Zoom Video Communications

American video communications company
This article is about the company. For the videoconferencing software developed by this company, see Zoom (software).

Zoom Video Communications, Inc. (Zoom) is an American communications technology company headquartered in San Jose, California. It provides videotelephony and online chat services through a cloud-based peer-to-peer software platform and is used for teleconferencing, telecommuting, distance education, and social relations.[2][3] Zoom’s business strategy focuses on providing an easier to use product than competitors, as well as cost savings, which include minimizing computational costs at the infrastructure level and having a high degree of employee efficiency. [2][4]

Eric Yuan, a former Cisco Webex engineer and executive, founded Zoom in 2011, and launched its software in 2013.[5] Zoom’s aggressive revenue growth, and perceived ease-of-use and reliability of its software, resulted in a $1 billion valuation in 2017, making it a “unicorn” company.[6] The company first became profitable in 2019.[7][4] In 2019, the company completed an initial public offering.[8] The company joined the NASDAQ-100 stock index on April 30, 2020.[9]

Beginning in early 2020, Zoom’s software saw increased use following the quarantine measures adopted in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.[10] Its software products have faced public and media scrutiny related to security and privacy issues.[11][12][13]

1 History
- 1.1 Early years
- 1.2 Growth
- 1.3 IPO and onward
2 Criticism
3 Workforce
4 See also
5 References
6 External links

History[edit]

Zoom advertisement at Denver International Airport

Early years[edit]

Zoom was founded by Eric Yuan, a former corporate vice president for Cisco Webex.[14] He left Cisco in April 2011 with 40 engineers to start a new company,[5] originally named Saasbee, Inc.[15] The company had trouble finding investors because many people thought the videotelephony market was already saturated.[15] In June 2011, the company raised $3 million of seed money from WebEx founder Subrah Iyar, former Cisco SVP and General Counsel Dan Scheinman, and venture capitalists Matt Ocko, Logo of TSVC, and Bill Tai.[15]

In May 2012, the company changed its name to Zoom.[15] In September 2012, Zoom launched a beta version that could host conferences with up to 15 video participants.[16] In November 2012, the company signed Stanford University as its first customer.[15] The service was launched in January 2013 after the company raised a $6 million Series A round from Qualcomm Ventures, Yahoo! founder Jerry Yang, WebEx founder Subrah Iyar, and former Cisco SVP and General Counsel Dan Scheinman.[17] Zoom launched version 1.0 of the program allowing the maximum number of participants per conference to be 25.[18] By the end of its first month, Zoom had 400,000 users and by May 2013 it had 1 million users.[19][20]

Growth[edit]

In July 2013, Zoom established partnerships with B2B collaboration software providers, such as Redbooth (then Teambox),[21] and also created a program named Works with Zoom, which established partnerships with Logitech, Vaddio,[22] and InFocus.[23][24][25] In September 2013, the company raised $6.5 million in a Series B round from Facebook, Waze, and existing investors. At that time, it had 3 million users.[19] By June 2014, Zoom had 10 million users.[citation needed]

On February 4, 2015, the company received US$30 million in Series C funding from investors including Emergence Capital, Horizons Ventures (Li Ka-shing), Qualcomm Ventures, Jerry Yang, and Patrick Soon-Shiong.[26] At that time, Zoom had 40 million users, with 65,000 organizations subscribed and a total of 1 billion meeting minutes since it was established.[27] Over the course of 2015 and 2016, the company integrated its software with Slack, Salesforce, and Skype for Business.[28][29][30] With version 2.5 in October 2015, Zoom increased the maximum number of participants allowed per conference to 50[31] and later to 1,000 for business customers.[32][33] In November 2015, former president of RingCentral David Berman was named president of the company, and Peter Gassner, the founder and CEO of Veeva Systems, joined Zoom’s board of directors.[34]

In January 2017, the company raised US$100 million in Series D funding from Sequoia Capital at a US$1 billion valuation,[35] making it a so-called unicorn.[36] In April 2017, Zoom launched a scalable telehealth product allowing doctors to host remote consultations with patients.[37][38] In May, Zoom announced integration with Polycom’s conferencing systems, enabling features such as multiple screen and device meetings, HD and wireless screen sharing, and calendar integration with Microsoft Outlook, Google Calendar, and iCal.[39] From September 25-27, 2017, Zoom hosted Zoomtopia 2017, its first annual user conference. At this conference, Zoom announced a partnership with Meta to integrate Zoom with augmented reality, integration with Slack and Workplace by Facebook, and first steps towards an artificial intelligence speech recognition program.[40][41]

IPO and onward[edit]

On April 18, 2019, the company became a public company via an initial public offering. After pricing at US$36 per share, the share price increased over 72% on the first day of trading.[42][8] The company was valued at US$16 billion by the end of its first day of trading.[8] Prior to the IPO, Dropbox invested $5 million in Zoom.[43]

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Zoom saw a major increase in usage for remote work, distance education,[44] and online social relations.[3] Thousands of educational institutions switched to online classes using Zoom.[45][10] The company offered its services for free to K–12 schools in many countries.[46][47] By February 2020, Zoom had gained 2.22 million users in 2020 — more users than it amassed in the entirety of 2019.[48][49] On one day in March 2020, the Zoom app was downloaded 2.13 million times.[43][50] Daily average users rose from about 10 million in December 2019 to about 200 million in March 2020,[49][51] with 300 million daily meeting participants by the end of April 2020.[52][53] This led to an increase in the company’s stock price in early 2020, despite a general stock market downturn.[54] Zoom stock went from less than $70 per share in January 2020 to $150 per share by the end of March, giving the company a market value of $42 billion.[43]

On May 7, 2020, Zoom announced that it had acquired Keybase, a company specializing in end-to-end encryption.[55]

Criticism[edit]

Further information: Zoom (software)

Zoom has been criticized for “security lapses and poor design choices” that have resulted in heightened scrutiny of its software.[56][13] The company has also been criticized for its privacy and corporate data sharing policies.[57][58][59] Security researchers and reporters have criticized the company for its lack of transparency and poor encryption practices. Zoom initially claimed to use “end-to-end encryption” in its marketing materials,[60] but later clarified it meant “from Zoom end point to Zoom end point” (meaning effectively between Zoom servers and Zoom clients), which The Intercept described as misleading and “dishonest”.[61]

In March 2020, New York State Attorney General Letitia James launched an inquiry into Zoom’s privacy and security practices;[62] the inquiry was closed on May 7, 2020, with Zoom not admitting wrongdoing, but agreeing to take added security measures.[63]

Workforce[edit]

In January 2020, Zoom had over 2,500 employees, 1,396 are in the United States and 1,136 are in their international locations.[64] Although 700 employees within a subsidiary work in China and develop Zoom software.[65] The company ranked second place in Glassdoor’s 2019 “Best Places to Work” survey.[66][67]

Zoom’s product development team is largely based in China, where an average entry-level tech salary is one-third of American salaries, which is a key driver of its profitability.[68][65] Zoom’s R&D costs are 10 percent of total revenue, less than half of the median percentage among its peers.[68]

References[edit]

^ “Alexa Internet: Zoom.us”. Alexa Internet. Archived from the original on October 29, 2019. Retrieved April 14, 2020..mw-parser-output cite.citation{font-style:inherit}.mw-parser-output .citation q{quotes:”””””””‘””‘”}.mw-parser-output .id-lock-free a,.mw-parser-output .citation .cs1-lock-free a{background-image:url(“//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/65/Lock-green.svg/9px-Lock-green.svg.png”);background-image:linear-gradient(transparent,transparent),url(“//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/65/Lock-green.svg”);background-repeat:no-repeat;background-size:9px;background-position:right .1em center}.mw-parser-output .id-lock-limited a,.mw-parser-output .id-lock-registration a,.mw-parser-output .citation .cs1-lock-limited a,.mw-parser-output .citation .cs1-lock-registration a{background-image:url(“//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/d6/Lock-gray-alt-2.svg/9px-Lock-gray-alt-2.svg.png”);background-image:linear-gradient(transparent,transparent),url(“//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d6/Lock-gray-alt-2.svg”);background-repeat:no-repeat;background-size:9px;background-position:right .1em center}.mw-parser-output .id-lock-subscription a,.mw-parser-output .citation .cs1-lock-subscription a{background-image:url(“//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/aa/Lock-red-alt-2.svg/9px-Lock-red-alt-2.svg.png”);background-image:linear-gradient(transparent,transparent),url(“//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/aa/Lock-red-alt-2.svg”);background-repeat:no-repeat;background-size:9px;background-position:right .1em center}.mw-parser-output .cs1-subscription,.mw-parser-output .cs1-registration{color:#555}.mw-parser-output .cs1-subscription span,.mw-parser-output .cs1-registration span{border-bottom:1px dotted;cursor:help}.mw-parser-output .cs1-ws-icon a{background-image:url(“//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/4c/Wikisource-logo.svg/12px-Wikisource-logo.svg.png”);background-image:linear-gradient(transparent,transparent),url(“//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4c/Wikisource-logo.svg”);background-repeat:no-repeat;background-size:12px;background-position:right .1em center}.mw-parser-output code.cs1-code{color:inherit;background:inherit;border:inherit;padding:inherit}.mw-parser-output .cs1-hidden-error{display:none;font-size:100%}.mw-parser-output .cs1-visible-error{font-size:100%}.mw-parser-output .cs1-maint{display:none;color:#33aa33;margin-left:0.3em}.mw-parser-output .cs1-subscription,.mw-parser-output .cs1-registration,.mw-parser-output .cs1-format{font-size:95%}.mw-parser-output .cs1-kern-left,.mw-parser-output .cs1-kern-wl-left{padding-left:0.2em}.mw-parser-output .cs1-kern-right,.mw-parser-output .cs1-kern-wl-right{padding-right:0.2em}.mw-parser-output .citation .mw-selflink{font-weight:inherit}

^ a b c “Zoom Video Communications, Inc. 2019 Form 10-K Annual Report”. U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

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^ a b “Zoom Video Communications Inc. [ZM] moved up 3.65: Why It’s Important”. The DBT News. April 28, 2020. Retrieved April 29, 2020.

^ a b Weiner, Yitzi (October 2, 2017). “The Inspiring Backstory of Eric S. Yuan, Founder and CEO of Zoom”. Medium. Archived from the original on April 23, 2019. Retrieved April 13, 2020.

^ Ray, Tiernan (March 24, 2020). “Is There Room for Zoom Video to Continue Zooming Upward?”. TheStreet. Retrieved April 15, 2020.

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^ a b c Garcia, Ahiza; O’Brien, Sara; Valinsky, Jordan (April 18, 2019). “Zoom nearly reaches $16 billion in value after first day of trading”. CNN. Archived from the original on March 31, 2020. Retrieved April 19, 2019.

^ “Zoom Video Communications, Inc. to Join the NASDAQ-100 Index Beginning April 30, 2020”. NASDAQ Media Center. NASDAQ. April 23, 2020. Retrieved April 6, 2020.

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^ Morrison, Sara (March 31, 2020). “Zoom responds to its privacy (and porn) problems”. Vox Media. Archived from the original on April 11, 2020. Retrieved April 7, 2020.

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^ a b c d e “When Zoom was young: the early years”. Vator.

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^ “Zoom Raises $6M Series A, Launches Version 1.0 Of Its”. TechCrunch. January 28, 2013.

^ a b Etherington, Darrell (September 24, 2013). “Zoom Video Conferencing Adds $6.5M In Funding To Drive Expansion and Uptake in Education and Health”. TechCrunch.

^ Pleasant, Robbie (May 23, 2013). “Zoom Video Communications Reaches 1 Million Participants”. TMCnet. Archived from the original on October 4, 2019. Retrieved July 21, 2014.

^ “Teambox Adds High-Definition Video Conferencing, Market Looks for Deeper Collaboration”. TechCrunch. June 18, 2013. Archived from the original on June 26, 2019. Retrieved June 25, 2017.

^ “Vaddio and Zoom Video Communications Partner to Bring Collaboration to The Enterprise”. HD Pro Guide. July 25, 2013. Archived from the original on June 26, 2019. Retrieved February 11, 2015.

^ “Zoom Introduces New “Works with Zoom” Program!”. Zoom Video Communications. July 23, 2013. Archived from the original on April 13, 2020. Retrieved April 13, 2020.

^ Chao, Jude (July 29, 2013). “Zoom Beefs Up Video Conferencing Strategy with New Partners”. Enterprise Networking Planet. Archived from the original on June 26, 2019. Retrieved February 11, 2015.

^ “Zoom Video Communications Partners with Industry-Leading Technology Providers” (Press release). Business Wire. July 23, 2013. Archived from the original on April 8, 2020. Retrieved April 13, 2020.

^ Gage, Deborah (February 4, 2015). “Fast-Growing Zoom Raises $30 Million for Online Video Conferencing”. The Wall Street Journal. Archived from the original on March 27, 2020. Retrieved August 4, 2017.

^ “Zoom Raises $30M in Series C Funding Led by Emergence Capital” (Press release). Zoom Video Communications. February 4, 2015. Archived from the original on April 8, 2020. Retrieved April 13, 2020 – via Globe Newswire.

^ “Announcement: Zoom Slack Integration”. Zoom Video Communications. August 13, 2015. Archived from the original on June 11, 2016. Retrieved June 8, 2016.

^ Delony, David (September 15, 2015). “Zoom Announces Salesforce Integration”. TMCnet. Archived from the original on March 27, 2020. Retrieved April 13, 2020.

^ “Zoom Announces Native Skype for Business Interoperability” (Press release). Globe Newswire. March 29, 2016. Archived from the original on April 13, 2020. Retrieved April 13, 2020.

^ Burt, Jeffrey (October 2, 2015). “Zoom Doubles Capacity of Video Conferencing Service to 50”. eWeek. Archived from the original on April 9, 2020. Retrieved April 13, 2020.

^ Brown, Shelby (March 10, 2020). “Skype vs. Zoom: Which video chat app is best for working from home?”. CNET. Archived from the original on March 17, 2020. Retrieved March 17, 2020.

^ “What is a Large Meeting?”. Zoom Video Communications. Archived from the original on April 9, 2020. Retrieved April 13, 2020.

^ “Zoom Names New President David Berman and Board Member Peter Gassner” (Press release). Globe Newswire. November 3, 2015. Archived from the original on June 26, 2019. Retrieved April 13, 2020.

^ Taylor, Harriet (January 19, 2017). “This Silicon Valley CEO can’t stand the word ‘unicorn'”. CNBC. Retrieved June 9, 2020.

^ Miller, Ron (January 17, 2017). “Zoom video conferencing service raises $100 million from Sequoia on billion-dollar valuation”. techCrunch. Archived from the original on November 6, 2019. Retrieved April 13, 2020.

^ Young, Alicia (April 24, 2017). “Zoom Introduces New Telehealth Solution”. TMCnet. Archived from the original on September 7, 2017. Retrieved September 7, 2017.

^ “Zoom Launches Industry’s First Scalable Cloud-Based Video Telehealth Solution” (Press release). Zoom Video Communications. April 20, 2017. Archived from the original on April 8, 2020. Retrieved March 19, 2020 – via GlobeNewswire.

^ Dignan, Larry (May 25, 2017). “Polycom, Zoom forge video conferencing, collaboration pact”. ZDNet. Archived from the original on March 16, 2018. Retrieved April 13, 2020.

^ Miller, Ron (September 26, 2017). “Zoom brings a dash of augmented reality and artificial intelligence to meetings in latest release”. TechCrunch. Archived from the original on December 1, 2017. Retrieved November 29, 2017.

^ Strategy, Moor Insights and. “Zoom Zen: Mastering The Art Of Simplicity”. Forbes. Retrieved June 9, 2020.

^ Novet, Jordan (April 18, 2019). “Zoom rocketed 72% on first day of trading”. CNBC. Archived from the original on February 27, 2020. Retrieved April 13, 2020.

^ a b c Neate, Rupert (March 31, 2020). “Zoom booms as demand for video-conferencing tech grows”. The Guardian. Retrieved April 29, 2020.

^ Abbott, Eileen (April 20, 2020). “Students and teachers struggle with remote education due to coronavirus”. TheHill. Retrieved April 21, 2020.

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^ Konrad, Alex (March 13, 2020). “Exclusive: Zoom CEO Eric Yuan Is Giving K-12 Schools His Videoconferencing Tools For Free”. Forbes. Archived from the original on April 2, 2020. Retrieved March 14, 2020.

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^ Novet, Jordan (February 26, 2020). “Zoom has added more videoconferencing users this year than in all of 2019 thanks to coronavirus, Bernstein says”. CNBC. Archived from the original on March 4, 2020. Retrieved March 31, 2020.

^ a b O’Flaherty, Kate. “Zoom’s A Lifeline During COVID-19: This Is Why It’s Also A Privacy Risk”. Forbes. Retrieved June 9, 2020.

^ Fry, Naomi (April 27, 2020). “Embracing the Chaotic Side of Zoom”. The New Yorker. Retrieved April 29, 2020.

^ Patnaik, Subrat (April 2, 2020). “Zoom’s daily active users jumped from 10 million to over 200 million in 3 months”. VentureBeat. Reuters. Archived from the original on April 13, 2020. Retrieved April 13, 2020.

^ Warren, Tom (April 30, 2020). “Zoom admits it doesn’t have 300 million users, corrects misleading claims”. Retrieved April 30, 2020.

^ Binder, Matt (April 24, 2020). “Zoom has more than 300 million users now, with just 10 million at 2019’s end”. Mashable. Retrieved April 29, 2020.

^ Reinicke, Carmen (March 23, 2020). “Zoom Video has seen its stock spike more than 100% since January as coronavirus pushes millions to work from home (ZM)”. Business Insider. Archived from the original on April 8, 2020. Retrieved March 31, 2020.

^ Barrett, Brian (May 9, 2020). “Security News This Week: Zoom Security Gets a Boost With Keybase Acquisition”. Wired. Retrieved May 13, 2020.

^ “Zoom under increased scrutiny as popularity soars”. BBC News. April 1, 2020. Archived from the original on April 1, 2020. Retrieved April 1, 2020.

^ St. John, Allen (March 24, 2020). “Zoom Calls Aren’t as Private as You May Think. Here’s What You Should Know”. Consumer Reports. Archived from the original on March 25, 2020. Retrieved March 26, 2020.

^ O’Flaherty, Kate (March 25, 2020). “Zoom’s A Lifeline During COVID-19: This Is Why It’s Also A Privacy Risk”. Forbes. Archived from the original on March 26, 2020. Retrieved March 27, 2020. collects and stores personal data and shares it with third parties such as advertisers. But Zoom’s policy also covers what it labels “customer content,” or “the content contained in cloud recordings, and instant messages, files, whiteboards … shared while using the service.” This includes videos, transcripts that can be generated automatically, documents shared on screen, and the names of everyone on a call.

^ Morse, Jack (March 13, 2020). “Zoom is a work-from-home privacy disaster waiting to happen”. Mashable. Archived from the original on March 26, 2020. Retrieved March 26, 2020.

^ “Advanced Encryption for Chat”. Zoom Video Communications. Archived from the original on April 7, 2020. Retrieved April 7, 2020.

^ Lee, Micah; Grauer, Yael (March 31, 2020). “Zoom Meetings Aren’t End-to-End Encrypted, Despite Misleading Marketing”. The Intercept. Archived from the original on April 2, 2020. Retrieved March 31, 2020. Currently, it is not possible to enable E2E encryption for Zoom video meetings. (…) When we use the phrase ‘End to End’ in our other literature, it is in reference to the connection being encrypted from Zoom end point to Zoom end point.

^ Hakim, Danny; Singer, Natasha (March 30, 2020). “New York Attorney General Looks Into Zoom’s Privacy Practices”. The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Archived from the original on April 2, 2020. Retrieved March 31, 2020.

^ Feiner, Lauren (May 8, 2020). “Zoom strikes a deal with NY AG office, closing the inquiry into its security problems”. CNBC. Retrieved June 4, 2020.

^ “2020 10-K”. Retrieved May 23, 2020.

^ a b Marczak, Bill; Scott-Railton, John (April 3, 2020). “Move Fast & Roll Your Own Crypto: A Quick Look at the Confidentiality of Zoom Meetings”. Citizen Lab. Archived from the original on April 12, 2020. Retrieved April 4, 2020.

^ Economy, Peter (December 5, 2018). “Glassdoor Just Announced the 100 Best Places to Work for 2019 (Is Your Company on the List?)”. Inc.com. Retrieved April 29, 2020.

^ Quast, Jon (October 25, 2019). “Can Zoom Make You…Happy? – The Motley Fool”. The Motley Fool. Retrieved April 29, 2020.

^ a b Kim, Eugene (March 26, 2019). “Zoom, one of the most anticipated tech IPOs of the year, has one key profit driver: engineers in China”. CNBC. Retrieved May 13, 2020.

External links[edit]

Official website
Zoom Cloud Service Status

Business data for Zoom Video Communications, Inc.:
- Google Finance
- Yahoo! Finance
- Bloomberg
- Reuters
- SEC filings

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoom_Video_Communications

Contents

History[edit]

Early years[edit]

Growth[edit]

IPO and onward[edit]

Criticism[edit]

Workforce[edit]

See also[edit]

References[edit]

External links[edit]

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