Published , by Brittany Vincent
Published , by Brittany Vincent
Verizon has announced it will be purchasing the video conferencing company BlueJeans as part of a $400 million deal.
CNBC reported the news on Thursday, as Verizon CEO Hans Vestberg made the official announcement. This will net Verizon an additional 15,000 customers as part of the acquisition.
"As the way we work continues to change, it is absolutely critical for businesses and public sector customers to have access to a comprehensive suite of offerings that are enterprise ready, secure, frictionless and that integrate with existing tools," Verizon Business CEO Tami Erwin said in a statement.
During the outbreak of the novel coronavirus, businesses have been opting to use services like Zoom and BlueJeans more and more. Zoom is currently the favorite, but BlueJeans was long since an important part of business culture.
"We see an opportunity with our distribution channel," said Vestberg of the company's impending competition with companies like Zoom. According to Verizon, BlueJeans' founders and management team will remain on board, as well as the employees as part of the acquisition. The deal is expected to close around the second quarter of 2020.
BlueJeans calls companies like Linkedin, IBM's RedHat, and Facebook part of its customer base. Thanks to the 5G availability for the conference tool, it looks like it could be a real competitor over Zoom for the future. That, and the whole "Zoom being super insecure" thing.