Zoom has been booming during this pandemic basically due to the need for people to communicate visually and BlueJeans Network Inc is the rival of this service but not until Verizon had agreed to pay less than $500 Million for the acquisition of the company.
With numerous people flocking online, even Google Meet recorded a massive increase due to the stay-at-home order from government in numerous countries. The new way of communication had also strengthen platforms such as the Cisco’s Webex and Microsoft’s Teams
BlueJeans has about 15,000 enterprise customers which includes big companies like Facebook Inc and Standard Chartered.
BlueJeans co-founder and Executive Chairman Krish Ramakrishnan said the deal was negotiated during the last three months mainly using the company’s video-conferencing tool.
“This is the new norm,” he said which points out to the newly adopted mode of virtual communication which is necessary. The deal was sealed virtually which even included the usage of e-signatures.
The company is already a partner of Verizon, with the meeting app being offered to customers under the telecom company’s unified communications and collaboration services.
“Verizon got a good deal, but BlueJeans had been trying to sell itself for months,” Piper Sandler analyst James Fish said.
Zoom’s popularity on the other hand ha suddenly surged with about 200 million users from it’s initial 10 million users which showed the influx of adopters due to the pandemic which has now raised Zoom’s market valuation to about $42 Billion.
Ramakrishnan said BlueJeans was not able to bolster its sales and marketing in the past as it needed more capital.
“In the last month, we have been growing, but we needed more capital to grow and it was better for our customers and our employees that we joined forces with Verizon,” he said.
The deal is expected to close by the second quarter of the year according to the Wall Street Journal which first reported the deal.
As a matter of fact, the BlueJeans platform is expected to be integrated into the Verizon’s 5G product plan in which the company aims to tap into important sectors such as telemedicine and distance learning according to Tami Erwin, group CEO of Verizon Business.
The internet had filled lots of gaps for lots of people during this pandemic and with that, this might change the dynamic of communication even right after the pandemic is under complete control which showed the initiative of companies investing more on the internet.