Verizon has decided to no longer offer the videoconferencing platform BlueJeans. The telecom operator lists “changed market conditions” as the main reason for the discontinuation.
Verizon bought the videoconferencing platform BlueJeans in 2020 during the height of the Covid pandemic. At the time, the US telecom operator wanted to get its hands on a share of the booming videoconferencing market. In addition, Verizon saw opportunities for a combination between BlueJeans and its edge computing business.
End as of August 31
Three years later, the final curtain falls on BlueJeans. In a recent email to customers, Verizon announced that BlueJeans Basic and the free version will end as early as August 31 of this year. Recordings that customers have of (video) calls must be downloaded before this date.
Business customers seem to have a slightly longer grace period to switch to another platform. A clear announcement on this has yet to follow.
Changed market conditions
The reasons for discontinuing BlueJeans are “changed market conditions,” according to Verizon. The pandemic is history and there is less need to use video conferencing platforms.
In addition, BlueJeans never had a large market share in the videoconferencing market. The service lost out to Cisco Webex, Slack, Google WorkSpace and Zoom. Microsoft Teams also managed to capture a very large market share.
Warning as early as end of first quarter 2023
According to The Register, the first warning about the future of BlueJeans at Verizon came as early as the announcement of its quarterly results for the first quarter of this year.
In this call, the US telecom operator indicated that for Verizon Business, the business unit under which the videoconferencing platform fell, was going to focus this year on growth in mobile, fixed wireless services, private 5G networks and mobile edge computing solutions. Video conferencing clearly had no place there.