maybe there's more opportunity there. But, again, what do we know?
John Byrne [01:03:22]:
Exactly. Yeah. And and that's one thing I suppose with Zoom. They they don't advertise they don't, have as detailed. They've a, forward plan that we mark them down on for Apple. Maybe that, you know, they'll surprise us. They'll pull something out of the air that we weren't expecting. Yeah.
John Byrne [01:03:37]:
You'd be gushing over them in a year's time.
Dante Healy [01:03:39]:
Exactly. That killer feature that, you know, enables us not to have to do any work, but the job gets done anyway.
John Byrne [01:03:48]:
Exactly.
Dante Healy [01:03:50]:
Brilliant. Well, thank you, everyone. That was another episode of Business Break's Tools for Success, the battle between Zoom and Teams. And as always, thank you to my expert cohost, John Byrne. And until next time, keep breaking new ground in business. Thank you, John.
John Byrne [01:04:13]:
Thank you, Dante. Pleasure as always.