Case Study: Zoom Video Communications ZOOM VIDEO COMMUNICATIONS CASE 3.3 Zooming in on a subject, task, or person took on an entirely new meaning after the onset of the COVID-19 crisis. The pandemic of 2020 and 2021 quickly claimed millions of lives worldwide and upended the way we lived our daily lives: Stay-in-Place orders, essential travel only, wearing face masks, maintaining social distance from other people. Families could not gather to support a gravely ill member, to mourn a deceased member, or to celebrate grandma's 95th birthday. Children couldn't go to school. Many more people around the planet went without food, medicine, or appropriate shelter. As burdensome as these restrictions were on individual lives, they also had a profound effect on business operations worldwide. Restaurants shut down so waitstaff lost jobs. Food stores stayed open, but barbershops and hair salons closed. Hospitals were essential service providers, so they stayed open, but they faced extremely severe challenges: shortages of personal protection equipment (PPE), respirators, beds, personnel (as caregivers became ill). Page 86 Prior to the pandemic, computers and the Internet allowed many people to work all of their hours remotely if they were self- employed or at least some of their working hours if they worked for a business. When the pandemic struck in force, many businesses that had office support staff discovered that most or all of their employees could do their work remotely for an extended period of time. They also discovered that important meetings, also, could be done remotely using Zoom or one of its "cousins" such as Skype, MSTeams, or Cisco's WebEx. Zoom Video Communications, Inc., was founded by Eric Yuan in 2011 as a cloud-based software platform. Zoom supports teleconferencing, telecommunications, remote learning, and social interactions in addition to cloud storage. Basic service is free and allows a subscriber to host up to 100 participants, limits group meetings to 40 minutes, and allows unlimited time for one-on-one meetings. More extensive programs, including larger groups, unlimited times, cloud storage, and technical support are available for fees. The company grew steadily until the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 when its market value erupted ... stock prices soared from $87.00 per share in February 2020 to $588.84 per share in October 2020. This seems like a utopian realm, but whether or not Zoom can remain at this level is uncertain. When the pandemic's grip on business operations loosens, will people return to offices to work or will they continue to work from home? Will family members gather together physically or will they continue to gather for Zoom meetings?