RingCentral today
announced the general availability of a free version of Glip, its team collaboration platform, that integrates its video meeting app with team messaging, file sharing, contact, task, and calendar management capabilities.
With this free Glip “Smart Video Meetings” option, which incorporates the internally developed RingCentral Video service the company
introduced in April for its UC suite, users can hold as many meetings as they want for up to 100 participants with no time limit, said Will Moxley, SVP and chief product officer for RingCentral in an email to No Jitter. While built with businesses in mind, consumers can use the service, too, he added.
Besides the integrations mentioned above, this free Glip offering includes a wide array of features and functionality, including one-click host and join from within a browser; launch from within a message thread (see below); the ability for participants to switch from one device to another during a meeting; screen sharing and annotation; seven days of cloud storage for meeting recordings and highlights. In addition, the video meetings app supports virtual backgrounds, closed captioning, dark mode, waiting rooms, and more, RingCentral said.
With the team messaging integration, users can provide the pre-meeting agenda, take notes during the meeting, and provide any follow-up action items once the meeting concludes, Moxley said. The goal is to support the whole meeting lifecycle, he added.
A paid version, Glip Pro+, allows meetings of up to 200 participants, longer access to recordings, and additional admin capabilities, Moxley said. Businesses that also want calling would need to use the RingCentral Office UC suite, he added.
“With Glip, RingCentral is making its messaging and video available to more users,” Dave Michels, principal analyst, and founder, TalkingPointz, said in a prepared statement. “By making the telephony component optional, Glip now addresses a wider variety of use cases in business communications. Glip offers an efficient way to increase collaboration and also boosts productivity by reducing the need to switch apps. The freemium approach makes it even more appealing.”
