Microsoft Teams and Cisco Webex are two such platforms that are widely popular among many people for video conferencing as they offer hassle-free virtual meetings to people belonging to different backgrounds; however, like any organization, these two also differ from one another and offer different sets of services, and it is important to understand these differences between these platforms to find the best suitable one for one’s needs.
Microsoft Teams vs Webex
The main difference between Microsoft Teams and Webex is that the former is basically a product belonging to the Microsoft business and is offered through the application of Office 365. But on the other hand, the latter is a proprietary business of an American company working in the field of video conferencing, etc., for the past thirty years. Apart from the belonging, there are many differences between these two in terms of their features and other things.
With a family of 250 million users per month, ‘teams’ is a platform by Microsoft that makes it easier to have video conferencing along with screen sharing and other features. This basically comes under the Microsoft 365 family and is gradually replacing many other video conferencing platforms such as Skype etc. A very distinguishing feature of this particular platform is that it makes video conferencing easier for people who are office-going.
While on the other hand, Webex is basically another video conferencing software or platform belonging to an American company named Cisco.
Comparison Table Between Microsoft Teams and Webex
| Parameters of Comparison | Microsoft Teams | Webex |
| Definition | It refers to a chat-based virtual platform that also allows the users to make video calls etc. | it refers to an audio and video call-based platform that is mostly used for virtually meeting people. |
| Parent company | Microsoft | Cisco |
| Established in | It was established in the year 2017. | It was established in the year 1995. |
| Price range | It happens to be comparatively cheaper in terms of price. | It happens to be comparatively expensive in terms of price. |
| Architecture | This platform is built upon the personal architecture of Microsoft. | This platform is built up upon a worldwide network range. |
| Based on | It is basically based upon the idea of providing a virtual meeting place for two businesses. | It is basically based upon the idea of providing a cloud-based service to the customers. |
What is Microsoft Teams?
On 14th March 2017, Microsoft organized a particular event in the city of New York and announced that they are launching their own chat-based communication service that will not only help people to communicate via texts but also support audio and video conferencing along with screen sharing.
At present, there are more than 250 million users of this particular service, and it is very popular all across the world because of the distinguishing features at the price range it offers.
Basically, on teams, a person is required to create a team that is created with a unique code. When some other people join this code, they are added to the particular team, and they become a member of one team. After creating a team, the people can use video conferencing or audio conferencing to communicate and can also share and upload files in the data of their particular team.
What is Webex?
In the year 1995, Webex was founded as a cloud-based communication platform by two people, namely- Subrah Iyar and Min Zhu. But back then, the application could not get much popularity as people those days used to avoid internet-based services.
The platform allows users to create meeting links and join people up to a certain limit. Once the link is created, the meeting starts in which not only people can communicate via audio and video services but can also share their screen with other people of the team and can show what work they have done or are willing to do.
But a very significant downside that comes along with this particular service is that the users have to pay a hefty amount in order to use the services of this platform. The plan basically starts from 20$ per month and can go higher depending upon the services availed.
Main Differences Between Microsoft Teams and Webex
- Microsoft Teams was established in year 2017 while on the other hand, Webex was established in the year 1995.
- Microsoft Teams happens to be a service-based upon the idea of providing a communication platform to businesses while, on the other hand, Webex provides a cloud-based communication service.
- Microsoft Teams happens to be comparatively cheaper, while on the other hand, Webex is comparatively expensive in terms of its membership plans.
- Microsoft Teams works upon the internal software of Microsoft, while on the other hand, Webex works upon a very wide-ranged network indicator.
- The parent company of Teams is Microsoft, while the parent company of Webex is cisco.
Conclusion
The traditional way of communication used to be meeting people in person or just using the Internet for some audio or video calls, but with time, humans had to find a simple solution for meeting virtually in the case where they were not able to see each other in person.
This particular need gave rise to the development of video conferencing applications, and some of them became so popular that they are still prevalent even after some places have begun to open physically. Teams and Webex are two such examples of video conferencing applications and differ from one another in so many terms.
References
- http://journals.staffs.ac.uk/index.php/ipihe/article/view/188
- http://cache42.prolifiq.com/core/f63fefee-1a55-4692-9587-9df80066aaca/Why%20WebEx.pdf