Packaging, translation to the fore in Zoom platform evolution

Collaboration and conferencing company brings together options for persistent chat, phone, meetings, whiteboard and other features into a single, scalable package

Zoom Video Communications has unveiled the latest evolution of its core communications platform with the introduction of Zoom One and an all-new translated and multi-language captions feature.

As the partial return to work increases and firms throttle back on mandatory home working, many analysts have pondered whether breakout pandemic conferencing leader Zoom will begin a downward trajectory. But the three-month period ended 30 April 2022 saw the company deliver a billion-dollar first quarter, along with the launch of Zoom Contact Center, Zoom Whiteboard and Zoom IQ for Sales, a conversation intelligence service for sales professionals, as well as Zoom Events and Webinar functionalities such as Backstage and Webinar session branding.

In this latest complement of its core conferencing solution, Zoom One is designed to bring together persistent chat, phone, meetings, whiteboard, and more into secure and scalable packages. Its experience is designed to offer customers the choice between six tiered offerings according to their business needs.

Zoom One Basic provides free 40-minute Zoom Meetings for up to 100 attendees, out-of-meeting, persistent Zoom Chat for team messaging, and limited Zoom Whiteboard for synchronous and asynchronous work and real-time transcription. Zoom One Pro adds to this basic feature set, but without meeting time limits, plus cloud recording.

Zoom One Business provides everything Zoom One Pro offers, plus Zoom Meetings for up to 300 attendees and unlimited Zoom Whiteboards, while Zoom One Business Plus provides everything Zoom One Business offers, plus Zoom Phone Pro with unlimited regional calling and Zoom’s all-new translation feature. Zoom One Enterprise and Zoom One Enterprise Plus are designed to help modern businesses scale and provide everything Zoom One Business offers with larger meeting capacity and additional features such as Zoom Webinars. Zoom One Enterprise Plus also includes Zoom Phone Pro with unlimited regional calling.

Launching first in Zoom One Business Plus and Zoom One Enterprise Plus packages, Zoom’s translated captions will allow users to view captions translated into the language of their choice. At launch, translations will be available between English and 10 other languages, or from any of the 10 languages to English. Translated captions display at the base of the screen during a Zoom Meeting. The bi-directional translations are available in these languages: Chinese (simplified), Dutch, English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Russian, Spanish and Ukrainian. To access the translated captions feature, Zoom One customers must upgrade to either the Zoom One Business Plus (in applicable countries) or Zoom One Enterprise Plus.

Zoom has also extended its automated captioning – the ability to caption in real time what a speaker is saying in the same language as that spoken – to include 10 additional languages. Automated captions were previously supported in English, but now can be displayed in the additional 10 languages referenced above. Multi-language automated captions are available in Business Plus, Enterprise and Enterprise Plus packages, with additional support for other plans coming soon.

Putting the Zoom One launch into perspective and assessing what it could do for businesses, Brent Kelly, principal analyst at Omdia Research, said: “Businesses continue to realise the time and cost saving that a single provider can offer. According to Omdia’s latest end-user survey, 40% of organisations are prioritising investments around eliminating multiple cloud-based UC solutions that may be deployed within their organisations. The need to simplify business operations is a market trend that we see as being increasingly important and Zoom One’s tiered bundles and common management console aligns well to this customer demand.”

Zoom president Greg Tomb added: “Simplicity is at the core of everything we do. As the Zoom platform has evolved from a meeting app to a comprehensive communications platform, it was clear that introducing new packaging like Zoom One was the next step in the company’s evolution. By bringing together chat, phone, meetings, whiteboard and more in a single offering, we are able to offer our customers solutions that are simple to manage, so they can focus on the business issues that matter most.”

Zoom One Basic, Pro, Business and Business Plus plans are now available for purchase online. To purchase Zoom One Enterprise or Enterprise Plus, customers can speak to an account executive directly.