, Columnist
How Microsoft Let Skype Lose Out to Zoom
In the technology business, you’re only as good as your last update.
Another Microsoft product that lost market share.
Photographer: Andrew Harrer/BloombergZoom Video Communications Inc., maker of the ubiquitous videoconferencing tool that made a global pandemic less isolating, just reported another quarter of explosive growth. While its business may not continue to soar quite so much, Zoom is well positioned, appears to have a loyal fan base and continues to innovate.
It has also achieved a rare corporate feat: It created a product popular enough to become a common verb. To “Zoom” now means to “chat by video” — in the same way that to “Google” is to search the web. Yet not so long ago, another product’s name stood for videoconferencing: Skype.