The digital service Colibri from the Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT), developed by FCCN, consists of a collaboration solution online (web conference) and currently provides access to Zoom Pro licensing. This access allows conduct videoconferencing sessions with more than 40 minutes, reserve webinars for larger events, integrate with terminals (H.323/SIP), record and make sessions available on cloud.
This service has been based on a floating user system, however, This form of licensing management is no longer supported by Zoom, which led to the end of current contract.
A negotiation process began in due course, lasting about a year, during which the FCCN team made every effort to find a solution with Zoom's European management, who maintained an unwavering position in line with the new service usage policy.
In this new context, maintain the Colibri with current features would imply an increase in costs that cannot be accommodated in the FCCN budget, FCT digital services. Therefore, Zoom Pro licensing (web conference) from Colibri, will be discontinued as of July 28, 2025.
The main changes to the service involve the end of access to Pro licensing and fixed Pro licenses in the videoconferencing rooms of participating institutions, as well as the end of access to integration with H.323 and SIP terminals.
THE Colibri continues after this date with Zoom sessions web conference with maximum duration of 40 minutes and the Zoom webinars for events aimed at more than 300 participants, no time limitations.
Alternative solutions to Zoom were studied, but meeting the maturity of the market web conference, it was decided not to incorporate another solution into the Colibri service.
To overcome this change, there are solutions open-source available alternatives that may be useful to institutions, such as BigBlueButton, the eduMEET or the JitsiIn terms of commercial options, these are some of the options available on the market: Adobe Connect, Cisco Webex, Dialpad, Google Meet, GoToMeeting, Microsoft Teams, Ringcentral, Zoho Meeting, Zoom, among others.
The team responsible for Hummingbird goes carry out changes to the service in a planned and structured manner, in order to minimize the impact of the change on the academic community, ensuring adequate support during the transition. In this way, the aim is to give institutions time to transition to other existing solutions, open-source or commercial, which best suit the needs.
The FCCN teams reiterate their willingness to assist during this transition phase, should any questions or concerns arise.
