Zoom dials into Southeast Asia with Singapore datacentre
Zoom’s new Singapore datacentre is expected to shore up the performance of its conferencing tool and phone service in the city-state
Zoom has opened a new datacentre in Singapore to tap the growing demand for its cloud-based conferencing service in Southeast Asia.
Operational about a month ago, the new datacentre, Zoom’s 18th globally, is expected to reduce the latency of the service in Singapore while giving users the ability to route their calls and data locally.
Raagulan Pathy, Zoom’s head of enterprise sales in Asia-Pacific, said the new facility underscores Zoom’s commitment to its customers in Singapore and Southeast Asia.
“The datacentre is going to be another jewel in the crown, and further reinforces Singapore status as a strategic location for global businesses and our reach in the Southeast Asian market.”
Amid the Covid-19 outbreak, usage of conferencing tools has surged in Singapore and elsewhere. Since the start of the pandemic, more than 400 Singapore schools have been using Zoom’s service for home-based learning while businesses like real-estate agency PropNex are using it to enable remote work.
“In the current situation, we’re seeing a rapid acceleration of digital transformation and the use of various digital solutions, including telecommuting and virtual events,” Pathy said. “Singapore was a big conference hub earlier and virtual events are now taking over – and Zoom’s a key part of that,” he added.
Abe Smith, head of Zoom’s international business, said the company will continue to bolster its presence in Singapore and plans to hire a diverse set of engineers, sales representatives and customer success experts. “We want to be very close to our customers and be intimate in the process of engaging, supporting and providing the best experience,” he added.
Read more about unified communications in APAC
- Led by enterprises in Singapore and Malaysia, adoption of unified communications tools is expected to grow with the surge in demand for cloud-based and hosted offerings.
- Poly has seen a surge in demand for both personal and group collaboration tools in APAC amid the Covid-19 pandemic.
- Australia’s Curtin University has been using collaborative learning spaces to better engage students and bring its classes to the world.
- Zoom’s CIO advisor Magnus Falk offers insights on how the company is keeping up with demand for its conferencing tool.
Besides opening its Singapore datacentre, Zoom is also bringing its Zoom Phone service to the city-state for the first time. The cloud service is akin to a local telephone service and provides domestic calling in over 40 countries and territories for a single price under Zoom’s new Global Select plan.
Graeme Geddes, head of Zoom Phone and Rooms, said the Singapore datacentre will help to improve the experience of Zoom Phone by leveraging “the exact same backbone and footprint, so our users can expect the same quality as their Zoom meetings”.
While Zoom Phone is app-based and can be installed on mobile devices, enterprises can use the service on selected desk phones from suppliers like Poly. In July 2020, Zoom introduced a hardware-as-a-service offering for US businesses to deploy its software on desk phones, and is looking to offer the service globally, according to Geddes.
