Video conference platform Zooms to new heights

Bengaluru: With the pandemic engulfing the globe work from home became a new normal. The new learnings and experience through video conferencing platforms is a technological push. One of the biggest beneficiaries during the period was Zoom Video Communications that witnessed a massive growth in its user base.

Sameer Raje, General Manager (GM) & India Head, Zoom Video Communications, tells The Hans India, " We saw a massive growth in our user base that consists of governments, businesses, schools, hospitals, standalone users, etc.

To put in numbers, from 10 million daily meeting participants in Dec 2019, we saw 300 million daily meeting participants as recorded in April 2020. In India itself, from January to April 2020, we saw a 4x growth in paid users (with 10 or more employees) and 67x free user signups."

Raje states the positive side of the pandemic has been the technology push and thereby, innovation. "We saw many start-up businesses emerge in 2020 with innovative solutions addressing the challenges of the new normal.

We ourselves launched over 400 new features in 2020 and more in this year. Instead of looking at what the competition does, we listen to our customers and incorporate the feedback on our platform as much as possible.

We have faced intense competition since 2011 when we were launched, but our customer-first approach and continued focus on privacy and security have made Zoom the trusted platform of choice for millions," he elaborates.

While things have normalised after the lockdown, Raje says the world is stepping in a hybrid world where physical and virtual worlds are colliding.

"Therefore, real-time human interaction, which is not forced, is important to continue the flow of ideas and innovation. With the uncertainties of the changing world, we can only focus on addressing the current requirements while keeping an eye out for the future requirements.

Our focus is to continue providing a seamless connected experience and being a secure bridge between the two worlds," he explains.

In order to stay ahead of the curve, the company just extended its Zoom Rooms feature as a global availability.

Talking about the innovation he says, "This innovation enables organizations to safely re-enter offices and sustain an 'everywhere workforce' providing them a touchless experience from setting up a meeting room to a virtual receptionist – we have already entered the future.

Additionally, Our Zoom for Home offering integrated with smart home display devices such as Amazon Echo Show, Google Nest, Portal from Facebook is an initiative to keep the human interaction going between the remote and on-site workforce in real-time.

All of these innovations ensure maximum user privacy and data security. With these we are enabling businesses and the workforce to focus on innovation and ideas. A hybrid workforce that is empowered to decide where, when, and how they work can deliver better and faster results."

The home ministry, last year, issued an advisory stating that the videoconferencing app Zoom, is not safe and barred the government officials from using it.

In his defense, Raje says the MHA advisory was based on CERT-In advisories.

"CERT-In issues advisories for any vulnerabilities of any software / application that are detected.

While one of the CERT-In advisories for Zoom articulate - How to safely use Zoom i.e., using the Zoom security features, another one speaks of the vulnerabilities on our platform and the resolution for the same – i.e., by upgrading to higher version of Zoom in the same advisory.

This is a normal practice followed in the Software industry and is intended solely to apprise the public of the possibility of a vulnerability of any technology they might be using, and to highlight a solution (if available).

We are in touch with the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) and the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), and have been communicating with them, in terms of sharing the facts about technology, security of our platform, and the privacy of our users using our platform.

We are focused on providing the information they need to make informed decisions about their policies and initiate corrective steps if any," he elaborates.

Talking about his strategy to expand Zoom's presence, Raje says, "Our growing presence has been a result of the expanding user base on our platform. Since 2020, we have added 2 new data centers and with our current 19 co-located data centers globally, we are serving our customer base effectively.

We had also launched new technology centers in Bangalore and Singapore. Our expansion plans represent Zoom's strategy of developing its leading communications technology in multiple locations globally."

"Our Bangalore center is progressing well. We are actively hiring DevOps engineers, IT, Security, and Business Operations headcount in the area. However, the employees will work from home until the pandemic-related remote work has subsided.

This center supplements our existing R&D centers and supports Zoom's engineering leadership, which is based at its San Jose, California headquarters. It is also a source of innovation for Zoom, leveraging some of India's most talented professionals.

These efforts in India and globally are with the goal of providing better service to individuals and organizations, empowering them to accomplish more with video-first unified communications," he says.