Executive Summary
- Our “What’s That App?” series on the Get Support blog delves into the detail of those lesser-known apps, many of which are available with Microsoft 365.
- In this edition, we’ll introduce you to Microsoft Stream, the company’s answer to YouTube.
- Microsoft Stream is a video sharing service designed specifically for businesses. It allows your team to upload, view, and share videos securely.
Introduction
When it comes to business tools, Microsoft 365 has covered pretty much every base.
If you joined us for last week’s edition of What’s That App? on the topic of Yammer, you already know that they’ve created a version of Facebook for businesses. And today, we’re going to look at another quite familiar service: Microsoft Stream.
Designed for organizations to create, edit, and share videos securely, Microsoft Stream is essentially “YouTube for businesses” – and offers much of the same functionality.
Available as part of most Microsoft 365 packages, you might already have access to Microsoft Stream.
So, let’s take a look what it can do, shall we?
What is Microsoft Stream?
Microsoft Stream is a video-sharing service designed specifically for corporate users.
It’s similar in many ways to YouTube, allowing users to view, publish, and share videos within your organisation. Stream also offers many of the same community-based features as YouTube, such as commenting, timecodes, auto-generated closed captions, and more.
It also features deep integration with the rest of the Microsoft 365 suite, meaning you can embed Microsoft Stream videos across Teams, SharePoint, OneNote, and Yammer.
The platform actually began life as Office 365 Video, but was rebranded as Microsoft Stream in June 2017 after Microsoft realised just how popular the service had become.
How could Microsoft Stream help your business?
Microsoft Stream is designed to scale based on the size of your business.
If you’re a small-to-medium-sized business, you can enjoy all of the video sharing features as part of most Microsoft 365 subscriptions. If you’re an enterprise customer, you can also create and stream live events for up to 10,000 attendees.
So how else could you use Microsoft Stream to boost your business and workplace productivity? Here are the highlights:
- Share any video content internally, including training sessions, meetings, classes, and more.
- Categorise your video content, or deliver gated access to specific people, using channels and groups. To make it even more convenient, these groups are usable across Microsoft 365 – so you can gate other content, too.
- Employees can comment on videos to engage with their colleagues, and even use timecodes to refer others to specific sections of videos.
- Videos include automatic voice transcription which are searchable, making it easier to find a specific section of a video.
- Share video content from Stream to other Microsoft 365 products, including Microsoft Teams and Yammer.
- Users can browse, watch, or view live video anywhere via Microsoft Stream mobile apps for iOS (11+) or Android (5.0+).
- Microsoft Stream is secured using identity management via Azure Active Directory, so access is safe and secure.
How to start using Microsoft Stream
Like many Microsoft 365 apps, there’s a good chance you already have access to Microsoft Stream.
Here’s what you’ll get depending on your current Microsoft 365 subscription:
- Microsoft 365 Business Basic license holders and above can use Microsoft Stream to view videos or live events, upload / edit videos, comment, and search video transcriptions.
These plans start at £3.80 per user per month for the cloud-apps-only license (Business Basic) and £9.40 per user per month for a license with the desktop apps (Business Standard).
- To create and stream large-scale live events in Microsoft Stream, you’ll need to be an enterprise customer subscribed to Office 365 E1 or above.
These plans start at £6.00 per user per month for the cloud-apps-only license (Office 365 E1), and £17.60 per user per month for a license which includes desktop apps (Office 365 E3).
Want to know what else Microsoft 365 can do?
If you’re feeling inspired to dig a little deeper into your Microsoft 365 subscription – or you’re still considering whether or not to jump on board – the Get Support team can help.
As a Microsoft Cloud Solution Provider, we can help you get the best plan for your business – no middleman required.
Call our IT experts today on 01865 59 4000 and we’ll explain, in plain English, exactly how Microsoft 365 could help supercharge your business productivity.
