What happened
Bellwether teleconferencing stock Zoom Video Communications (ZM -0.16%) was a stinker of a stock on Friday, sagging more than 2% in price against the 1.4% rise of the S&P 500 index. But that's what happens when your service goes dark for thousands of users.
So what
According to numerous media reports, Zoom's audio-streaming platform suffered a spate of outages on Thursday. Reuters cited statistics compiled by tracking site Downdetector.com indicating that nearly 10,000 such incidents occurred that day. The article also stated that Zoom posted on its status dashboard that its Zoom Phone telephony feature was experiencing degraded operability.
Zoom hasn't yet commented in more detail about the incident.
As of late afternoon Friday, the specialty tech company's status page indicated "all systems operational," including Zoom Phone for all listed regions. Similarly operational, according to that page, was the company's foundational Zoom Meetings service.
Although all seems to be back to normal, the investor reaction to the outages is understandable. Zoom is 100% reliant on the smooth functioning of all its digital offerings, and blackouts in even one can seriously disrupt users and perhaps even lead to migration to rival online video conferencing/phone service providers.
Now what
That said, a relatively brief outage in one of Zoom's numerous services shouldn't ultimately be a make-or-break issue for investors. Online services and sites go dark at times.
Zoom certainly has challenges as a company and shareholders should be concerned about these, but no one needs to fret much about Thursday's momentary spell of darkness.
