Half of UK businesses expect to reduce the size of their office space, with a third looking to cut it down by 30%, according to a new report. 

PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) surveyed 258 C-Suite executives and over senior employees of the UK’s largest companies and their proposed cuts roughly equated to nine million square feet of space.

The finding indicates an appetite for ‘hybrid work‘ models in the UK, where employees mix remote and in-office shifts, with around 71% of the respondents planning to increase investment in technology to enable more agile work models over the next two years. 

As such, only 10% of those surveyed agreed that the level of employees working in the office will match that of pre-pandemic levels, despite taking into account the speed of the vaccine roll out. The consensus from the survey among the senior executives is that staff will continue working remotely for two or three days a week. 

“The figures couldn’t be more clear, the shift to hybrid working, with part of your time at home and part in the office, is pretty much embedded into the working culture of many organisations,” said Angus Johnson, the UK real estate leader for PwC UK. “So much so that a significant proportion of the businesses we spoke to are planning to reduce their office portfolio, which could lead to up to nine million square feet of vacant space. 

“However, it’s clear that the role of the office is not going to disappear. We may see an increased demand for flexible space as many businesses’ operating models may well need that option if holding dead space is to be avoided. It’s also clear that the nature and purpose of office space are going to change.”

Many of the respondents are said to be implementing ‘subleasing‘ models and exploring partnerships for shared office space. What’s more, 51% of the organisations with 100 employees or more already have a workplace strategy that considers the long-term impact of COVID. 

Video conferencing platform Zoom beat analysts’ expectations with sales more than doubling by 191% in its first-quarter earnings. 

Revenue for the quarter that ended 30 April jumped up to $956.2 million from $328.2 million in the same period of 2020. 

The company’s massive success in 2020, where it became a household name during the pandemic, has bled into 2021. The firm recorded revenue rising 369% in the previous quarter, with many analysts predicting a larger fall as more businesses bring employees back into the office. 

“Work is no longer a place,” said the company’s CEO, Eric S. Yuan. “It’s a space where Zoom serves to empower your teams to connect and bring their best ideas to life. We are energised to help lead the evolution to hybrid work that allows greater flexibility, productivity, and happiness to both in-person and virtual connections.”

The company’s profits also reached more than $227 million (£160m) in the first quarter, roughly ten times more than the $27 million it brought in over the first quarter of 2020. Paid users also increased with businesses with more than 10 employees jumping up 87% to 497,000 in the first quarter. 

Although it recorded enormous success in 2020, it wasn’t until the second quarter, which ended 31 July, that the firm really began to see huge usage spikes (355%). As the pandemic spread across Europe and the US, and lockdown restrictions started to be implemented, Zoom became bogged down by security issues. Users began reporting incidents of ‘Zoom bombing‘ and businesses questioned its lack of end-to-end encryption. 

As such, most analysts are estimating that Zoom’s growth will be lower in the second quarter compared to the year before. With the roll-out of the vaccine and more offices set to welcome workers back in again, there is a suggestion that Zoom will lose some relevance. 

Amazon’s catalogue of Internet of Things (IoT) devices will soon be able to create low-bandwidth shared networks with each other in an experiment to broaden smart home functionality.

Amazon Sidewalk will create networks between ‘bridge’ devices, such as Echo or Ring units, by pooling together small portions of bandwidth and sharing this capacity to offer better smart home services to users.

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From 8 June, devices will be instructed to search for similar units in order to form these networks, which Amazon claims will make it easier to maintain a consistent connection, even if your own network is knocked offline temporarily. The company also says connecting the devices will extend their effective working range.

For example, if a user’s Echo device were to lose connection, it would be able to make use of the Sidewalk network to borrow bandwidth and stay online. Smart lights, pet locators, and smart locks will also continue to work over longer distances when they’re tapped into these shared networks.

“Amazon Sidewalk is a shared network that helps devices work better,” the firm said in a series of FAQs. “Operated by Amazon at no charge to customers, Sidewalk can help simplify new device setup, extend the low-bandwidth working range of devices to help find pets or valuables with Tile trackers, and help devices stay online even if they are outside the range of their home Wi-Fi.

“In the future, Sidewalk will support a range of experiences from using Sidewalk-enabled devices, such as smart security and lighting and diagnostics for appliances and tools.”

Although users may be concerned about the potential privacy implications of participation in the experiment, Amazon claims in its security whitepaper that there are three layers of encryption applied to the data transmitted through the scheme.

Users have the option of turning off participation in any of their devices, although this will be turned on by default once it launches on 8 June.

The shared networks operate under a maximum bandwidth of 80Kbps, with the total monthly data used per account capped at 500 MB. The coverage will vary by location based on the number of participants in any given area, although Amazon claims the greater the number of people taking part, and devices in a network, the stronger it becomes.

Not all Amazon devices will be supported by the network, with the company setting out a full list of compatible devices in its FAQs. They generally include the third generation and above of several kinds of devices, as well as IoT devices released in 2019 or later.

Amazon has also launched the Sidewalk Developer Service (SDS) for device manufacturers to build and launch devices that are compatible with Sidewalk. These include silicon chipsets, development boards, software development kits (SDKs), device provisioning tools, technical documentation, and cloud integration.

Device manufacturers can get started on building proof-of-concept devices by reviewing a starting guide and technical documentation on the SDS console, before deciding which development board and Sidewalk Bridge to purchase and downloading an SDK.

Amazon had previously hinted that it would seek to create a Wi-Fi challenger network, with the firm discussing plans for Sidewalk in 2019. The service is currently only available in the US, with the company providing no details as to when it plans to extend the scheme.

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