Now, Zoom needs no introduction. In the past two years, video collaboration platforms have become ubiquitous, because many parts of the world have begun to rely on it to handle work, school, social life, medical treatment, and everything in between. There is no denying that when it soared from a relatively unknown status to a household name almost overnight, the company was not ready for prime time. Although there were some privacy issues initially, I was impressed with how fast it managed to correct the ship, expand its capacity and remain relatively unchallenged. It may be the most popular platform of this type during the entire Covid pandemic. . In addition, it has significantly improved its capabilities through organic innovation. I recently had the opportunity to participate in a virtual walkthrough on the second floor of a Zoom building in San Jose, demonstrating the company's latest solutions and features in the past six to eight months. While paying attention to breaking news, the fascinating briefing gave us a glimpse of Zoom's vision for the future of hybrid work. These are some of my points.
John Stearns of Zoom showed off the company's virtual kiosk solution.
John Stearns, Account Director of Zoom Rooms, starts the tour, making sure to notice that the second floor is not the company's stage showroom-it is an actual work space (although it is now empty, because Zoom employees still haven't returned to the office). Stearns Instead of being welcomed by the receptionist, I took my camera to a virtual kiosk in Zoom to check in. Stearns said that these kiosks run a modified version of the company's Zoom Room software and can customize the logo, background image, and message to suit your company's branding. Although Zoom designed the kiosks for the virtual reception use case, Stearns shared that its corporate customers have begun to use them as IT support kiosks. Furthermore, Stearns pointed out that it is not difficult to imagine that they have found a home in a banking or retail environment. The kiosks shown on the tour run on DTEN ME 27-inch all-in-one capacitive touch screens, although they have many different hardware options.
Use the Zoom Room Scheduler on the Neat Pad to check the availability of the meeting room.
When Stearns approached the Zoom meeting room, he hovered outside, pointing to the Neat Pads installed on the door of each meeting room. Zoom's room scheduling software allows employees to use these devices to book time slots, use floor plans to check room availability, and more. A clever feature is the side LED bar of the Neat Pad, which will glow green to indicate that the room is open, or glow red when it is occupied. This intuitive feature allows employees to find empty rooms with just a glance at the lobby instead of looking at each room one by one.
Stearns showed off meeting tools for large meeting rooms.
Entering the meeting room, Stearns showed off the new Logi Rally Bar, which is an all-in-one soundbar designed for large meeting rooms. Zoom and its hardware partners have expanded their meeting equipment product portfolio beyond small and medium-sized meeting rooms to support these larger spaces. Such devices include other Logi Rally Plus devices, Poly Studio X70, E70 dual camera and G7500 systems, and Neat Bar Pro.
Pair your personal device with the Zoom Room controller.
Stearns demonstrated how to pair and replicate the room controller experience identically on a personal device for anyone who feels uncomfortable using the touch screen in public areas during global pandemics, flu seasons, etc.
Next, Stearns entered another smaller room, or a "crowded space" that can accommodate 4 to 5 participants. This room does not use the Zoom Room Controller on the table in the larger conference room, but is equipped with an integrated interactive whiteboard DTEN D7, which includes a built-in microphone, speakers and a camera capacitive touch screen (55 inches optional) or 75 inches Version). Stearns also demonstrated how users can join meetings on this device through voice commands, and explained that Zoom has integrated Zoom Phone into all of its Zoom Room devices without additional dongles, cables, adapters, etc., which will make traditional meetings The space becomes chaotic.
The camera follows Stearns into a large open space, demonstrating how its technology partners can adapt to the demand for more informal collaboration spaces. This trend appeared even before the pandemic. There are several sofas, comfortable chairs and several workstations in the space. Stearns showed how Poly and Neato's new technology uses acoustic "fencing" technology to isolate areas from each other on sound waves. He pointed out that this function can also come in handy in places such as New York City, where street noise often seeps into nearby office buildings.
In the last part of the tour, Stearns took us into a medium-sized meeting room, showing the Smart Gallery experience of Zoom. When many companies work 100% remotely, the gallery view (with different names depending on the platform) allows everyone to see each other equally, regardless of location and who has a say. Since many companies return to the office under different identities, meetings usually have both face-to-face participants and remote participants. The remote participants and their dedicated video streams will be highlighted. Nonetheless, for those who dial into the video source of the meeting room, picking personal facial expressions and other communication nuances can be challenging.
Using Neat Bar with a single camera system, Zoom Smart Gallery can send multiple individual video sources from the same room, effectively copying the gallery view of a completely remote Zoom meeting. Neat Bar performs all calculations on the device and includes an integrated microphone array, speaker and camera system. Therefore, according to Stearns, the setup takes only a few minutes and only requires power, Ethernet and HDMI cables to connect to the display. It can't be easier than this. Stearns also pointed out that although the concept of immersive telepresence is not new, it requires multiple cameras, multiple screens, and multiple codecs-the cost of a room can be as high as $300,000. With Zoom Smart Gallery, Neat Bar sells for less than US$3,000, which is a more realistic choice for most companies.
Enlarge the company roadmap
In order to end this event, Stearns shifted its focus to Jeff Smith, the head of Zoom Rooms, and introduced us to some upcoming versions and product roadmaps. Smith previewed the new Zoom whiteboard, carefully noting that it was different from the company's original product of the same name. The new whiteboard, now in Beta, aims to "provide a virtual space for hybrid teams to share ideas and plan their work." It runs on the Zoom platform, whether users are face-to-face, hybrid, or completely remote.
Smith also emphasized whiteboard features, such as "infinite canvas", which allows users to continuously shrink and expand to fit any design, no matter how big it is. In addition, it is a long-lasting solution, which means that the user can pull it back to revisit after the fact, or show off the brainstorming session product at a formal meeting.
Users can also use the whiteboard:
· In virtual notes anywhere on the board
· Startup diagram, with automatic shape recognition and connection
· Drag and drop images easily
· Share with anyone with a Zoom account
The Zoom Whiteboard feature is available at launch.
Some people may still dream of one day the office "returns" to normal. In fact, the future looks more like what Zoom is preparing: some people are in the office, some are at home, some are working in a coffee shop, and everyone may move back and forth between these places. Before the pandemic hit, the mixed work environment was accelerating, although this of course accelerated the change. Most companies realize that since reality has arrived, there is no way out. They need to be able to equip their employees with the technology, software, and other tools needed to succeed in this new world. I have participated in some early video conferences, where the "office side" is just a room full of people I can't see. I am very confident that companies will have to rearrange their offices.
From the Zoom Smart Gallery to the new Zoom Whiteboard, the company and its hardware partners provide innovative solutions to improve the efficiency of mixed teams — perhaps even better than when everyone is working and collaborating in the same building higher efficiency. Isn't this the ultimate goal of the hybrid revolution? Zoom certainly has its own competitors in the field of collaboration, and entrenched players such as Microsoft Teams still dominate. However, I believe that the company's considerable epidemic headwinds give it a chance to become a top company. I will pay close attention.
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