Mar 14, 2020

5 min read

Yes, it’s free. Thanks to COVID-19

The overall situation in the world is… not good. But let’s find something positive. The following is a list of tools and subscriptions due to the COVID-19 situation. Let’s go!

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Microsoft: free Teams for 6 months

Teams is a part of Office 365. If your organization is licensed for Office 365, you already have it. But we want to make sure everyone has access to it during this time. Here are some simple ways to get Teams right away.

Individuals

If you want to get started with Teams, we can get you up and running right away.

If you have an email address through work or school, sign in using this link. We’ll get you into Teams in no time.
If you’re using an email address like Gmail or Outlook, you can sign up for the freemium version of Teams by following this link.

IT professionals

The self-service links above work great for individuals, but if you’re an IT professional who wants to roll out Teams centrally, here’s what to do.

If you work for a business that isn’t currently licensed for Teams, we’ve got you covered with a free Office 365 E1 offer for six months. Contact your Microsoft partner or sales representative to get started today. (Note: the same offer is available in the Government Cloud, but not available in GCC High and the Department of Defense.)
If you work in education and want to set up teachers, students, and administrators on Teams, use Office 365 A1. This free version of Office 365 is available to all educational institutions. Sign up by following this link.

Official statement: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/blog/2020/03/05/our-commitment-to-customers-during-covid-19/

Google: free access to advanced Hangouts Meet video-conferencing capabilities to all G Suite and G Suite for Education customers

Starting this week, we will begin rolling out free access to our advanced Hangouts Meet video-conferencing capabilities to all G Suite and G Suite for Education customers globally including:

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

Official statement: https://cloud.google.com/blog/products/g-suite/helping-businesses-and-schools-stay-connected-in-response-to-coronavirus

Zoom: no 40-minute limit for schools

To ensure all of our K-12 districts and other institutions can most effectively leverage Zoom for virtual education during this time, Zoom is:

Temporarily removing the 40-minute limit on free Basic accounts for schools in Japan and Italy, and by request for K-12 schools in the United States (upd. more countries were added)
Providing multi-language resources specifically designed for principals, vice principals, teachers, students, and parents to set up and use Zoom
Expanding live trainings, webinars, and recorded offerings to share best practices for using the platform

Official statement: https://blog.zoom.us/wordpress/2020/03/13/how-to-use-zoom-for-online-learning/

Kahoot! offers free distance learning tools during the coronavirus outbreak

With Kahoot! Premium, educators can collaborate with teachers outside of school walls, use advanced question types, and access in-depth reports, which they can utilize for formative assessment purposes.

Kahoot! Basic, a free version, features the same distance learning game modes as Kahoot! Premium, such as self-paced challenges, and is and will always be available for free for K-12 teachers and schools.

Official statement: https://kahoot.com/coronavirus-remote-offer/

LogMeIn

LogMeIn is making “Emergency Remote Work Kits” available for free for three months. Those kits are designed for nonprofits, schools, and healthcare organizations that aren’t already customers.

Cisco

Cisco is offering the free version of its Webex service with no time restrictions. In addition, it will allow up to 100 meeting participants and has added toll-free dial-in features with a 90-day license for businesses that are not already customers.

Zoho

As Zoho and rest of the world embraces remote work policies, we have decided to share our remote work toolkit, Remotely. This is a suite of communication, productivity, and collaboration software tools that we are offering free of cost until July 1, 2020. Please visit Remotely to start using your own edition.

Source: https://www.zoho.com/general/blog/coronavirus-update.html

Cloudflare

Cloudflare is offering 500 seats of Cloudflare for Teams (a tool that lets remote workers connect securely and easily to corporate apps) for small businesses through September 1, as well as a free onboarding session.

GoToMeeting

GoToMeeting is offering three months of free site-wide licensing of its video conferencing solution, GoToMeeting, for eligible organizations (health care providers, educational institutions, municipalities and non-profits).

Box

Box is offering three months free of its secure file sharing and collaboration platform. The offer is for the company’s Business plan and includes unlimited storage, mobile access, and advanced user and security reporting.

Coursera for Campus will be available at no cost to any impacted university globally

We’re joining with our partners to provide free access to Coursera for Campus for any impacted college or university.

Source: https://www.coursera.org/coronavirus

Metropolitan Opera to Offer Up ‘Nightly Met Opera Streams’

In an effort to continue providing opera to its audience members, the Met Opera will host “Nightly Met Opera Streams” on its official website to audiences worldwide.

These free streams will present encores of past performances from its famed Live in HD series. The encore presentations will begin at 7:30 p.m. each night on the company’s official website and will then be available for an additional 20 hours thereafter. Each showcase will also be viewable on the Met Opera on demand apps.

Official statement: https://operawire.com/metropolitan-opera-to-offer-up-nightly-met-opera-streams/

The Digital Concert Hall now free for everyone

The Philharmonie Berlin is closed until 19 April to help contain the coronavirus. But the orchestra will continue to play for you — in the Digital Concert Hall. The Berliner Philharmoniker invite you to visit their virtual concert hall free of charge.

Source: https://www.berliner-philharmoniker.de/en/titelgeschichten/20192020/digital-concert-hall/

Bonus for Italians! Pornhub offers quarantined Italians free access.

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