Zoho, Zoom, Cisco, Intel, Amazon and More — Tech Brands Doing Good in Tough Times

For this week’s episode of the Futurum Tech Podcast, host Shelly Kramer is joined by Sarah Wallace and Ron Westfall. In our Main Dive discussion, they talked about Zoho, Zoom, Cisco, Intel, Amazon, Microsoft, Google, and other tech brands who are doing good in tough times.

From Cisco offering free Webex licenses to employees working from home to Zoom offering K-12 schools the use of its video conference platform for free, tech companies are stepping up and doing what they can to help businesses, schools, workers, teachers, students, and communities stay connected and try to keep moving forward in uncertain times brought on by the coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic. Some other notable moves from tech companies include:

Zoho has made its comprehensive suite of business software applications available by way of its Small Business Emergency Subscription Assistance Program (ESAP) to help existing customers with 25 employees or less by waiting the cost of the applications these companies are currently using for up to three months.

Intel’s CEO Bob Swan has made it crystal clear the company intends to be a part of the solution for COVID-19, and that they are working in myriad ways across the country to do just that. As just two examples, Intel teamed with Lenovo and BGI Genomics in China to accelerate research and diagnostics and is also working with customers and partners to facilitate and expedite virtual learning among communities with the greatest needs.

Amazon created a $5 million relief fund to aid small businesses in the Seattle area, which has since been extended nationwide, and the company is hiring thousands of drivers to help meet the needs of its ecommerce site at a time when home deliveries have never been more popular. Apple has created a $15 million fund to help investigate and find other ways to counter coronavirus, testing, and supplies, and Dell’s CEO Michael Dell has warned that if you were spending time in the last few weeks partying on beaches or gathering in other ways rather than practicing social distancing as advised, that you had best not apply for a job at Dell.

Broadband companies (AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile and others) are waiving late fees, not charging overage fees, removing data caps and throttling, and opening up Wi-Fi spots to help spur connectivity.

Microsoft Research (in partnership with the Allen Institute, the White House, and others) has made the COVID-19 Open Research Dataset (CORD-19) a repository of more than 29,000 scholarly articles on the coronavirus family from around the world available, including machine-readable research from more than 13,000 articles, and Google.org has made a $1 million contribution to facilitate online learning.

These are just a handful of the tech companies stepping up to do good in very difficult times, and it’s encouraging to see those who can, do. Keep it up, friends in tech.

THIS WEEK’s FAST FIVE

• Intel CEO Letter. To kick off the Fast Five segment of our show, Ron covered Intel Chief Bob Swan’s letter to customers and partners outlining the company’s commitment to doing everything in its power to help be a part of the solution for COVID-19.
• Internet Usage Surges — With No End in Sight.
• Industry Giants Reduce Streaming Quality in Effort to Reduce Strain on Networks in the EU.
• Security and Privacy in a Pandemic.
• Ron took us on a quick dive into the importance of certification in assuring secure networks during a worldwide public safety and health crisis.

This Week’s Tech Bites Winner: For the Tech Bites portion of our show, we covered the irony of Facebook establishing a Coronavirus Information Center and how difficult it is, at least for us, to trust Facebook in any way to curate and disseminate the “best” information on the net about COVID-19. Trust is earned, and Facebook? Hasn’t earned a bit. We also touched on Facebook being overwhelmed by a lack of staff and using AI to moderate content and stretching the company to its limits, as personified by thousands of users receiving notifications this past week that content they shared was disallowed. Interesting, and ironic, how Facebook is in some ways an integral part of how we communicate on a daily or weekly basis, yet so largely not trusted by the majority. And deservedly so.

Our Crystal Ball:  For the Crystal Ball portion of our show we circle back to the coronavirus COVID-19 outbreak, and talk about what we think is next and/or ahead.

INFORMATION: This Futurum Podcast features Shelly Kramer (@ShellylKramer), Sarah Wallace (@sarah_wallace) and Ron Westfall (@SirRonSolicon).  If you haven’t already, please subscribe to our show on iTunes or SoundCloud. For inquiries or more information on the show, email the team at [email protected] or follow @FuturumPodcast on Twitter. To learn more about Futurum Research please visit www.futurumresearch.com.

DISCLOSURE: Futurum Research is a research and analysis provider, not an investment advisor. The Futurum Tech Podcast (and all related written notes and materials) is a newsletter/podcast intended for entertainment and informational purposes only. Futurum Research does not provide personalized investment advice and no investment advice is offered or implied by this podcast.