Zoom has turned a normally-boring corporate tool into the talk of the town as it became the most downloaded app in the App Store and Google Play for more than 30 days. That success pushed Google to improve Meet, and also drove Verizon to scoop up Blue Jeans, a Zoom competitor.
Unless you deal with big companies, you've probably never heard of Blue Jeans. The video conferencing solution is not as popular as Zoom but touts an impressive customer list that includes Facebook, LinkedIn, and other popular companies.
Let's take a look at what the competitive landscape for video conferencing is like at the moment:
Although Blue Jeans' numbers aren't as impressive as Zoom, other video conferencing solutions are already owned by large enough companies that are unlikely to sell them. WebEx is owned by Cisco, Skype by Microsoft, and GoToMeeting by LogMeIn, a publicly-traded company with 25 subsidiaries.
Even though its numbers aren't in the same ballpark as Zoom and Google, download of Blue Jeans on the App Store and Google Play have grown 10-fold since the lockdown started in March.
Downloads have grown from a little over 1,000/day across both stores to as many as 15,000/day. These downloads aren't going down either. For six weeks in a row, daily downloads have exceeded 10,000, mostly from the App Store.
Verizon's broad reach could mean a whole new ball-game for Blue Jeans. Let's see how this acquisition plays out post-lockdown.
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