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  • How Pandemic Contributed to the Success of Zoom Video Communications?

    Company Profile is an initiative by StartupTalky to publish verified information on different startups and organizations. The content in this post has been approved by Zoom.

    The global video conferencing market size is expected to reach USD 10.92 billion by 2027, exhibiting a CAGR of 9.7% during the forecast period. Zoom Video Communications, Inc. incorporated on April 04, 2011, is a provider of video-first communication platform and Web conferencing services. In recent times, Zoom became a global phenomenon as businesses had to revert to working from home.

    The Company offers cloud-native platform, which unifies cloud video conferencing, online meetings, group messaging and a software-based conference room system, which enables users to easily experience Zoom Meetings in their physical meeting spaces.

    With the coronavirus pandemic hitting the whole world at large, face-to-face business activities had to take a plunge. That’s when this company became a savior for every online meeting that took place. We are talking about the Zoom cloud meeting which was founded by Eric S. Yuan in 2011.

    Zoom is an American company offering remote conferencing services. It is headquartered in San Jose, California. Zoom also has offices in Europe, Asia, and Australia. It primarily provides a remote conferencing service that combines other tertiary services like video conferencing, online meetings, chat, and mobile collaboration to facilitate conducting business virtually. It is one of the online meeting platforms which paved its way for success.

    Zoom success during pandemic was unexpected and it was a turning point in their organization. Read on to know more about the Zoom success story below.

    Zoom – Company Highlights

    Startup Name Zoom
    Headquarters San Jose, California, United States
    Industry Video Communication and Conferencing
    Founder Eric Yuan
    Founded 2011
    Total Funding Raised $276 Million
    Parent Organization Zoom Video Communications, Inc.

    Zoom – About
    Zoom – Impact of COVID19
    Zoom – Founder
    Zoom – Startup Story
    Zoom – Customer Acquisition
    Zoom – Mission
    Zoom – Business Model
    Zoom – Mergers and Acquisitions
    Zoom – Funding and Investors
    Zoom – Valuation
    Zoom – Competitors
    Zoom – Challenges Faced
    Zoom – Future Plans

    Zoom – About

    Zoom Video Communications, Inc. (or simply Zoom) is an American communications technology company headquartered in San Jose, California. It provides videotelephony and online chat services through a cloud-based peer-to-peer software platform and is used for teleconferencing, telecommuting, distance education, and social relations.

    The company develops a people-centric cloud service that transforms real-time collaboration experience. The Company offers unified meeting experience, a cloud service that provides a 3-in-1 meeting platform with HD video conferencing, mobility, and web meetings. The company’s cloud-native platform enables face-to-face video and connects users across various devices and locations in a single meeting. Zoom, which was founded in 2011 and is headquartered in San Jose, California, serves companies of all sizes from all industries around the world.

    Zoom Cloud meetings offer a free video-conferencing facility for up to 100 participants. It offers a communications platform that connects people through video, voice, chat, and content sharing. Zoom is compatible with Windows, macOS, iOS, Android, Chrome OS, and Linux. Originally, it came with a 40-minute time limit but now due to coronavirus lockdown, this limit has been removed. If the companies want to add more participants and avail of more advanced features, paid subscriptions are available with the Zoom meeting app. Zoom’s closed source software is claimed to be compliant with FedRAMP, HIPAA, PIPEDA and PHIPA, and the GDPR.

    Initially, when Zoom was launched, it could host video conferences with only 15 participants which got increased to 25, two years after its inception. From there, it directly jumped to a participation limit of 100 in 2015 followed by 1000 for business customers.

    Users can hold one-on-one meetings or conduct video conferences with up to 500 participants. Screen sharing allows meeting participants to better coordinate within meetings and distribute information.

    The company has an easy, reliable cloud platform for video and audio conferencing, collaboration, chat, and webinars across mobile devices, desktops, telephones, and room systems.

    The worldwide adoption of Zoom is powered by its two core products: Zoom Meetings and Chat as well as Zoom Rooms and Workspaces. Zoom Meetings can be attended and held via a web browser, or desktop and mobile applications. The  Chat works as an extension to the Meeting product where users can interact through a chat with each other, share files, or create groups.

    Rooms and Workspaces, on the other hand, allows businesses to utilize hardware such as a computer, tablet, camera, microphone, and more to hold virtual meetings. The product is specifically aimed at larger-scale organizations, which need to hold meetings across different offices. To make integration with the hardware easier, Zoom even offers its own set of hardware that they developed in collaboration with other manufacturers.

    Zoom – Impact of COVID19

    COVID-19 really boosted the success story of Zoom. This is when the Zoom Success strategy worked out really well. We’ve outlined its impact below!

    • With the pandemic intensifying, lockdowns were announced in almost all the affected countries which took Zoom to an altogether new level.
    • Be it companies, schools, or colleges, all started using Zoom Video Communications to conduct business meetings and deliver lectures.
    • Zoom offered its services to K–12 schools free of charge in many countries.
    • Zoom also released a paid education plan which allows unlimited meetings for up to 300 people. Not just that, these meetings are graced with the options of recording, transcription, and various other administrative controls.
    • These activities contributed to a sharp rise in Zoom usage and contributed to Zoom success during pandemic. For example, in just a day, the Zoom application was downloaded 3,43,000 times.
    • The company gained over 2.22 million users in the initial months of 2020. This number exceeded the number of users and  Zoom had amassed entirely in 2019.
    • Consequently, by March 2020, the Zoom share price increased to US$160.98 per share. This drafted an increase of about 263% as compared to its initial share prices when it came out with an IPO.
    • Zoom also became the go-to social platform for the Millennials. During this pandemic when they couldn’t step out, they used Zoom for blind dates and recess and many more fun activities that could turn their boredom into delight.
    • The founder, Yuan, added $20 Million to his net worth in just one day. This took his total net worth to $5.6 Billion!

    Zoom – Founder

    The Founder of Zoom is Eric S. Yuan.

    Eric S. Yuan, Founder, Zoom
    Eric S. Yuan, Founder, Zoom

    Educational qualification

    Bachelor’s and master’s degrees in applied mathematics and computer science from the Shandong University of Science and Technology.

    Early life

    Yuan was working with WebEx, which was acquired by Cisco Systems and that’s when he became vice president of engineering. After that, he went on to launch Zoom Video Communications.

    Zoom – Startup Story

    Eric Yuan is a former corporate vice president for Cisco WebEx. He left Cisco in April 2011 with 40 engineers to start a new company, originally named Saasbee, Inc. Prior to starting Zoom, Yuan spent 14 years leading engineering teams – first at WebEx, then at Cisco after its acquisition of WebEx in 2007.

    At Cisco, he often saw how frustrated the company’s customers were with their inability to listen to their demands and the slow product iteration process.

    The company had trouble finding investors because many people thought the video telephony market was already saturated. In June 2011, the company raised $3 million of seed money from WebEx founder Subrah Iyar, former Cisco SVP and General Counsel Dan Scheinman, and venture capitalists Matt Ocko, TSVC, and Bill Tai.

    In May 2012, the company changed its name to Zoom, influenced by Thacher Hurd’s children’s book Zoom City. In September 2012, Zoom launched a beta version that could host conferences with up to 15 video participants. In November 2012, the company signed Stanford University as its first customer.

    The service was launched in January 2013 after the company raised a $6 million Series A round from Qualcomm Ventures, Yahoo! founder Jerry Yang, WebEx founder Subrah Iyar, and former Cisco SVP and General Counsel Dan Scheinman. Zoom launched version 1.0 of the program allowing the maximum number of participants per conference to be 25. By the end of its first month, Zoom had 400,000 users and by May 2013 it had 1 million users. In the recent COVID times, Zoom rose to worldwide prominence as many companies use it to conduct meetings and organize their work processes.

    Zoom – Customer Acquisition

    Zoom's Business Customers growth
    Zoom’s Business Customers growth

    Within just one year of inception, Zoom recorded participation of 1 million user base. In its first year, Zoom established partnerships with multiple B2B collaboration software providers which included Redbooth (then Teambox), and together created a program that was named “Works with Zoom“. This, in turn, worked for Zoom in establishing more superior partnerships with hardware and software vendors like Logitech, Vaddio, and InFocus.

    Zoom in 2014

    Zoom had already reached 10 million users by 2014. And this number skyrocketed in 2015 when it went on to 40 million individuals with 65,000 organizations subscribed to the Zoom Video Conferencing Services. By 2015, Zoom had already hosted a total of 1 billion meeting minutes since its inception.

    Zoom in 2017

    Zoom hosted Zoomtopia 2017 in the year that was Zoom’s first-ever annual user conference. During this conference, they announced a dynamic series of new products and partnerships, which also included Zoom’s Partnership with Meta. This partnership was envisioned to integrate Zoom with Augmented Reality, more popularly known as AR. Also, Zoom announced its native support for Skype for Business and its futile integration with Slack, Workplace by Facebook, and its initial steps towards artificial intelligence (AI) speech-to-text converter.

    Zoom – Mission

    Zoom’s mission statement says, “Our mission is to develop a people-centric cloud service that unifies your meeting experience and improves the quality and effectiveness of communications forever.“

    Zoom – Business Model

    The business model of Zoom is built on charging businesses a reoccurring subscription fee for the various products the company offers. On top of that, Zoom makes money from the promotion of hardware products.

    Zoom – Revenue and Growth

    Zoom's Revenue Growth
    Zoom’s Revenue Growth

    Zoom has recorded annual revenue of $953 Million in 2021.

    Zoom Video Communications’ revenue for the quarter ending October 31, 2020 was $0.777B, a 366.52% increase year-over-year. Zoom Video Communications revenue for the twelve months ending October 31, 2020 was $1.957B, a 262.29% increase year-over-year.

    Zoom has 504,900 business customers.

    Zoom – Mergers and Acquisitions

    Zoom extended its communication network and service through mergers and acquisition as listed below.

    • In 2015, Zoom announced the integration of Zoom video conferencing with Salesforce’s customer relationship management platform. This collaboration allowed the sales team to initiate such conferences with their sales leads without leaving the application.
    • In 2017, Zoom went on to launch Telehealth. This platform is a scalable product in the telehealth category which allows doctors to remotely visit their patients through video communications for consultation.
    • In 2017, Zoom Video Communications announced a partnership with Polycom. This partnership integrated Zoom’s video meetings into the partnered company, Polycom’s conferencing systems and enabled a wide array of features that included multiple screens and device meetings, HD and wireless screen sharing, and calendar integration with Microsoft Outlook, Google Calendar, and iCal.
    • In March 2020, NextTech AR Solutions acquired a software company named Jolokia. Through this acquisition, it intends to integrate Zoom into Jolokia’s Inferno platform. The highlight is that this integration will allow Zoom Video meetings to support up to 100,000 participants. Not just that, with added and advanced features like “real-time Q&A Plus immersive AR.” and additional features like the ability to start a Zoom meeting from the Inferno platform and the incorporation of closed captioning in 64 languages to meeting recordings.
    • Very recently, in May 2020, Zoom acquired Keybase. Keybase offers end-to-end encrypted chat, file-sharing, and code-hosting all based on a cryptographic platform.
    • Zoom has acquired German startup Karlsruhe Information Technology Solutions (KITES) on June 30, 2021. The company’s acquisition would bring in the knowledge of language translation via machine learning and is deemed to be a step forward to break the language barriers and speed up the work across the organizations the world over.

    Zoom – Funding and Investors

    Zoom has raised a total of $276 Million in funding over 8 rounds. Their latest funding was raised in January 2017 from a Series D round.

    Here is a list of all the funding rounds of Zoom:

    Date Stage Amount Investors
    November 2021 Post IPO Equity $130 Million ARK Investment Management
    January 2017 Series D $100 million Sequoia Capital, Emergence Capital Partners
    February 2015 Series C $30 million Emergence Capital Partners, Horizons Ventures, Qualcomm Ventures
    September 2013 Series B $6.5 million Horizons Ventures, Jerry Yang, Patrick Soon-Shiong
    January 2013 Series A $6 million Qualcomm Ventures, Jerry Yang
    June 2011 Seed Round $3 million TEEC Angel Fund, Michael Everett, Matt Ocko
    February 2010 Pre Seed Round $500K –

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    Zoom – Valuation

    The Zoom valuation is currently at $9.2 billion. It raised a total of $751 million at IPO.

    Zoom – Competitors

    There are several online video conferencing services available.

    Top competitors of Zoom are:

    Zoom – Challenges Faced

    With all this extra attention, Zoom is now facing a huge privacy and security backlash as security experts, privacy advocates, lawmakers, and even the FBI warn that Zoom’s default settings aren’t secure enough. Zoom now risks becoming a victim of its own success.

    Zoom has battled security and privacy concerns before. Apple was forced to step in and silently remove Zoom software from Macs last year after a serious security vulnerability let websites hijack Mac cameras. In recent weeks, scrutiny over Zoom’s security practices has intensified, with a lot of the concern focused on its default settings and the mechanisms that make the app so easy to use.

    Each Zoom call has a randomly generated ID number between 9 and 11 digits long that’s used by participants to gain access to a meeting. Researchers have found that these meeting IDs are easy to guess, allowing anyone to get into meetings.

    While Zoom still states on its website that you can “secure a meeting with end-to-end encryption,” the company was forced to admit it’s actually misleading people. “It is not possible to enable E2E encryption for Zoom video meetings,” said a Zoom spokesperson in a statement.

    Zoom – Future Plans

    During the vision keynote of Zoomtopia 2020, Zoom Video Communications, Inc. unveiled major developments to its platform that evolve the future of communications.

    OnZoom: A one-of-a-kind online event platform for Zoom users to create and host free, paid, and fundraising events. Hosts can grow their businesses, expand their reach into new audiences, and give back through native donation integration. Zoom users can discover these events and sign up for new experiences with additional functionality like gifting tickets and an attendee dashboard to keep tabs on favorite events and brands.

    New end-to-end encryption (E2EE) offering: This optional feature will be generally available in technical preview to free and paid Zoom users next week. It can be enabled at the account, group, and user level, and, depending on how the account admin sets up the feature, can be toggled on and off by the host on a by-meeting basis. When enabled, Zoom’s E2EE ensures that communication between meeting participants using Zoom applications is encrypted using cryptographic keys known only to the devices of those participants.

    Customizable SDK: Zoom is adding new enhancements to its SDKs, enabling developers and companies to enrich their own custom video-based applications with Zoom’s platform, available now on Android, iOS, and web. Developers can take advantage of a customizable UI and session control, making it easier for them to bring high-quality video, audio, and instant chat to their applications.

    Zapps: Zapps enable developers to create apps that power workflows before, during, and after the meeting. Zoom has brought first and third-party developed apps into the meeting experience for real-time adoption. Zapps are designed to give developers a fast and flexible web view canvas to create apps, viral distribution, and IT deployment and manageability.

    FAQs

    Is Zoom free?

    The basic plan for Zoom is free for all with no trial period.

    Who is the owner of Zoom?

    Eric S. Yuan is the owner of Zoom. He founded Zoom in 2011 in San Jose, California, United States.

    Who’s the CEO of Zoom?

    Eric Yuan is the CEO of Zoom.

    How does Zoom make money?

    The business model of Zoom is built on charging businesses a reoccurring subscription fee for the various products the company offers. On top of that, Zoom makes money from the promotion of hardware products.

    What are the competitors of Zoom?

    Top competitors of Zoom are:

    • Cisco WebEx Meetings
    • GoToMeeting
    • Google Hangouts Meet
    • BlueJeans Meetings
    • Skype
    • Webex
    • Slack
    • Adobe Connect

  • Facebook launches Messenger Rooms to Compete Zoom

    During lockdown imposed due to COVID-19, video calling software is hugely popular at the moment especially Zoom has seen the boom in its usage. Now the world’s largest social network Facebook has released a new video conferencing tool Messenger Rooms that resembles Zoom.

    Due to lockdown and restrictions, many companies have asked their employees to work from home. We can say that Zoom rules the working from home video group chat kingdom right now as millions of people are relying on Zoom during the Coronavirus pandemic. Facebook wants more of the video calling market and hence has introduced a new tool called Messenger Rooms.

    The feature will allow up to 50 people to participate in a video chat through a link. It lets you video chat with multiple people through Messenger even if you don’t have a social media account. Facebook says participants do not need to be Facebook users to access the feature. This could help the company compete with popular videoconferencing app Zoom during the Coronavirus pandemic.

    The reason behind Zoom’s success was the requirement for businesses looking to keep connected and working with the maximum haste and minimum spend. But security and privacy was simply taken for granted by Zoom. One of the biggest security issues in Zoom is the increase in “Zoombombing” when uninvited attendees break into and disrupt your meeting. Thus, journalists, researchers and regulators have noticed its many security and privacy problems.

    Taking security and privacy concerns for granted wasn’t a great idea after all. As a result, many users started looking out for other videoconferencing tool which can also ensure security & privacy concerns. Taking advantage of this situation, Facebook must have taken the decision to launch Messenger Rooms.

    All about Messenger Rooms

    As explained by Facebook in a blog post, Messenger Rooms is not a separate app but rather a feature that can be launched from the existing Facebook or Messenger apps. And users can play around with virtual backgrounds too, like Zoom app.

    On Friday, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a live broadcast,
    “ Messenger Rooms allows your friends and family to drop in at any time. Video presence isn’t just about calling someone. It’s starting to be a fundamental building block of a private social platform with lots of different use cases.”

    More than 700 million accounts participate in voice and video calls every day on Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp. Facebook said that the number of group video calls has gone up by more than 10 times in some cases since the coronavirus outbreak began.

    Mark Zuckerberg said,
    ” I know that this is a challenging period for so many of us around the world. My hope is that we can make a difference during this time and in the months ahead.”

    Facebook said that it would soon be adding Messenger Rooms integration to Instagram, WhatsApp, and the Portal video caller too. So users can jump into a video chat from whatever app or device they happen to be on.

    In many countries, video calling on Messenger and WhatsApp more than doubled and views of Facebook Live and Instagram Live videos increased significantly in March when the lockdowns and social distancing came into practice globally. way of keeping in touch with friends and family while we’re all shut up and separated indoors.

    Comparing both apps, in social distancing times, Zoom allows up to 100 people to join a free video meeting from the comfort of their homes. But Zoom has put limit of 40 minutes on free calling. While, Facebook has announced Messenger Rooms that will allow group video calls of up to 50 people with no time limit.

    How to use Messenger Rooms?

    People can create a room right from Messenger or Facebook and invite anyone to join the video call even if they don’t have a Facebook account. In Facebook Messenger Rooms, the users can also post links in their News Feed or in Groups or event pages. All you need to do is create a Room by clicking on a video icon on Facebook Messenger.

    When you create a room, you choose who can see and join it. You can remove people from the call. Users can also lock a room if they don’t want anyone else to enter. If your friends or communities create rooms that are open to you, you’ll see them on Facebook so you can find things to do and people to hang out with. You can join video calls through a phone or computer.

    Messenger Rooms Screenshots
    Facebook has given many controls to Host

    What about Privacy?

    Facebook says it has added a number of privacy features to secure Rooms unlike Zoom. The person who creates a room has the authority to let people join and must be present in order to initiate a call. The room creator can remove guests, and the room automatically locks for that person when he or she leaves.

    If your colleagues or friends create a room that is open for you, you will see them at the top of your news feed. The room can be limited to the members of the group or else anyone with the link can be allowed in. You can control who sees the room.

    Those who have been previously blocked on Facebook won’t be able to see the feature or join in. Additionally, people can report a group video chat for violating Facebook’s rules. Facebook has assured that it does not view or listen to calls. Facebook clarified that room calls are not end-to-end encrypted.

    Stan Chudnovsky, Facebook’s vice president of Messenger explained,
    ” We don’t view or listen to your calls, and the person who creates the room controls who can join, who sees the room, and if the room is locked or unlocked to new guests.”

    Related: Alternatives to Zoom App while Working Remotely

    Difference between Messenger Rooms and regular video calling on Facebook

    Facebook already has video calling feature in its Messenger app. There are several differences between Messenger Rooms and regular calling on Facebook. In messenger rooms, participants do not compulsorily need a Facebook account to join a video call created in Messenger Rooms.

    Like Zoom app, users can lock a room once everyone has joined in so that no one else can join. Only the person who created a room can grant permission to let someone join the video call. If you’ve blocked someone on Facebook or Messenger, they won’t be able to join a call. These features cannit be seen in regular Facebook video calling.

    Facebook is also adding new augmented reality effects in Messenger Rooms. It would include 14 camera filters to brighten your space and your face. Facebook is also introducing 360-degree backgroundsso users can feel like they’re somewhere else like the beach, space, etc. while they video chat. Users can play with AR effects like bunny ears and new AI-powered features like immersive 360 backgrounds and mood lighting.

    Facebook plans to add an option in Facebook Dating feature that makes it easier to meet and start new conversations with people who share your interests. This feature will be integrated within the main social network so that users can invite people to video chat in Messenger.

    When will Messenger Rooms be available?

    Facebook said it will be releasing out Messenger Rooms in selected countries this week before expanding globally. Other countries will get Rooms in the coming weeks. The social network didn’t specify which countries will get the new feature first.

    The release of the new tool Messenger Rooms is part of Facebook’s efforts around video presence which he defined as the ability to feel like you’re connected to someone live over video.

    Also Read: Say Namaste- An Indian Alternative Conferencing Platform for the Apps like ‘Zoom’

    What is the plan of Facebook?

    The company has also been expanding features for Facebook Live which is a tool people have been using more during the pandemic to work out, cook or attend religious services virtually. Facebook said it will bring back a tool that allows users to add another person to a live video.

    Instagram will now let you comment on live videos on your desktop and it also will make it possible to save your videos to IGTV so people can watch them after 24 hours. Facebook also plans to introduce a feature that’ll let you broadcast a live video from Facebook Portal to Facebook Pages and Groups.

    WhatsApp Group Calls will now be able to host a maximum of eight people instead of four. During lockdowns, views of Facebook Live and Instagram Live videos have also increased significantly in March. Facebook’s Live With video will allow people streaming a live video to invite another person to participate alongside them.