The lockdown has been imposed by goverment of several countries all around the world due to the coronavirus outbreak. During this global pandemic, thousands of companies are working via teleconferencing from homes. Tech companies that offers video conferencing services are doing well out of lockdown, particularly Zoom is now evaluated to be more than the market capital of US’ “blue-eyed boys” American Airlines, Expedia and Hilton combined. Zoom has become one of the most downloaded video meeting and video conferencing apps on Google Play and Apple App Store.
According to reports, as of April 8 closing, “Zoom had a market cap of $31.73 billion, while the combined value of Hilton ($18.26 billion), American Airlines ($7.91 billion) and Expedia ($ 4.35 billion) stood at $30.52 billion”.
The demand for teleconference has been hiked up after the lockdown ,as companies around the globe stay in touch while practising social distancing. During this lockedown phase, people have been widely using Zoom for personal and official teleconference calls and video meetings across schools, colleges, offices et al. Furthermore, Zoom has also been used for weddings, funerals and zoom parties.
In the wake of current circumstances, Zoom has made some modifications to its plans and features. Zoom has extended the limit to 40-minute meeting limit for K-12 free basic accounts to provide extra resources to students for countries all around the world. With the broaden horizons, webinars, live training, multi-language resources and recording options have also been augmented.
However, the rapid modifications has come with some shortcomings. The company has received criticism for privacy matters, including people “Zoombombing” by joining meetings that weren’t meant for them. Users can safeguard themselves against this practice by requiring passwords to join their meetings, although it is not enabled by default.
Zoom has made the Waiting Room feature a default setting for all school accounts to ensure that student’s lessons are secure. The waiting room is the security feature that allows teachers and instructors of controllingby keeping sight of who is entering their virtual classrooms . Teachers are able to grant access to individual students or everyone in the waiting room as per the requirement.This feature is also used for organizing telehealth appointments and interviews.
Sectors like aviation and hospitality have been adversely affected by the lockdown. Hilton’s value has dwindled by half from the $31 billion recorded in January, As per April 3, American Airlines and Expedia have dIminished $4 billion and $7 billion in market cap.
On juxtaposing Zoom’s ambit against the airline industry’s manifest the different effects of pandemics have across industries. Some sectors like airlines are encountering hardship as people are restricted from travelling. On the contrary, others sectors like video conferencing is benefitted from the lockdown imposed because they are provifing what people need in the moment: the ability to stay in touch in a moment of crisis.
