Zoom may have ambitions to expand its business beyond video calling. According to The Information, the company has spent much of the past 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 asking yourself, does the world need another productivity suite? Looking at it from Zoom’s perspective, The Information suggests the company may see the apps as essential to its survival. At first glance, Zoom is doing better than most pandemic darlings, having recently recorded $1.1 billion in quarterly revenue. But beneath those results, the company has seen growth slow and its stock price drop to pre-pandemic levels.
It also finds itself in the same situation a lot of companies competing against Google and Microsoft have had to tackle recently. One significant weakness of Zoom is that many businesses use the app in conjunction with Workspace and Office 365. Those are comprehensive suites that can cover the majority of a company’s productivity needs. In a market where businesses 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 back its competitors when Google and Microsoft have spent years polishing Gmail and Outlook and those products dominate the market.