Is there still room for Zoom?
Zoom has enjoyed stratospheric success during the pandemic, with its ease of use as a communications platform and its lead in developing a hardware ecosystem proving to be a great advantage. But, with a return to more normal times and the emergence of Teams as its strongest competitor, is there still room for more growth?
Dan McGrath reports:
The year 2020 saw the rise of the cloud videoconferencing phenomenon that is Zoom. Used as a business collaboration tool and a virtual social space during the pandemic, it became the staple of what has now become a newly mainstream form of interaction.
Zoom even became widely used as the term for a video conference call as much of the technologically advanced world began using the platform to communicate in the most trying of recent times.
With higher levels of security developed in response to some hiccups during the pandemic, and an ease of use that encouraged people of all ages to make a call, Zoom was the app of choice for many people throughout 2020 and 2021. It also became a natural choice for meeting rooms, as the return to work and a growth in hybrid working took place.
“What you’ve seen over the last couple of years is a flood of responses to customers’ needs, and the continued evolution of the platform,” says Jeff Smith, head of Zoom Rooms at Zoom.
“Ease of deployment and ease of management is one of our hallmarks. You can set up in two minutes, you can use your IT group, instead of contracting with the integrator. For those spaces that do require integrators, we’ve got coverage from a hardware and software perspective, from huddle rooms to open collaboration spaces, traditional conference rooms, divisible training rooms, and boardrooms. We can do all of that.”
Zoom safe
In addition, Zoom has evolved to help organisations keep employees safe on the return to the office.
“As a result of the pandemic and the work put in, you are now able to detect air quality, CO2 levels, temperature and be able to view all of that data within a single dashboard within Zoom,” says Smith. “You can not only check occupancy and utilisation of rooms, but also the quality of those rooms, and help facilitate conversations on the data between facilities management about how to use spaces and how to optimise those for workers.”
However, the explosive growth that Zoom enjoyed has begun to slow to more normal levels for a software company, with the Zoom share price falling from a peak of $559 at the height of the pandemic in October 2020 to $170 on 10 January 2022.
There has been a rise in the popularity of Microsoft Teams, which almost doubled its number of users worldwide between Q2 2020 and Q2 2021, and continued usage of Google Meet and enterprise platforms such as Cisco Webex, Pexip, BlueJeans, Lifesize and StarLeaf.
Have the heady days of Zoom’s rapid growth now come to an end? Not according to Doug Remington, head of EMEA at DTEN, whose collaboration devices showcase Zoom’s advantages.
Hybrid working potential
With the reputation that Zoom has developed, he believes that it still has enormous potential as the concept of a hybrid workplace has emerged from the pandemic.
“The top question on most CIOs and companies’ minds is how to make the hybrid workplace work and keep it evolving. The perfect mix hasn’t been found yet. However, the Zoom platform has evolved a lot and it is going to keep growing from strength to strength. For a lot of people, it just works and it’s probably the easiest interface to use. Also, it’s so familiar across both the personal and business space, which makes it really powerful.”
Derrick Kelly, director of solutions enablement at AVI-SPL, concurs. “Zoom as a platform has made its way into a lot of different places, such as small businesses and school systems. It’s going to be here for a while and will be just as popular, especially as they keep adding feature sets and capabilities.”
Chris Liebrand, director of AV and ICT at integrator, Runtech says that Zoom is the leader in innovation and creativity among the platforms.
“Teams has only just announced dual-camera support, whereas Zoom has had that in place from the outset, and now has the ability to support up to three cameras. Despite everyone catching up, Zoom is always in the front of innovation in videoconferencing,” he says.
“They also take into account peripherals such as which USB extenders to use, which you would never find on a Microsoft website in terms of ‘this is the right kind of solution for Teams’. That’s why I think they are definitely relevant, compared to the others.”
While Zoom’s innovation has fans, some designers and integrators are looking elsewhere. Andy Truswell, systems integration manager at Pure AV, which works across a number of the video conferencing platforms, points out that for business users, the integration of Teams with Office365 is a key advantage for the platform, with the ability to make calls, share files and schedule meetings within one application.
“Our requests for Zoom are minimal compared to Microsoft,” he says. “Even people who started out with Zoom originally are now moving over to Microsoft, just because their corporate infrastructure is a Microsoft ecosystem. There are far more features on Microsoft Teams to make it a business tool, as opposed to a video tool, which is where Zoom is at the minute. I think Zoom will become quite a small part of the market.”
Working with both Microsoft Teams and Zoom, Stuart Davidson, technical director at Kinly has noticed that certain platforms suit different customers, depending on their communication preferences.
“Zoom is very cost-effective. It’s very easy to pick up. It’s got great interoperability, so if you need to find lots of different customers and suppliers, it is very good at doing what it does. Zoom works very well as a standalone communications platform. Where customers are looking for true communications, rather than collaboration, then Zoom is a strong option.”
Certified hardware
The expansion in Zoom-certified hardware since 2019 is also an advantage for Zoom Rooms, according to Jenny Hicks, head of technology at Midwich. “Zoom still feels like very much the same safest option from a ‘Rooms’ perspective. It does still feel to me that they have built more hardware alliances and partnerships. I know with Neat in detail, they have a far deeper relationship in line with their product development.
“Whilst the Teams logo is on a lot of other products as well, it doesn’t feel at the moment like it has the same number as Zoom has achieved. Zoom has worked really hard with all of the hardware manufacturers to make sure everything’s going to be a good experience for the customer,” says Hicks.
With the vast expansion in Zoom usage and in its meeting room capabilities, many will agree that it is going to continue to be a force, both in the home and the workspace for some time to come.
The new hybrid workplace era may divide many as to which platform best suits their interests, but for people who value ease of use and a highly developed product ecosystem, Zoom will be one of the strongest contenders.
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Posted: 2nd March 2022