Available on the zoom.us website, ZOOM Cloud Meetings for Windows is a solution for organizing videoconferences and online meetings with ease in dedicated virtual rooms. The free version is very advantageous with a chat function and meetings in HD audio and video with a maximum of 100 participants (but with a 40-minute restriction for calls of more than 3 people). Download and highly recommend! Why use Zoom Meetings?
The health crisis and the generalization of teleworking have largely encouraged the adoption of videoconferencing tools. Among the latter, Zoom has immediately become a reference for conducting online meetings by offering virtual meeting rooms on the Internet that can bring together a large number of participants by text messaging, audio or video.
Zoom.us, or more specifically ZOOM Cloud Meetings , is a software that provides individuals and professionals with a video conferencing, online meeting and chat messaging solution. Conferences, meetings, family reunions, virtual aperitifs, concerts of a new kind, the possibilities are numerous with Zoom.
Is Zoom a free solution?
Mainly dedicated to teleworking, remote team management or for specific projects, this video conferencing application can be downloaded for free on Windows , Mac and Linux computers as well as on smartphones and tablets (Android, iPhone, iPad, etc.). .) through the Play Store and App Store. In addition, the service is accessible and can be used from a web browser.
What's new for Zoom?
After the explosion of video conferencing apps during the COVID-19 pandemic, Zoom software is the talk of the town. This is how Apple, via an undocumented API, has allowed Zoom to operate in Split View mode since May 2021. The user is not required to end the meeting that is in progress to launch another app on the second half of the screen. While this feature is very convenient, it is considered a privilege granted by Apple and is not appreciated by Zoom's main competitors, Microsoft Teams and Google Meet software. We can blame Apple, once again, for the lack of transparency which has earned the group several conflicts in the past, among other things for abuse of a dominant position. This is what happened for example with Amazon Prime Video, which had the right to use its own payment system, instead of the one integrated into the App Store.
A few weeks later, the protection of personal data was at the heart of Zoom's concerns. Indeed, a class action has been filed against the videoconferencing giant, which allegedly shared the personal information of users of the application without consent, particularly with Facebook, Google and LinkedIn. But it is also the security of the entire solution that is called into question with, among other things, the phenomenon of Zoombombing: uninvited and malicious users would have access to private Zoom meeting rooms and would take advantage of it to spy on conversations or broadcast objectionable content. End-to-end encryption that turned out to be dysfunctional is also on the table of recriminations. The security flaws were finally corrected and Zoom dismissed the appeal out of hand, thanks to an 86 million dollar agreement which allowed the file to be closed.
This expense, however, did not prevent the group from posting a turnover of more than a billion dollars in the second quarter of 2021. The 54% increase compared to the previous year is undoubtedly linked to the pandemic and teleworking which propelled Zoom to the top of the meeting applications, in a few weeks. The brand now has half a million customers with more than 10 employees. But revenue isn't the only thing that has exploded for Zoom. Indeed, operating profit increased by more than 50%, from $188 million to $294 million in the space of a year. And the group is putting all the chances on its side to maintain its momentum with the deployment of Zoom Apps or Zoom Events. The first round of Zoom Apps Fund investments also brought in $100 million, in the service of productivity, inclusion, collaboration, entertainment…
Finally, during the Zoomtopia virtual conference in mid-September, the firm unveiled, among other things, the development of live translation for the coming year. A good way to overcome the language barrier and to further facilitate international exchanges. This advance follows the acquisition of the German company Kites, which develops live translation systems, and will initially concern a dozen languages. We can add to this leap forward the automatic English subtitles, announced last February, which are now extended to 30 languages.
How does the free version of Zoom work?
Available in French, ZOOM Cloud Meetings is a tool with a pleasant, intuitive and easy-to-manage interface, for administrators and participants alike. The profile is customizable and all chat rooms, meetings and contacts are easily accessible via tabs.