Zoom Reportedly Planning To Challenge Google, Microsoft By Launching Email, Calendar Service

It has been a fantastic year for video conferencing platform Zoom and it witnessed a 500 rise in stock price during the coronavirus-induced lockdown. The lockdown brought the trend of work from home or remote work and people started using Zoom to connect with each other over a video call. But now the company has decided to foray into new territories, specifically calendar services and email. The company is looking to expand further than the video chat app and has already worked on the email product. According to reports, the company may begin testing as early a web email service Zoom as early as next year. Things are yet not clear about the calendar app and it is not known whether the company has even started working on it.

This seems to be a calculated move by the company and both avenues have good scope to grow. Especially when people will start going to offices and reliance on Zoom will start declining. Use of videoconferencing apps is set to decline with vaccination drive expected to pick up from next year. Zoom has so far not commented on the development. But it is important to understand that most of its biggest competitors have bundled several things. Microsoft and Google are considered to be its biggest rivals. Initially both the companies entered into Zoom’s territory by incorporating features like breakout room. Now Zoom has decided to challenge these tech titans with its own version of email service.

Both Google and Microsoft offer platforms like calendar and email services making Zoom more of a single-purpose platform. The information available suggests that the company is looking to build a full enterprise app suite. It will have features like job postings, an option for chatting, and integration with email. However, some experts believe that the company might opt for a wait and watch strategy and decide anything after analyzing how things change with the shift back to office work. Zoom became extremely popular because of the ease with which each people can use the videoconferencing platform. It became popular among students and teachers after it removed the restriction of 40 minutes time limit on free basic accounts.