Videoconferencing platform Zoom has had a blockbuster year, with its stock price rising more than 500 percent due to the unprecedented surge in remote work brought on by the coronavirus pandemic. But now the company is looking to expand beyond workplace video chat and into new territories, specifically email and calendar services, according to a new report from The Information.
The company is already working on the email product, which the report states will be a web email service Zoom may begin testing as early as next year. The calendar app appears farther off and it’s unclear if development has even started. But both ideas are smart avenues for Zoom to explore, especially if companies start bringing employees back to the office and reliance on videoconferencing declines as COVID-19 vaccine distribution picks up through 2021. For it’s part, Zoom has so far kept mum on the subject.
Many of Zoom’s major competitors are videoconferencing platforms bundled as part of broader enterprise app suites, with the two biggest ones belonging to Microsoft with its Office 365 platform and Google with its competing Workspace bundle. Both of those platforms offer calendar, email, and videoconferencing products, so it makes sense Zoom would look to email and calendar to try to round out its offerings and make Zoom less of single-purpose platform.
The Information’s report has a number of other telling signs the company is interested in building a full enterprise app suite, including job postings for “exciting chat features” and its existing integrations with other apps like Asana and Dropbox. But there is always the possibility the company decides to wait and see how the shift back to office work affects businesses and whether remote work remains a prominent factor of life well into the future.
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