Eric Yuan’s mantra for Zoom says it all: “Delivering Happiness to Our Users.” During the darkest days of COVID that’s exactly what Zoom did, with both scale and generosity. The first
forty minutes of Zoom video conference time is still free of charge, schools still enjoy special programs, getting in and out of Zoom is still the easiest and most reliable, and Zoom still has commendable video quality and low latency across devices.
But now Zoom, like so many other tech companies, has laid off 15% of its workforce, with Yuan announcing that the company needs to adapt to the “uncertainty of the global economy.” Understood, but which jobs are being cut and what is the future direction for the downsized darling of video conferencing?
First, Zoom suffers from the old 80/20 rule: 80% of the people use 20% of the features 80% of the time. They won’t be the first, nor the last, to spend inordinate amounts of time spitting out features that no one really used, or were too buried in settings to find. Does anyone really want Zoom to turn themselves into an avatar during a meeting? Does any large
event but Zoom’s own Zoomtopia get hosted on the platform? Can anyone find the “transcribe my meetings” setting? (I’ve tried to no avail.)
On the enterprise side of the equation, Zoom’s strategy was to grow beyond its roots in video conferencing to become a super
app/platform that could compete against the biggest players. Zoom added an app store, events management and ticketing, strong webinar and training tools, hardware partners, and more. The problem? Enterprises already standardized on systems like Microsoft 365 could more easily
integrate MS Teams than Zoom. It may be inferior (it is) but it’s easier for admins to deploy. As for hybrid events, Zoom can do them but I can’t recall attending any large B2B hybrid events hosted on Zoom other than its own events.
As I’ve said before, Zoom’s pricing structure feels like it pigeonholes you into inflexible event planning.
To err is human, but here at VEG we still find Yuan and the Zoom team incredibly endearing. They pivoted from servicing enterprise customers to helping individuals muscle through COVID with heroic fortitude. I could write pages about how they might re-focus, simplify, and come out as the undisputed winners of the video-conferencing market. But as it stands they
are overbuilt, especially as an events provider.
Our advice? Zoom shouldn’t toss all the features they’ve created. Instead, it should repackage them, playing to the needs of today (work from home) while looking at the needs of tomorrow (augmenting physical events). What the live events industry is experiencing now is the irrational exuberance of being in person again. Over time, the pendulum will swing. It
always does.
Fun Zoom Facts:
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