Video conferencing emerged as the solution to ensure some semblance of business continuity during the global lockdown and Zoom harnessed the maximum number of eyeballs as an essential platform. No wonder it was the most downloaded app on the Play Store and App Store in April. The company also faced security and privacy challenges, as it turned out they were sending user data to third parties and exaggerating claims of end-to-end encryption. The increase in "Zoombombing" incidents by uninvited guests was also a major drawback. Despite these issues and its ban by some big companies in the US, Zoom seems to be the go-to in India. And the company knows how important it can be because of the large number of customers it can attract.
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Take the case of Facebook, which has the second largest customer base in India after its homeland. The same goes for WhatsApp, which got the label of the world's largest instant messaging platform thanks to its Indian audience. Even a newcomer like TikTok relies heavily on its Indian customers to challenge Facebook. According to a Sensor Tower report, Zoom has become the world's most downloaded non-game app with India contributing 18,3% of its overall growth. And this happened despite the fact that the federal government labeled Zoom dangerous and issued a notice asking employees to refrain from using it.So what is driving this growth?
For starters, the lockdown has meant that businesses big and small prefer Zoom because it doesn't require any email or phone number to access it. The fact that Google Duo made a change to meet this requirement shows how effective Zoom has become for new users including online learning for students as well. In fact, many new users don't know that Zoom existed in India long before it went viral. The company operates a data center in Hyderabad and Mumbai, in addition to a full-fledged office in the western metropolis. These two data centers are among 17 that the company operates around the world. The company has also established alliances with Tata Communications and the mobile operator Airtel. The former was created to manage the Mumbai data center, while the latter was used to improve the adoption of Zoom as the default video conferencing app for Airtel subscribers.the indian connection
India Operations Manager Sameer Raje spoke eloquently about how Zoom had always wanted to grow as an Indian business. He spoke to the IANS news agency about the company's plans to increase its employee base in the country and revealed that they also work with the federal and some state governments. He said the immediate goal was to ensure that more and more people and businesses could stay connected and included hospitals, schools, financial institutions, and even state-level administrative mechanisms as some of the customers who used Zoom to maintain business continuity. . And what would the future look like once the lockdown was over? The company is hesitant to speculate on this at this point, but recently announced the availability of Zoom 5.0, which adds support for 256-bit AES GCM encryption to protect meeting data and prevent call spoofing. The company even posted a detailed whitepaper about the encryption efforts on its website.Post lockdown scenario
However, Abe Smith, international director of Zoom Video Communications, believes that video conferencing is here to stay even in the post-lockdown world. While schools may return to physical classrooms, companies may rethink the possibility of a more distant workforce. In a report published in the Hindustan Times, he said that while trends are hard to pinpoint, Zoom would work to meet customer needs and continually improve user experience and security. Beware, Indian Zoom boss Sameer Raje has now even listed four simple steps to secure calls on the video chat platform.Tips for staying safe on Zoom
- Do not share your personal meeting credentials; and use only random system generated IDs for all meetings
- Create strong passwords and use a different one for each meeting. And change passwords frequently and don't have a company name as a password
- Be more aware of social networks and the information you share. Never put meeting IDs and passwords on social media
- Use waiting rooms to block unwanted participants. The waiting room will be by default with the Zoom 5.0 update