Zoom has announced the launch of a new collaboration platform for remote workers in a bid to expand its offerings to businesses during the 'new normal'.
Zoom for Home aims to help enterprises increase the productivity of their staff by deploying not only the standard video conferencing tools that Zoom is known for, but also software for phone calls, interactive whiteboarding, and annotation.
Zoom CEO Eric Yuan credited his working from home experience as one of the sources of inspiration behind Zoom for Home.
“After experiencing remote work ourselves for the past several months, it was clear that we needed to innovate a new category dedicated to remote workers,” he said. “I’m so proud of the team for continuing to think outside the box and prove why Zoom is the best unified communications platform that can meet the needs of all types of users.”
Despite lockdown measures in the UK being gradually eased, working from home does not seem to be losing popularity. A recent study by IBM found that 81% of surveyed professionals indicated they want to continue working remotely at least some of the time, a 6% rise since April 2020. More than half (61%) would prefer this to be their primary way of working.
A growing number of remote working staff leads to a surge in demand in working from home devices. That is why Zoom is also launching DTEN ME, the first-ever Zoom for Home device created in partnership with office-tools provider DTEN.
DTEN-ME features three built-in wide-angle cameras, an eight-microphone array for meetings and phone calls, and a LED 27-inch touch display for interactive screen sharing, whiteboarding, annotating, and ideation. The device, which will cost $599 (around £475), is capable of connecting seamlessly for anyone with a Zoom Meeting license.
Both products are to be available in EMEA later this year, with pre-orders starting in September.
The announcement comes a week after Zoom launched its hardware as a service (Haas) subscription-based packages, allowing customers to choose hardware from DTEN, Neat, Poly and Yealink to power Zoom Phone and Zoom Rooms, the company’s enterprise communications products.
