Symphony to launch videoconference tool for finance executives homebound by Covid-19 pandemic and weary of Zoom’s security troubles
- California-based Symphony will target financial institutions with its ‘secure and end-to-end encrypted’ videoconference platform
- Eric Yuan, founder and CEO of Zoom, which has seen a surge in use amid coronavirus lockdown, apologised via a blog post on April 1 for its software’s privacy and security shortcomings
Symphony Communications Services, backed by some of the world’s largest financial institutions and Google, is to launch a video conferencing tool targeting finance executives homebound by the coronavirus pandemic and spooked by security flaws in the popular Zoom software.
Symphony aims to be the first provider of “secure and end-to-end encrypted” video conferencing software that also allows financial institutions’ clients to comply with regulatory requirements to record and archive meetings by “early summer”, its Hong Kong-based CEO David Gurle said.
“We have had the video conferencing functionality on our communication platform for a long time, but the [coronavirus] crisis has changed its profile,” he told the South China Morning Post. “Video was not a really necessary medium because people were in the office. The need for a tool to make people feel closer while being remote spiked with the crisis.
“Currently, our clients can use this functionality but would need to purchase and maintain hardware themselves. Soon this won’t be necessary as they will be able to use it on our cloud platform.”
Symphony is headquartered in Palo Alto, California, but Gurle spends a lot of time in Hong Kong and considers the city his base.