Covid-19 update: As world shuts itself in, value of teleconferencing app zooms
Coronavirus update: Zoom Communication’s prime offering, Cloud Meetings, allows anyone to live stream video to a closed group of 100 participants. A paid version allows the webcast to reach up to 1,000 participants.
As people shut themselves in to keep from infecting each other, the world has moved closer online: taking classes, rehearsing music, holding quiz nights and sitting in on performances from remote locations. The digital pipelines, abuzz like never before, have raised fortunes for at least one teleconferencing company that has seen its market valuation rise more than twofold in two months: Zoom Communications.
Its prime offering, Cloud Meetings, allows anyone to live stream video to a closed group of 100 participants. A paid version allows the webcast to reach up to 1,000 participants. Once known only in the glass-and-concrete business districts of the world, the tool is now the most-favoured for students and teachers, whether in the West Bank, New Delhi or New York.
It isn’t merely schools. Independent artists, playwrights and, in one case, even fire-eater performers are using the tool to replace what may have once been their only way to earn a living: in-person performances.
“Certain aspects of work and organising will change for good through the current situation,” said Sally Maitlis, a professor of organisational behaviour at Oxford University’s Said Business School, news agency AFP reported. “People will discover that they can work and communicate in ways they previously didn’t think possible, and will be forced to become more nimble with tech through having no choice to do otherwise.”
On Tuesday, shares of Zoom Video Communications Inc closed at $159 a piece. On January 24, when the coronavirus disease outbreak had only just begun to draw global attention, the stock was listed $73. The spike in valuation is starker when you consider the Nasdaq, on which it is listed, slumped by 22% in the same period.
“There is such excitement around remote work that brands like Zoom have seen their stock value climb up,” Creative Strategies analyst Carolina Milanesi said, according to AFP.
In an earnings call on March 4,Zoom’s CEO Eric Yuan told analysts the company had seen a “large increase in the number of free users, meeting minutes and new video use cases,” according to a statement by a representative.
Zoom’s Cloud Meetings is now the top Business category application on the Apple app store and the ranking is now dominated by other similar tools: Microsoft Teams, Google Hangouts and Cisco’s Webex Meetings occupy the next top spots.
Teachers, parents and students reported promising early results in United States, said a report by Reuters. There were minimal glitches as some signed into virtual live classes using the Zoom app, although the music bands at Fiorello H Laguardia High School noted that software problems prevented players from all keeping time in unison.
“I’m someone who constantly throws out questions to my pupils. I want replies from them, but with 26 of them on a screen, raising or not a hand icon, it’s incredibly difficult. So I’m totally changing how I do things,” said English teacher Carole Detemple, who had three days to tear up the teaching playbook as she knew it and create a virtual classroom for her students at the International Bilingual School (EIB) in Paris.
The problems are largely described by many as teething troubles.
Candice Lescure, a 14-year-old student of Detemple’s, said the transition to a virtual learning environment had been smooth. “It’s as if we’re in class,” Reuters quoted her as saying.