Zoom unveiled in a press release yesterday that it would no longer be offering its video conferencing service in mainland China. They however did state that the exception is through distribution by model partners.
What this means is consumers won’t have direct access anymore. Zoom would only offer its video conferencing perks through third-party partners. So as a consumer, to benefit, you’d have to go through their list of partners.
Although Zoom made this announcement just recently, it won’t take effect till Aug 23, 2020.
In Zooms announcement letter, they stated before now; their focus point was through direct sales. The company also made use of online subscriptions. They, however, did let us know it was discontinued two months ago.
The letter said, “We are now shifting to a partner-only model with Zoom technology embedded in partner offerings, which will provide you better local support.”
To cushion the process, so consumers(China) don’t intensively feel the impact, they made recommendations. They listed three video platforms users can switch to for the reason of not being able to purchase directly.
It is still a topic of discussion as to why Zoom made this decision. There has, however, been a series of “talks” deliberating if there would be negative repercussions.
In May, Zoom implemented changes to its platform. These changes, however, favored only corporate entities. This means that free users were not granted access to host meetings. But, they were permitted to join one created by a corporate customer.
Zoom is one of the companies rigorously criticized for having ties to China. In June, the company shut down an account in cahoots with China. The conference talked about sensitive topics concerning China.
The company has a strict policy. It entails not allowing requests from the Chinese government to affect anyone outside its borders.
Zoom is an American founded and based video conferencing platform. The founder Eric Yuan is a Chinese immigrant who is an American Citizen. But the workforce employed is primarily Chinese based. According to its regulatory filing from earlier in the year.
Technology companies do not have it, so Rosy in these times. Anyone with links to China would have a problem with Washington lawmakers.
For instance, the popular social media platform TikTok is facing the same fate. For a while, the company has been receiving heat from the Washington lawmakers.
The allegations are that the company is ‘allegedly’ stealing data from its American users. The Washington lawmakers said the act was under the influence of the Chinese government.
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