Know of any other available products?
Have you caught wind of other free offerings designed to help businesses during the pandemic ? Let us know at joel.khalili@futurenet.com
Companies all over the world have ordered employees to work from home in response to the introduction of widespread quarantine and social distancing measures.
Top of the list of concerns for many businesses is whether employees are properly equipped to go virtual-only. The lack of appropriate software could prove a significant stumbling block for workers asked to suddenly abandon their office workstations.
Thankfully, technology vendors of all shapes and sizes have come to the rescue, with many offering free access to premium services for a limited time. Here’s a rundown of the best free products and services to help your business navigate the ongoing pandemic:
*We’re constantly updating this guide with all the latest offers, so be sure to check back regularly.
Collaboration tools
Cisco Webex
Cisco has added additional features to its free Webex service and is also offering free 90-day business licenses to firms affected by coronavirus. Free accounts will now allow users to host meetings with up to 100 participants for an unlimited amount of time.
Available to: all businesses
View Deal
PowWowNow
PowWowNow has extended the free trial of its services from 14 to 60 days to help employees work from home and stay productive during the pandemic. The company’s suite of technology products includes web meetings, video and conference calling.
Available to: all businessesView Deal
Zoho Remotely
Zoho Remotely is a new suite of apps designed to help remote workers stay productive, free until July 1. The suite contains 11 apps in total, including solutions for online meetings, training sessions, storage, project management and word processing.
Available to: all businessesView Deal
Vonage
VoIP provider Vonage is offering businesses free 90-day access to a number of its communications solutions, including mobile-only licenses and video conferencing. Governments and healthcare providers will have access to additional products, including VBC and instant SMS alert services.
Available to: all businesses (with additional features for healthcare providers and government agencies)View Deal
FreeConferenceCall
On top of its standard offering, free online video conferencing platform FreeConferenceCall.com is providing online classroom capabilities to teachers across the world. Educators can host and record lectures, schedule study sessions with screen sharing, and use drawing tools while teaching.
Available to: all businesses (with additional facilities for schools)
LogMeIn
LogMeIn is offering critical front-line service providers with free, organisation-wide use of many of its products for three months. The offer includes solutions for meetings, video conferencing, webinars and virtual events and management of remote devices.
Available to: front line service providers, existing customersView Deal
Google Hangouts Meet
Advanced Google Hangouts Meet features, usually reserved for G Suite Enterprise customers, will be free for all G Suite and G Suite for Education customers until July 1. Users will be able to organise meetings with up to 250 attendees and live stream content to as many as 100,000 people.
Available to: G Suite and G Suite for Education customersView Deal
Workplace Advanced by Facebook
In an effort to help emergency services and governments deal with the ongoing coronavirus outbreak, Facebook has announced it will offer the premium version of its workplace chat service, Workplace Advanced, for free for 12 months.
Available to: governments, emergency servicesView Deal
RingCentral Office
RingCentral is offering free access to its business communication software-as-a-service solution for three months. The package includes unlimited internet fax, up to 100 person video conferencing, unlimited phone calls within the US and Canada and up to 2500 toll-free minutes per month.
Available to: US-based healthcare providers, schools and new non-profit customers
View Deal
Flock Pro
Flock is giving away its Flock Pro collaboration offering through the end of August to any organisation assisting in the fight against coronavirus. Flock Pro includes unlimited searchable messages, unlimited private and public channels and group video calls.
Available to: healthcare, education, governments, NGOsView Deal
VPN
Hide Me VPN
Hide Me VPN has increased the data transfer limit attached to its free accounts from 2GB to 10GB. The free plan includes 5 worldwide locations and support for all major operating systems
Available to: all businessesView Deal
Ring VPN
Ring VPN has offered up its service to all UK users for 90 days, to help those either quarantined or working from home to preserve their online privacy.
Available to: all UK businessesView Deal
Surfshark VPN
Demand for VPNs has skyrocketed with the spread of the coronavirus, as businesses and individuals look to preserve their online privacy and bypass internet restrictions. Surfshark is giving away six-month VPN plans to small businesses (up to ten employees), in a bid to help them weather the storm.
Available to: small businesses (up to 10 employees) View Deal
Orchid VPN
Orchid VPN is offering free access to its blockchain-based VPN to journalists across the globe, in a bid to fight press censorship. To be granted access, journalists must provide proof of status via email.
Available to: all journalistsView Deal
Antivirus and cybersecurity
Blackberry
Blackberry’s range of secure communication solutions for enterprises is available for free for a 60-day period – that includes BlackBerry Desktop, Blackberry AtHoc, Blackberry Protect and SecuSUITE Secure Messaging and Phone Calls. Interested parties should email: covid19help@blackberry.com
Available to: all businessesView Deal
DomainTools Covid-19 Threat List
DomainTools is providing a free list of high-risk coronavirus-related domains, which logs domains the company believes pose either an existent or forthcoming threat. The list is updated daily and is available for CSV download.
Available to: all businessesView Deal
Kaspersky Endpoint Security
Kaspersky is offering free access to its core endpoint security products, including EndPoint Security Cloud Plus, Security for Microsoft Office 365 (extended to include Teams and Sharepoint Online), Endpoint Security for Business Advanced and Hybrid Cloud Security. Interested parties should contact Kaspersky directly.
Available to: healthcare organisationsView Deal
Bitdefender
Healthcare organisations have been granted free access to Bitdefender’s enterprise grade security offering for a period of 12 months. The company hopes the measure will allow healthcare providers to operate at full capacity, without worrying about opportunistic attacks at this trying time.
Available to: healthcare organisationsView Deal
Qualys Endpoint Protection
Qualys is giving away its remote endpoint protection service for 60 days to help IT teams secure remote workforces. The solution allows security teams to gain instant visibility of remote computers, identify missing patches and deploy them from the cloud.
Available to: all businesses (although Qualys customers will be prioritised)View Deal
Emisoft
Emisoft is offering free assistance to healthcare organisations affected by a ransomware attack, including technical analysis of the ransomware, the development of a decryption tool and, as a last resort, ransom negotiation assistance.
Available to: healthcare organisationsView Deal
Password management
Dashlane
Password manager Dashlane has made its Premium and Business subscriptions free for the next three months. The company hopes to smooth navigation between online accounts at a time when the internet is needed most.
Available to: all new usersView Deal
1Password Business
1Password has extended the 30-day trial on its enterprise password manager 1Password Business to six months, allowing newly remote employees to work in a secure and efficient fashion.
Available to: all businessesView Deal
Finance
Hastee
Earnings on demand platform Hastee is giving workers deemed crucial to the UK’s coronavirus response access to their wages ahead of pay day for free until June.
Available to: UK NHS, police, fire services, teachers, food supply chainView Deal
Wagestream
Income streaming provider Wagestream will allow NHS trusts to release earnings to their staff immediately at not extra cost, to help UK healthcare workers through the ongoing pandemic. The service can be launched for any employers in 24 hours.
Available to: UK NHSView Deal
Education
Coursera for Campus
The world’s largest online learning platform has made its full course catalogue free to all universities. Students will gain access to 3,800 courses spanning 400 specialisations from Coursera’s university partners.
Available to: all universitiesView Deal
Moz Academy
To support business training initiatives during the outbreak, Moz is offering all SEO training courses at Moz Academy for free until the end of May. Just use the promo code “wegotthis” at checkout.
Available to: all businessesView Deal
openSAP
Enterprise software giant SAP has opened up access to a series of massive open online courses (MOOCs). All classes are accessible through the openSAP platform, and span topics including RPA, data science, machine learning, ethical AI and the IoT.
Available to: all businessesView Deal
Classkick
Schools affected by the coronavirus crisis and unable to afford virtual learning solutions have been granted free access to Classkick Pro. The software allows teachers to upload their own content and create activities for students to perform on their devices at home.
Available to: schools affected the coronavirus crisisView Deal
Other
Laplink PCmover
PC migration firm Laplink has announced free and discounted versions of its PCmover software to support the growing number of remote workers. PCmover Express is free for all until June 30 – allowing users to move files, settings etc. from one PC to another – while PCmover Professional is available at a 33% discount.
Available to: all Windows users (businesses must use PCmover Professional)View Deal
Appian Covid-19 Response Management
Appian has published a free Covid-19 Response Management application for enterprises and government agencies. The app, which can be fully configured within two hours, allows organisations to track the health of employees, including their location, travel history and coronavirus incident details.
Available to: all businessesView Deal
ServiceNow Covid-19 Response Management
Digital workflow company ServiceNow has released four free Covid-19 emergency response apps, to help businesses navigate the coronavirus pandemic. The apps deliver key information to resource managers to facilitate organisational readiness assessment.
Available to: all businessesView Deal
NICE CXone@home
Remote contact center solution CXone@home from NICE is available to all businesses for a period of 45 days. The offering is designed to help contact centers transition to a remote working model in 48 hours or less. Key functionality includes 99.99% availability, e-learning for agent onboarding and no seat limits.
Available to: all businessesView Deal
Emailgistics
Emailgistics is providing its SaaS email management solution for free until the end of June, to help improve team inbox collaboration in Microsoft Office 365 for those forced to work from home.
Available to: all businesses
Rainbird
Intelligent automation firm Rainbird is offering its solution free of charge to organisations working on philanthropic projects, including those relating to the ongoing crisis. Its technology can automate complex decisions at scale and explain its rationale at each juncture.
Available to: all businesses involved in philanthropic projects
View Deal