In the spring of 2020, the new crown virus spread throughout the world, which has a huge impact on all walks of life and schools. At the same time, the two keywords are gradually heating up, which is "home office" or "online courses".
People began to work or study in class through the Internet video conference system. This is a rare opportunity to study and practice work from home around the world.
Eric Yuan, CEO of Zoom Chinese, a professional company that provides video conferencing services, said recently that he expects the outbreak of the new crown virus to change the prospects of video conferencing tools, as more and more companies are starting to let employees work from home to curb the spread of the virus.
And through this use, they will realize that this will be the future of the office, and even after the epidemic is over, working at home will become a norm.
"Online video is the future of communication ... Considering the new crown virus, I think that overnight, almost everyone really understands that they need such a tool," Eric Yuan said on the phone with analysts after reporting fourth-quarter results Say. "This will dramatically change the market outlook for work from home."
With the spread of the new crown virus, more and more companies are asking employees to work from home. Affected areas (such as parts of Italy and Vietnam) have closed schools in an attempt to stop the virus from spreading.
Even in the San Francisco Bay Area, where Zoom headquarters is located, some tech companies like Twitter have expanded their home office policies.
In Europe, Ireland, Google also notified 8,000 employees to adopt a home office.
In this case, companies are increasingly relying on tools like Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Slack, Google Video Conference to help employees stay connected.
However, Eric Yuan said that even before the new crown virus started driving more work from home, this trend was becoming more and more popular, especially in Silicon Valley in the United States.
At tech companies like Zapier and GitLab, all employees work from home. Many people think this is one direction in which the way of working will evolve in the future.
Eric Yuan said that home-based work in the new crown virus epidemic showed that the "future of the office" came much earlier than many people thought.
Eric Yuan added that this forces large companies to recognize that when crises, including the new crown virus, strike, they need to keep their employees working from home to keep the business running.
Eric Yuan said that if he starts a business from scratch today, he will not have a single physical office or headquarters, and he will make the company a company where all employees work from home,
Zoom official said that due to the spread of the new crown virus worldwide, the number of users of the free version of Zoom video conference system products has increased significantly.
However, CFO Kelly Steinberger said on the phone that the quarterly financial results released on Wednesday did not show much of the increase in usage, as most of the usage was free.
"We do see an increase in usage, but many are free, so it's too early to tell whether this will turn long-term free users into paying users," Steinberg said.
When asked if Zoom had a strategy to turn these new free users into paying users in the future, Eric Yuan said that for now he is just focusing on providing the best products to customers and ensuring that people affected by the new crown virus benefit from.
"I want to say that compassion, humanity and support for each other are more important than income," Eric Yuan said. He also added that if Zoom is focused on providing the best products to its customers, money and profits will eventually follow.
Zoom recently removed the 40-minute time limit for each free video conference in China of its free product to help those affected by the new crown virus outbreak. Eric Yuan also said that Zoom is expanding its servers to cope with growing usage.
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