Your Tech Story

eric. s. yuan

Zoom Team Chat

Zoom Chat becomes Zoom Team Chat and adds features to compete with Teams

Leave a Comment / News, Tech News / By

When the pandemic struck in early 2020, Zoom Chat was a relatively unknown startup. However, at the height of the crisis, when people stranded at home turned to video conferencing for communication, Zoom reported triple-digit sales growth. Zoom also offers Zoom Chat, a service that is somewhat comparable to Microsoft Teams and Slack. Along with a number of other useful enhancements for the collaboration software, Zoom announced a tiny modification to the product’s name, which is now Zoom Team Chat.

In an effort to compete with rivals like Microsoft’s Teams Zoom Video Communications Inc. announced on Monday that it has rebranded its chat platform and added additional functions, including third-party connectivity. To make teamwork more convenient, the updated program combines chat, third-party integrations, file sharing, video, voice, and a whiteboard in one location, according to a blog post by Zoom.

Zoom Team Chat
Image Source: businessworld.in

The most recent updates will make it simpler to switch from a chat to a video or phone call or to share an idea via a whiteboard. According to experts, Zoom has added “Team” to its chat product since consumers were confused about how the chat component in Zoom meetings differed from the premium communication tool. This item acts as an all-in-one platform, providing comprehensive capabilities to encourage teamwork.

The head of product at Zoom Team Chat, Sharvari Nerurkar, claimed in a chat with The Verge that users encounter friction when they must switch between several different platforms in order to communicate with the same set of individuals. Zoom Team Chat is designed to be a single center for collaboration where you can communicate with coworkers asynchronously via text chat or in real-time via calls.

By the end of the month, Zoom hopes to roll out a few new features to improve the overall experience of actually utilizing zoom chat. The ability to share in-meeting chat directly into Zoom Team Chat is one addition that will make it simpler to read any crucial notes after the meeting has ended. If you’re having a text exchange that might benefit from a call, you may also schedule a Zoom conference directly from a Zoom Team Chat channel.

With this update, Zoom is attempting to take a stand in a market that is quite crowded.

Google, Slack, and Microsoft among others, are all quickly developing their own professional communication technologies to help enterprises in adapting to hybrid work environments, putting a lot of pressure on Zoom.

Although Zoom Team Chat has been improved, it may be challenging for the company to convince companies to switch from their current platforms to Zoom Team Chat. As demand declines from epidemic highs, Zoom lowered its annual revenue and profit predictions last month.

Zoom Team Chat is a feature of Zoom One, the company’s all-inclusive communication package, which also comprises Zoom Meetings with up to 300 participants, Zoom Whiteboard, and 5GB of cloud storage. Zoom’s chat product never really enjoyed the same level of attention as Zoom’s video meeting capabilities so far, but the company wants that to change through this move.

Eric Yuan founded Zoom in 2011 and released its software in 2013. Zoom’s revenue growth and the software’s perceived usability and dependability led to a $1 billion valuation for the business in 2017, establishing it as a “unicorn” company. In 2019, the company achieved profitability and successfully completed an IPO.

Eric S. Yuan : CEO & Founder of Zoom Video Communications, ‘A Service That Connects People’

Founder, Social media, start-up, Story, Tech Story / By

In this fast running world where problems require an instant solution, face to face interactions are hard to get. At this time, people require a connection, which they can use, to interact with each other, without covering the actual distances between them. Also, many video calling apps in the software market doesn’t allow to connect more than 4 or 6 people at the same time. Eric S. Yuan also had faced the same problem, but instead of resenting over it, he stepped up and worked hard to give this industry ‘Zoom’.

Since his college days, Yuan had dreamt about building a communication platform that covered the distances between the people without even travelling. That’s when Zoom’s idea popped up in Yuan’s mind while he was still in his freshman year of college. And, in 2011, he founded Zoom. Zoom is a company that provides remote conferencing services using cloud computing. The company is headquartered in San Jose, California, United States and the software it brings, gives you the advantage of the combined video conferencing, online meetings chats and mobile collaborations.

Eric S Yuan
Image Source: bmmagazine.co

While in college, Eric’s girlfriend (now wife) lived at a place quite distant from his place. Whenever he wanted to meet her, he used to take excruciating 10-hour train rides. He wished that he could build a solution to this problem through which his girlfriend and he could stay connected, even without being together, physically. He wanted that he could visit her anytime without any travelling.

Eric always said that it was his dream to come to the United States and achieve something big due to his interest, he had grown in the new technology ‘Internet’ that was blooming at that time. At the time, when he applied for the Visa for the US, he got his application rejected a few times. He continuously applied for nine times over the course of 2 years. And after his ninth try, he was finally granted one.

“When I came to America, I did not even speak English, but I knew that I could write codes. I knew I had to work very hard, and so did I. Also, I’m very paranoid so I say to myself, I have to work harder’. Working hard, that is the only thing I know better than my competitor”, says Eric recalling his old days and his mantra of success.

In 1997, Eric came to the Silicon Valley and joined WebEx. WebEx was real time, and it had only a dozen employees. After Yuan’s joining, the company grew very quickly and went public in no time. In 2007, WebEx was sold to Cisco. He was appointed as the Vice President of Cisco and the in-charge of collaborations software.

At Cisco, he did consumer interactions directly with consumers. He found out that many of the consumers were not happy either with Cisco or WebEx. Eric knew that this was the time to do something big that he always dreamt of, something during his college times. He left Cisco and alongside geared up a team of 40 engineers, and came up with ‘Zoom’ in 2011.

After the release, Zoom frew to about a thousand users, and the numbers kept on growing with every update release. As of now, Zoom can process 1000 participants in a single video conferencing call. After being in the market for 5-6 years, it registered more than 20 Billion annualized meeting minutes.

Eric believes that keeping customers happy is something which runs a company. If the customers are not happy, the company will be long gone. Zoom was ranked 18 in the Forbes Cloud 100. Also, Eric was ranked number 1 in the top CEO by Glassdoor based on approval ratings from the employee reviews. Eric got an astonishing 99% approval showing that how he keeps his employees happy too.

He wishes that he could open his company a lot before, but he is still happy with his success. He thrives to do hard work. When asked upon start-ups, he said, “The journey is long and tough, but one must not be afraid to start. One should be vulnerable to taking risks. Also, find investors who want to invest in you, not only in your business”.

Eric S. Yuan, the CEO and Founder of Zoom Video Communications, has a story that motivates and says out loud that hardships are inevitable and without them, no one can reach the success they desire. Eric is an inspiring leader, leading his team to the best to provide the best.