The Six Five Team discusses Zoomtopia 2023.
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Transcript:
Daniel Newman: Zoom had its big Zoomtopia event. I alluded in the beginning if you haven’t seen it, Eric Yuan did… Actually, Pat, you do need to watch this. Eric Yuan came out on stage and did the Pat Moorhead. He ran out on stage going Zoom and he ran and did three or four circles on the stage. It made a bit of a headway across the internet and I saw Pat Moorhead do this at a Cloudera event getting everybody pumped up for his keynote, which was really good.
Patrick Moorhead: I tried. Thank you.
Daniel Newman: You’re welcome. And so, what did Zoom release this year at Zoomtopia? So I didn’t make it there, but our research director, Craig Durr, who leads the workspace practice in intelligence for that area was there and I did have the chance to review and watch from afar. A couple things that came out, Pat. This one, first and foremost, Zoom Docs. All right? You with me? Zoom Docs-
Patrick Moorhead: I’m hearing you, dude.
Daniel Newman: No, I’m saying Zoom Docs-
Patrick Moorhead: No, I know. Listen, I had to do a total triple take when I heard that for the first time.
Daniel Newman: Okay, I’m going to be candid. Zoom wants to get into productivity now. I am both excited to see it and try it. From what I saw in the demo, it looks very cool, but my hair is falling out trying to figure out is there a market for another productivity suite, meaning the Zoom and this platform have the capacity to create demand for people that are going to want to use.
Now, in terms of a use in real time with better features for collaborating and interacting with the content, I could see, but I’m still a little… I need to spend some time with this. Are they trying to compete with Microsoft Office? And do they think they have a shot of grabbing market there? This is going to be an interesting one. Again, I could see it being used in the app. I’m just not sure I could see people really being like, “We’re going to switch and commit to building our… Are they going to do Zoom… Is it going to be Zoom Spreadsheets? Are they going to do ZoomPoint? Zoom Presentations? I mean, Google has a lot of budget and has been fighting this fight for a long time with, by the way, a billion email users or whatever they have and they still haven’t been able to get significant. I think it’s 10 million users of workspace or enterprise users. So that’s an interesting one. There’s a bunch of other things.
The one other thing that caught my attention is AI Companion. So like every company out there with an app, they’re building a digital assistant. Clearly, things like summaries, intelligent highlights within meetings, things like that, I could see a huge opportunity. There’s some calendaring, but, again, this is the part… And, Pat, I’m going to pass it to you so we can close this off on time. The part that I’m really puzzled by, because I love the Zoom app. I’m a very positive Zoom person about using the app, especially for my meetings, but are people going to… There’s so many choices. How many of these things are people going to use? And is Zoom taking a risk by going too far into a market that’s somewhat established? And do they have a real shot of getting market share or is it okay if they have small market share because that’s enough to help them grow their business incrementally?
Patrick Moorhead: Well, as long as it’s more than 1% increase over seven years, then it won’t show up on my radar.
Daniel Newman: You don’t get a tweet for that.
Patrick Moorhead: Exactly.
Daniel Newman: You’ll get a tweet.
Patrick Moorhead: So, Dan, no, you asked the seminal question and I look strategically and ask, what’s their other option? Right? We both talked about these giant monolithic platforms, whether it be from Microsoft, Google, Salesforce is trying to build theirs, and Zoom has theirs. I don’t see a strategic alternative other than maybe getting in devices, which is lower margin. It makes no sense. So now, I don’t like the name docs. It should be called workspace. Okay? And whether it’s in Box, whether it’s in Google, Microsoft, everybody has a workspace. And I think the belief is that you and I are going to be on a Zoom video and we’re going to be wanting to share stuff, whether it be a whiteboard or text, and this is going to be the workspace. All right? I’ll tell you what, it is hot. Second point is Zoom AI Companion is amazing. Okay? I don’t gush about very many products except for maybe AirPods here, but this is amazing. If you guys have done the summary, it actually is good-
Daniel Newman: I do love that. I do love that.
Patrick Moorhead: Otter should be embarrassed and should try to figure out how they did that, because it is really good. I have not used Teams yet to be able to do that. Third topic is Workvivo. I said at the very beginning of the P, again, can’t say it because we get… I don’t know, asterisked-
Daniel Newman: I think you get dinged on our web traffic.
Patrick Moorhead: But I said, “Listen, we’re going to go back to work. We’re going to go back to work because the tools aren’t ready.” And part of this is to keep employees in the game, keep them focused in. And they bought a company called Workvivo, which, by the way, is very, very similar to Microsoft’s brand for what they’re trying to do with the same thing called Viva. So I can’t quite figure that one out. But they’re going all-in, man, on the platform. I do think they have a choice. I do think they potentially have a play with Workvivo, but they need to be able to tap into the Microsoft Graph and that’s a ATBD there. So I’m going to be watching this, same reaction with docs that you have. I don’t like the name. It is more of a workspace than a docs.
Daniel Newman: Yeah. And I think the question is how does it evolve?
Author Information
Daniel is the CEO of The Futurum Group. Living his life at the intersection of people and technology, Daniel works with the world’s largest technology brands exploring Digital Transformation and how it is influencing the enterprise.
From the leading edge of AI to global technology policy, Daniel makes the connections between business, people and tech that are required for companies to benefit most from their technology investments. Daniel is a top 5 globally ranked industry analyst and his ideas are regularly cited or shared in television appearances by CNBC, Bloomberg, Wall Street Journal and hundreds of other sites around the world.
A 7x Best-Selling Author including his most recent book “Human/Machine.” Daniel is also a Forbes and MarketWatch (Dow Jones) contributor.
An MBA and Former Graduate Adjunct Faculty, Daniel is an Austin Texas transplant after 40 years in Chicago. His speaking takes him around the world each year as he shares his vision of the role technology will play in our future.
