Technology
Zoom India Chief says consumers love it, they 're not worried about competitors.
Zoom is a household name in India. The previously unheard-of video conferencing app has now overshadowed other video calling apps, thanks to its increasing adoption during the coronavirus lockdown. But its overnight success has also brought it to the fore, which shows that success is not always sweet. It can be bittersweet, too, because it comes with its own challenges.
There are a variety of challenges facing Zoom. There are fears of privacy. There's talk of security vulnerabilities on Zoom 's site, so much so that the Indian government asked government officials and departments to stop using Zoom in its advisory last month.
Effect of the lockout on the growth of Zoom
It's not a good time for most of the world. But for Zoom, the time is booming. Raje recognizes as much as he does. "In this covid 19 situation, nobody had expected everyone to start working from home. And forget about working from home, even individuals can start using (Zoom) to socialize.
Even in India, there is an unparalleled surge in the adoption of video calling devices, given the country's lack of reliable wired internet. "You know how right India is, if something goes viral, [the] adoption [also] becomes very viral, and that's what happened, the adoption of such technologies has spiraled. It's gone beyond all standards, "Raje says.
He describes how companies that were hesitant to embrace new technologies and require their employees to be physically present at the offices were "forced to adopt this technology."
Undeterred by rival attacks
Zoom 's success has drawn attention , especially from multinational giants like Google, Facebook, and Microsoft, who have been trying to produce anything similar. But Raje believes that Zoom will be able to deal with increased competition.
"Well, we 're not focusing on whatever our competitors do, we 're focusing on what our customers want the best," Raje said. "So, while there are a lot of players in the industry offering freebies, most of the customers want to pay and use Zoom."
He is confident that the features provided by Zoom are unmatched. "When you click on the Zoom URL, you can, one hundred percent, be sure you're going to have a flawless meeting, you 're going to have an impeccable voice, and you're going to use it with simplicity. So all the organizations are willing to pay," says Raje.
Act with the government on compliance
The Indian government's advice on using zoom carefully did not go well with the client. But it wasn't the first incident in the world. Previously, the government of Taiwan imposed a ban on the use of Zoom in the region.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation also warned Americans that Zoom was being used for their personal purposes because the cases of "Zoom-bombing" were on the rise. Zoom had to quench all these concerns one after the other.
Here in India, Zoom said it would work with the government to ensure privacy and security to reduce customer apprehension. Raje tells India Today Tech that Zoom 's focus is "always on providing the right information."
While admitting that there were issues on the part of the company, Raje added, "The platform is being used in a different way than it is supposed to be." He said, "For example, Zoom is an enterprise platform. If you start socializing on it if you want to share the social media details and so on. Obviously, we haven't anticipated that."
Raje believes that the pattern of end-user behavior was also a determining factor when it came to limiting the use of the app for personal use. "When you post your social media information, you don't have to do that. You don't do it in your physical life, you don't do it in your virtual life.
So there were both factors that added fuel to the flames. "According to him, the government took an educated decision to issue an advisory based on what" was prevailing in the market at that time.
Highlighting Zoom 's work as a company, Raje said, "Our responsibility is to share the right information with the government that we do. Our aim will be to help the government make the right decision on the basis of the right facts, and then to make it clear to the users of India that we are very confident that the government will make the right decision because we are sure of our platform.
About recent reports regarding security bugs in the app, Raje said, "There have been no problems on our platform. There are vulnerabilities in every program. [Vulnerabilities] have been identified [in Zoom], they have been patched in less than 24 hours. And we've taken the right steps to fix them. I'm sure the government will take the right stance."
Row over encryption is not necessary
There's been a lot of talk on Zoom 's supposedly poor call encryption. Raje calls this "misinformation." Zoom has recently said that it would implement end-to - end encryption for video meetings after it has been criticized for having only TLS encryption in place so far. Meanwhile, the company has introduced AES 256-bit GCM encryption on its platform to silence critics. Now, there's talk of E2E encryption.
"Zoom has always had enterprise-grade encryption. Banks, financial institutions, the majority of the big accredited organizations have been using Zoom," says Raje. "It's encrypted in the best possible way."
He explains that as long as Zoom is accessed on a mobile device or a laptop within its ecosystem, the meeting will be encrypted.
He claims that adding the "end-to - end" word is deceptive. "You need to understand that Zoom is a collaboration platform, and when we say it's a collaboration platform, what you can do is actually pick up a phone and dial into the Zoom service. Anyone can tell you that if you're using a phone to get into the Zoom Cloud service, that noise can't be encrypted. It can only be encrypted when it comes to Zoom, so it can't be said to have an end-to - end.
What it means is that this restriction does not mean that Zoom calls are not encrypted. Raje adds, "A lot of bad people out there wanted to point out that Zoom isn't going to end-to - end encryption, but it's a real fact (technically yes) because if another encryption format is coming, then the encryption format might change, but Zoom Cloud has always been encrypted."
Having said that, Zoom is trying to add another layer of protection to his calls. "We've heard the feedback, okay, we've acquired a company called Keybase.
And now what we're going to do is we're going to require one more layer or one more service type, which will be end-to - end encryption, but the point that needs to be noted is that when it's end-to-end encrypted, you can't connect to the network by phone, "says Raje.
