Zoom struggles to cope with rise in home working

Conferencing platform joins Microsoft Teams in grappling with rush in demand for services

Video conferencing company Zoom has revealed its software and phone services are struggling to cope with the surge in home workers flocking to use them amid the coronavirus outbreak.

The California-based firm reported that its software was experiencing “degraded performance”, while its phone service was suffering a “partial outage”.

According to the company’s service status, its teams are actively working to resolve the issues.

As the coronavirus outbreak continues to escalate and force workers around the world to avoid offices and work remotely, Zoom has been aggressively marketing its services and expanding features users can access for free, such as removing time restrictions on free accounts.

In an article published the same day Zoom reported the downtime, Chief Product Officer Oded Gal boasted about the sub-150 millisecond latency offered by the platform. The article may have tempted fate by making reference to the popular wisdom that Zoom “just works”.

In any case, you cannot deny Zoom’s popularity. According to Okta’s most recent Businesses @ Work Report, Zoom is the world’s most popular app by number of customers, and the tenth fastest-growing app in the workplace.

Zoom is not the only company struggling to keep up with a surge in demand. On Monday, Microsoft said its communication and collaboration tool, Teams, was experiencing “messaging-related functionality problems”.

Microsoft recently made Teams available to companies for free for six months in an effort to help during the outbreak.

Since January, the tech giant said it has seen a 500 per cent increase in Teams meetings, calling, and conferences taking place in China.

• Via: The Register