Blink

Puntos a favor: After several false starts with other applications, the team quickly adopted Blink. Within two weeks we had rolled out Blink as the tool of choice. We are distributed over two offices and/or on customer site - so having a central messaging tool that everyone uses is great. New joiners find it easy to learn/use. We have some company-wide channels, individual team channels, lots of ad hoc groups, and then normal direct messaging. Due to the ease of use we use it regularly to bring small/ad hoc project teams together in order to share documentation and messaging. The fact that there is a desktop app, a web app, an iOS app and Android app means Blink can be used where ever you are. We like the lightning-quick search, have linked it to both Jira and Office 365, and have plans to extend it with an in-house Bot. New features are released on a regular basis and if we have any questions then we have found the support to be very quick and helpful.

Contras: The main limitation is that we still need to use a separate application for screen sharing and voice calls. It would be nice if this feature was added. However, we would rather use Blink for messaging and sharing than go to product that was a unified platform but a poorer experience. For that reason we still currently use Skype for Business for voice and screen sharing but have chosen not to use Microsoft Teams for colloboration as we think Blink is a far better experience.

Comentarios: We're still playing around with the features but so far after less than a month we are happy with what we are working with.

Puntos a favor: - free for up to 20 users
- great alternative to a company intranet / communication portal for the micro businesses who want to share their management system documentation with field staff and don't want to fork out expensive licences with Microsoft for similar products like yammer / SharePoint.
- if you are IT savvy and know how to build microapps feature will draw your attention.
- Can download on android and iOS devices
- Has a desktop app for windows and iOS devices

Contras: - you have to purchase the premier package at a monthly cost per user to do branding. It would be good if there was a fixed fee per month for up to 10 users for the small companies e.g. £20 plus VAT.

Comentarios: Helps build teams, gives me a great way to communicate and collaborate.

Puntos a favor: It's all the small stuff this does apart from being a great messaging app, naturally builds culture within teams and the business. Gives my people the ability to reach out at any time on any device to ask questions and to be helped. Our EPG is linked (via API) and it's a great way to get good automated snap shots awhile on the move... even alerts. We get the ability to message all our people at once in emergency situations (came in handy when the beast from the east arrived)

Contras: It's quite fresh but still packed with features, the development cycle is really agile. When we have an issue its usually fixed within a couple of days to a week. We hit a couple of bugs in the early days but we were supported and kept up to date on progress.

Puntos a favor: This is more than just a messaging app, a great one at that, It enables teams of staff to interact and collaborate with each other enabling a variety of benefits to arise. Some of these benefits include a growth in culture amongst teams and the business, the ability to contact others regardless of time, location or device and the simple yet effective layout of the App has made it more appealing and enjoyable to use. The App allows people to contact all teams during emergency situations. This proves effective during unprecedented events such as the recent 'Beast from the East'. Mostly we like the ceiling of the product. Many products in their early days are plagued with bugs and developmental issues, however, this software has had very few, this is a huge positive as this is rarely the case for new software, this puts the software in a league of its own.

Puntos a favor: Blink provides me with an excellent way of communicating with colleagues and getting company updates out to the wider business. I find it better than email as it has a more natural flow and much more efficient as you can create multiple relevant chats and groups for all your requirements. Notifications are great and it intergrates with all my other apps.

Contras: I'm looking forward to the getting an update to enable messages to be sent after being offline, this would enable
Me to use offline and keep up to date with chats.