Zoom may have ambitions to expand its business beyond video calls. According to Information, the company has spent much of the last two years developing its own email and calendar clients. Known internally as Zmail and Zcal, Zoom could announce the apps at its annual Zoomtopia conference in November. Zoom did not immediately respond to Engadget’s request for comment.
You’re probably wondering, does the world need another productivity suite? Looking at it from the Zoom perspective, Information it suggests that the company may view applications as essential to its survival. At first glance, Zoom is doing better than most of the pandemic favorites, as he recently recorded $1.1 billion in quarterly revenue. But underneath those results, the company has seen slow growth and its share price has fallen to pre-pandemic levels.
It is also in the same situation that many companies competing against Google and Microsoft have had to face recently. One major weakness of Zoom is that many companies use the app in conjunction with Workspace and Office 365. Those are comprehensive suites that can cover most of a company’s productivity needs. In a market where companies are constantly looking to cut costs, that’s not a good position to be in. At the same time, it’s hard to see how email and calendar clients help Zoom beat its competitors when Google and Microsoft have spent years polishing Gmail. and Outlook and those products dominate the market.
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