Zoom exploring new features as people get back to work

Sameer Raje said plans were afoot to go beyond being just a video-calling application to a collaboration platform.

The new age technologies that are being explored to add features to the Zoom platform would make it “more cool”, accessible and more relevant, as the world gets back to work in office in some form or the other, Raje said. “It could be avatars, it could be a virtual world, it could be virtual interaction, it could be IoT, or multiple other things,” he told ET.

Last week, Zoom introduced the avatars feature, which will replace a user’s appearance during a video call with that of a virtual animal that mirrors his or her head movements and facial expressions.

“The market is changing and any organisation will have to evolve around that,” Raje said. “Businesses are talking about getting collaboration embedded into their workflows, that is what we are doing. We are no longer just a video-calling application, we are a complete collaboration platform.”

The Nasdaq-listed video-communications company posted revenue of $4.099 billion, up 55%, last year. But, Zoom, which became a household name during the pandemic, has seen growth slow in the last few quarters. During November 2021-January 2022 (the company’s fiscal year ends in January), its revenue rose 21% to $1.071 billion, which was a deceleration from 35% growth it reported in the previous quarter and 367% in the January 2021 quarter. The stock too has slumped over 38% year-to-date.

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The company said India was among the most critical markets outside of the US as well as one of the largest too. Raje said Indian talent was globally renowned and recognised. He said the issue with talent in India was not as much to do with nonavailability but had more to do with infrastructural issues.

“If you want to tap into the talent pool in cities and towns, especially in remote areas, you definitely need good infrastructure, good connectivity and a good presence there. That sometimes becomes a challenge in our country. And that’s something which we need to do, and I’m not even talking about the far north-eastern states … It gets even harder in those regions,” he said.

These infrastructure issues also play spoilsport when it comes to delivery of services, especially something like telehealth and telemedicine, he said. “That is the time when we need different kinds of functionalities — translation and local language support.”

Raje said Zoom as a platform could be embedded into any application, into a company’s work streams, or with different technologies.

A number of things are on the company’s drawing board, he said.

“Imagine you could manage the air-conditioner through the Zoom interface or manage the blinds of a conference room through the Zoom. That’s the Internet of Things. The large videoconferencing rooms are now getting transformed. You don’t need multiple applications or multiple devices to manage that. You can do it through a single consolidated device and an app which is Zoom,” he said.