The Zoom video conferencing platform has had a successful year, with the price of its shares rising by more than 500% due to the unprecedented increase in remote work caused by the coronavirus pandemic. But now the company is looking to expand beyond video chat to the workplace and reach new territories, especially e-mail and calendar services, according to a new report by information.
The company is already working on the email product, which the report says will be a Zoom web email service that can begin testing as early as next year. The calendar application appears further and it is not clear if the development has even started. But both ideas are smart ways Zoom can explore, especially if companies start bringing employees back to the office and video conferencing dependence decreases as COVID-19 vaccine distribution begins by 2021.
Many of Zoom’s main competitors are video conferencing platforms included as part of the wider suite of enterprise applications, the largest two belonging to Microsoft with the Office 365 platform and Google with its competing workspace package. Both platforms offer calendar, email, and video conferencing products, so it makes sense for Zoom to look at email and calendar to try to complement its offerings and make Zoom less of a single-purpose platform.
informationS The report has a number of other clear signs that the company is interested in building a full suite of enterprise applications, including job postings for “interesting chat features” and its existing integrations with other applications such as Asana and Dropbox. But there is always the possibility that the company will wait to see how business affects moving back to the office and whether working remotely remains an important factor in life into the future. Zoom did not immediately respond to a request for comment.