This article is reproduced from Phoenix Technology ” Wind eye “in-depth reports group, author: Li Ting, editor: Yu Hao
In just four months, DAU (the number of daily active users) has gone from 10 million to 300 million, which has caused the miraculous growth of all Internet companies to fall on Zoom, the video conferencing company.
This SaaS company, which was listed on the NASDAQ in 2019, has been making great strides since its establishment in 2011, and it took only 7 years to reach a valuation of $ 1 billion. The shining performance during the epidemic made the industry seem to see another rising giant.
However, this rising momentum did not last long, and it began to turn sharply in April. There have been many leaks of Zoom user information in overseas markets-countries and regions such as Germany, Singapore and Taiwan, as well as the US Senate, NASA, Google, SpaceX, Siemens, Standard Chartered Bank and other institutions have begun to ban or restrict the use of Zoom Its competitors seek services.
On the one hand, there is sustained and rapid growth, on the one hand, the crisis is gradually emerging, and the Zoom on the cusp of the storm seems to be between ice and fire.
Internal and external concerns
From February 3 this year, the remote office market brought about by the epidemic has driven Zoom stocks to soar. Previously, Zoom’s stock price hovered under $ 80 for 4 months, and after a month and a half, the stock price reached $ 164.94 (March 23), and the market value doubled. Even in mid-March, when US stocks broke four times in 10 days and made history, Zoom was a little green in the red.
With the global spread of the epidemic, the accident became the east wind of Zoom. It’s just that the wind is too strong, which also reveals the hidden dangers that Zoom has neglected in the past.
On March 24, Consumer Reports published an article saying that ZThe oom meeting is not private, the meeting host can leak the meeting content without the consent of the participants, and the stock price of Zoom fell by 15.28%.
After that, bad news came one after another, and it was reported that Zoom sent user’s personal information to Facebook without the user’s permission, the video and microphone were hijacked during the meeting, and more than 500,000 Zoom accounts were traded on the dark web at cabbage prices. These negative news even made Zoom’s original paying users-colleges and educational institutions began to stop Zoom.
In general, there are three main reasons for the Zoom security storm:
First, the account password is too simple, and it is easy to brute force to try out a pure digital password;
Second, user data was leaked through a third-party SDK without user authorization. For example, the iOS version of the Zoom App has the Facebook SDK embedded in it;
The third is that the founder Yuan Zheng’s “Chinese-American” identity has triggered some “conspiracy theory” voices, causing some users to have doubts about data security.
People are afraid of famous pigs and fat. With Zoom’s daily active users increasing dramatically from 10 million at the end of 2019 to 300 million today, any problems with Zoom are placed under the magnifying glass.
At a time when security issues have left Zoom in abundance, the surge in the overall volume of the online conference market has also stimulated the chasing of existing and potential competitors. For example, Yuan Zheng ’s old owner Cisco Webex Meeting, as well as Microsoft ’s Teams and Skype, issued a guarantee of product safety when Zoom was caught in public opinion.
Even giants like Facebook and Google are attacking Zoom.
On April 23, Yuan Zheng announced that Zoom ’s daily active users reached 300 million, stimulating the stock price to open from the day ’s opening of $ 154.01 to a new high of $ 181.5 the next day. Zoom stock price fell back to 158.8 US dollars at the close.
On April 29, Google said that any user could soon host a free video conference on Meet, and the product now has 100 million daily active users.
Zoom is not easy in the domestic market. The opponents encountered are equally strong. Alibaba ’s spikes, Tencent meetings and other sudden developments have compressed the potential market of Zoom.
In the long run, even if the number of users and revenue of Zoom is still increasing, the future is not optimistic-while product safety is being questioned, it will also face increasing competition. Zoom on the tuyere is in internal and external troubles.
Inside and outside
Zoom is particularly nervous about the security issues that have erupted from the end of March.
Zhang Xin is an employee of Zoom ’s R & D center in Hefei. According to him, CEO Yuan Zheng once posted a message in the company ’s internal group that the company is experiencing a very crisis moment and hopes that everyone can do their job without problems. , And repeatedly emphasized the need to increase safety awareness.
“It ’s normal to be tense and stressed during this period of time. In the past, it may have been slow work and hard work, but now we must speed up.” Zhang Xin said that it is not just simply upgrading and optimizing on the original basis, but the entire The underlying logic is changing, strengthening data encryption and other functions. “These usually take 1 to 2 months to complete, and now the cycle is shortened to 1 to 2 weeks.”
On April 9, Yuan Zheng, who has always been low-key, made a Youtube live broadcast under heavy pressure, apologized to users for the security breach, and promised to solve the problem within 90 days.