CIOInsider India Magazine

With millions of employees working from home across the world, the use of simple tools that makes them collaborate with customers and colleagues are seeing a surge. It was a month before the world came to notice the outbreak of coronavirus that 8X8 announced its 8X8 Video Meetings. The unexpected early arrival of the future work is rediscovering one of the troublesome modern technologies of video conferencing.

In the comfort of one’s own homes, people across the world are firing up video calls in the place of meetings and classes that cannot be carried out in person because of the coronavirus. This gave rise to compatibility issues with having good video and audio quality but different OS devices or Wi-Fi connectivity issues. Some video conference systems appear easier to use than others, but some employees find it hard to cope with what corporate IT department has chosen. Setting aside the awkwardness of immature social norms to follow in official video conferences, there are still levels of confusing software and subpar hardware mix that makes it more confusing.

Some players in the spotlight
Zoom has gained a rapid increase in its users as governments across the world have put their citizens on lockdown. The applications which enables its users to talk to 99 other people at the same time, has been increasingly used to host virtual classroom sessions, church services, and even blind dates. 8X8 has also saw the trend, making its Video Meetings feature been mentioned more than 25,000 social conversations in the past month. The platform has emerged as a good option among students looking for distance learning. It has also supports doctors using video to consult patients through telemedicine. With limitless use cases arise when activities are on hold, especially in this scenario, people increasingly are learning how to use these services out of necessity.

Everything is good until privacy matters
While pointing out the benefits of the video conferences and the opportunities it present, it is to the obligation that we mention the issues with privacy concerns. Though Zoom was widely used for various video conferencing related purposes, it was also facing a class lawsuit for not acquiring proper consent before sharing some of user data with Facebook. Vice News has revealed that Zoom is leaking its users’ email ID and photos and enabling strangers to initiate calls with each other.

“We didn’t know that the product, in a matter of weeks, will have a huge number of users across the world. People have started using our platform for working, studying and socializing. We recognize the faults with the keeping in line with the community privacy and security expectations,” reads the blog post published by Eric Yuan, CEO of Zoom in a statement of apology.

By making the future work to arrive at the doorsteps of each employee, the technology of video conference further unfurls the carpet to bring in practices that are yet to be explored. This will increase competitiveness among the domain players in the market to churn out better quality in video and audio in limited network connectivity.