Amidst the upsurge in video calls during the lockdown, Reliance confirmed that it is days away from launching its own video conferencing app called JioMeet. The app will have features that would make it ideal for corporate as well as personal use. So, watch out Zoom , there is more competition coming.
In addition to the basic work-from-home video conferencing feature, JioMeet will allow users to consult doctors virtually to get prescriptions, order medicines and get lab test results online. It will also be integrated with Jio’s Ed-tech platform to create a virtual classroom for teachers and students.
“Jio Meet is a platform which has many uniqueness- it actually has an ability to work on any device, any operating system, and it has an ability to do a complete collaboration,” Pankaj Pawar, senior VP, Reliance Jio Infocomm, told reporters after the company’s parent, Reliance Industries declared its fiscal fourth-quarter results on Thursday.
The app, currently available on the Google Play Store, has already logged in more than 100k+ downloads despite the the fact that the official launch is yet to take place.
However, it is only visible on my Chrome OS Play Store and not on the mobile version. The company said it will also be available on Apple's iOS App Store and the Mac App Store, and Microsoft's Windows Marketplace. Furthermore, it will also work as a third-party plugin on Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox. With such wide-scale availability and security concerns surrounding the Zoom app, it is a good opportunity for JioMeet to capitalise on.
From what we could see in the app description, JioMeet will support 100 participants in a call though this would be available only for premium business users. Free users can only have five participants, which definitely could be underwhelming when compared with the likes of Google Meet and even Zoom or WhatsApp.
There are other new competitors too though such as Facebook’s Messenger Rooms and Google Meet which became completely free to use recently.
With the lockdown appearing to be affecting business, especially in the IT field where the government has permitted work from home till July 31, it appears as if demand for video conferencing would not be coming down any time in the short term.
