When the coronavirus pandemic started becoming a really serious issue that was impacting pretty much every single walk of life, one company started suddenly rising to the top and getting a lot more traction and usage than anyone would have thought possible. This company was Zoom and it provides group calling services with video and since so many people were stuck at home Zoom became the go to both for work meetings as well as personal calls in which friends would just catch up with each other and hang out with one another all in all.
The rise of Zoom was quite surprising and a big part of the reason why that is the case has to do with the fact that there were so many group video calling applications and services that were already out there such as Google Meet, WhatsApp and of course Skype, yet people chose Zoom because of the fact that it provided a lot of features that some of the better established apps and services might not have. Hence, a lot of really big tech companies such as Facebook, Google and Microsoft who own these well known apps have been playing catch up with Zoom to try and break the monopoly that is slowly starting to create but probably won’t be able to hold onto once all has been said and is now out of the way.
Microsoft has been making this move recently with Skype. Skype is now rolling out standardized backgrounds that you can use, as well as support for group video calls that can allow up to a 12 person split screen. Figuring out how this works must not have been hard for Skype which shows how competition helps companies innovate rather than rest on their laurels. It remains to be seen if Skype can catch up to Zoom since it is very much the underdog when you bring WhatsApp, Messenger and Google Meet into the equation.
Photo: SOPA Images/Getty Images
Read next: Office 365 Gets New Plus Addressing Feature for Email
The rise of Zoom was quite surprising and a big part of the reason why that is the case has to do with the fact that there were so many group video calling applications and services that were already out there such as Google Meet, WhatsApp and of course Skype, yet people chose Zoom because of the fact that it provided a lot of features that some of the better established apps and services might not have. Hence, a lot of really big tech companies such as Facebook, Google and Microsoft who own these well known apps have been playing catch up with Zoom to try and break the monopoly that is slowly starting to create but probably won’t be able to hold onto once all has been said and is now out of the way.
Microsoft has been making this move recently with Skype. Skype is now rolling out standardized backgrounds that you can use, as well as support for group video calls that can allow up to a 12 person split screen. Figuring out how this works must not have been hard for Skype which shows how competition helps companies innovate rather than rest on their laurels. It remains to be seen if Skype can catch up to Zoom since it is very much the underdog when you bring WhatsApp, Messenger and Google Meet into the equation.
Photo: SOPA Images/Getty Images
Read next: Office 365 Gets New Plus Addressing Feature for Email
