On March 20, Governor of New York Andrew Cuomo mandated that all nonessential workers were to stay at home. The drastic move is an unsurprising one, as the workforce has slowly moved towards remote solutions in response to the coronavirus outbreak.
Over the last few weeks, companies have increasingly encouraged employees to work from home to encourage social distancing— and software firms have taken notice. In a move that will help a new group of workers acclimate to working from their own living rooms, offices, and kitchen tables software developers and service providers have begun offering free licenses, free tools, and resources.
Here are 10 free tools available right now:
Calendly are offering Free Zoom and GoToMeeting integrations for their online appointment scheduling software. These tools, which they hope will help remote workers stay connected, were previously only available from the company’s premium tier. These free offerings will be available up until June 30.
Remote workers will now be able to access Google’s premium version of its workplace video chat tool, which allows up to 250 participants per call and live streaming for up to 100,000 people within a domain, through to July. This will help both businesses and schools as workers and students begin to work remotely.
As workers move to their homes, there is an increasing demand for stable WiFi. Comcast hopes to ease the pressure with free Xfinity WiFi. This includes hotspots, which will be available to everyone, including non-Xfinity subscribers. Access is easy as looking for ‘xfinitywifi’ in your list of available networks.
Amazon has announced it will be giving free access to online computer science courses in the U.S., for those in grade 6 through to 12 as well as educators remotely teaching. Parents will also be given access to the curriculum as part of The Amazon Future Engineer program. Users will maintain free access through to August 31. The company is also offering free access to Amazon Workspaces and WorkDocs for up to 50 users up until June 30.
For those looking to upskill while they have more time at home, LinkedIn is giving unprecedented free access to 16 learning courses. These range from a one-hour lesson on working remotely, tips on being productive at home, as well as a range of courses on WebEx, Zoom, Skype, and Microsoft Teams.
As libraries are forced to close, Epic is ready to give free remote access to its reading platform to elementary educators, librarians, and students until June 30. The company’s digital library, which has over 40,000 books, audiobooks, videos, quizzes, and more will give teachers and librarians a way to stay connected to pupils while monitoring their progress.
Cisco has been slowly expanding its list of features available to existing Webex users. This includes unlimited usage without time restriction, support for fewer than 100 participants, and toll-free dial-in. Customers that are not already using the service can sign up to a free 90-day license. Cisco is also offering a free license for new customers of Duo Security’s two-factor authentication tool, while current customers can go above their user limit. This is also the case for web security tool, Umbrella and VPN product, AnyConnect, until July 1.
Airtable is making its Pro Plan available for free, without any time limits. This will be available to any non-political humanitarian groups working on COVID-19 relief efforts as well as students. This includes live training for everyone on creating CM, product roadmaps, and project trackers on its platform.
Popular mindfulness app, Headspace which is renowned for its guided meditations is offering its premium Headspace Plus content for free to U.S. healthcare professionals until the end of the year.
Workable is giving free access to its Video Interview add-on for all customers on an annual plan. It hopes to ease the transition to working from home. It’s free for 3 months from activation.
