Microsoft, Google Offer Free Remote Work Tools Due to Coronavirus

With employees either being quarantined after international travel or encouraged to work remotely due to the Coronavirus (COVID–19), Microsoft, Google, LogMeIn, and Cisco are offering free licenses to their meeting, collaboration, and remote work tools.

Using these products, remote workers will be able to perform virtual meetings and chat with other employees while working remotely from their homes.

Microsoft Teams free for six months

A tweet by JP Courtois, Microsoft EVP and President, Microsoft Global Sales, Marketing & Operations, stated that Microsoft Teams is now available for free for six months to "support public health and safety by making remote work even easier."

Google offers free access to Hangouts Meet for G Suite users

Google announced this week that they are offering G Suite and G Suite for Education customers free access to their Hangouts Meet video-conferencing features.

This includes the following features:

• Larger meetings, for up to 250 participants per call
• Live streaming for up to 100,000 viewers within a domain 
• The ability to record meetings and save them to Google Drive

"These features are typically available in the Enterprise edition of G Suite and in G Suite Enterprise for Education, and will be available at no additional cost to all customers until July 1, 2020," Google stated in their announcement.

LogMeIn offers free Emergency Remote Work Kits

LogMeIn is offering a free Emergency Remote Work Kit that includes free 3-month site-wide licenses to GoToMeeting so that remote workers can join virtual meetings with other employees.

"Starting immediately, we will be offering our critical front-line service providers with free, organization-wide use of many LogMeIn products for 3 months through the availability of Emergency Remote Work Kits. These kits will include solutions for meetings and video conferencing, webinars and virtual events, IT support and management of remote employee devices and apps, as well as remote access to devices in multiple locations. For example, the “Meet” Emergency Remote Work Kit will provide eligible organizations with a free site-wide license of GoToMeeting for 3 months," LogMeIn CEO Bill Wagnar said in a blog post.

Cisco offers free enhanced Webex licenses

As we previously reported, Cisco has enhanced its free Webex license to now support meetings with an unlimited amount of time and up to 100 participants.

Cisco is also offering free 90-day licenses to businesses that are not currently Webex customers.

"Additionally, through our partners and the Cisco sales team, we are providing free 90-day licenses to businesses who are not Webex customers in this time of need. We’re also helping existing customers meet their rapidly changing needs as they enable a much larger number of remote workers by expanding their usage at no additional cost," Cisco announced.