The story of buzz over the videoconferencing tool Zoom and its corresponding growth in stock price has drawn the attention of tech analysts and industry leaders alike. By some accounts, the Silicon Valley company has become one of the biggest beneficiaries of the coronavirus outbreak. After the COVID-19 outbreak during the past month and half, downloads of Zoom have increased 740 percent. Zoom has said it now has more than 300 million daily participants, up from 10 million before the pandemic.
Zoom’s story is that of being at the right place, at the right time with a user-friendly software. Zoom seemingly grew organically, benefitting from word-of-mouth publicity. Zoom’s success hasn’t come without challenges, especially around its security and privacy practices. Zoombombing has become a part of manstream vocabulary, as much as zoom has become a verb for videoconferencing. This stratospheric growth of Zoom has also drawn attention of tech and telecom leaders across the industry segments.
- Cisco recently promoted its Webex teleconferencing service as highly secure compared with Zoom.
- Mark Zuckerberg is directing resources in enhancing and promoting new Facebook Messenger video product.
- Google announced that it was plugging Meet directly into Gmail so users could take video calls inside their email browser window.
- Telecom giant Verizon announced it was purchasing VideoConferencing startup BlueJeans on April 16
- In recent weeks, more than 50 million people have signed up for Houseparty, a video chat app that is popular with younger audiences. To differentiate itself, Houseparty said it was emphasizing features like the ability to play games with other participants in the app.
While tech giants and telecoms react to the growth of demand for videoconferencing technologies, governments around the world are also reviewing principles and policies around these tools. The Indian government recently published an advisory stating videoconferencing software Zoom is “not a safe platform”, joining other countries that have expressed concern about the security of an application that has become hugely popular worldwide during the coronavirus lockdown. While doing so, the Indian Government is inviting local technology companies to build a secure video conferencing solution as part of the Make in India initiative.
Other links
- Security News This Week: Zoom Upgrades Encryption Keys to What It Promised All Along
- Google Meet call w/ thousands of Googlers watched an executive’s son praise Zoom
- Zoom’s Good Week Ends on Sour Note After Facebook Crashes Party
- Zoom’s Biggest Rivals Are Coming for It
- Former Cisco CEO John Chambers finally gets his wish: Video conferencing is now mainstream
- The best alternatives to Zoom for videoconferencing