Zoom rival BlueJeans to shut down in post-pandemic world

Verizon has announced that its Zoom rival BlueJeans app's Basic and free trial offerings will discontinue from August 31

Members of BlueJeans service have received an email that mentioned that the app is being “sunset", reports 9To5Google.

"Thank you for being a valued user of BlueJeans by Verizon services. We want to share that we have made the difficult decision to sunset our suite of BlueJeans products. In light of this, BlueJeans Basic and free trial offerings will be discontinued effective August 31, 2023, and your access to the services will be removed. However, you can continue to use these services until that time," it added.

In the email, the company also said that if users have saved any recordings on BlueJeans, then download them prior to August 31, as after that, the content will be deleted in accordance with the BlueJeans privacy policy.

Early into the Covid-19 lockdown, both businesses and individuals were trying to stay connected and turned to platforms like Google Meet and Zoom.

Other businesses, like Verizon, saw an opportunity to enter the suddenly growing video conferencing market with their own products.

In May 2020 Verizon acquired BlueJeans, a business-focused video software that debuted in 2011.

Beginning in 2022, Google and Verizon collaborated to preload the BlueJeans app on (since-discontinued) Verizon's Glass Enterprise Edition 2 smart glasses.

More recently, BlueJeans added a free tier in March this year, making the app available to many more potential users and competing with the free consumer-ready services of Google Meet and Zoom.

(IANS/SR)