Today, Verizon has announced it has struck a deal to acquire its rival, B2B Video Conferencing software company BlueJeans. The transactional details of the deal remain undisclosed at the time of this reporting.

BlueJeans founders and key management team will join Verizon to lead the continued growth and innovation of the business. BlueJeans employees will become Verizon employees immediately following the close of the deal.

In an official announcement, Verizon Business announced that BlueJeans Network will enable the company to expand Verizon’s immersive unified communications portfolio. This deal comes amidst the growing demand for Video Conferencing and Screen Sharing platforms. Especially when concerns related to data privacy and quality of video calls are rising, the Verizon-BlueJeans pairing could entice B2B customers to prepare for 5G-era of remote conferencing.

The latest deal comes within hours of Verizon Media declaring the launch of Yahoo Life. Yahoo Life is a new site that will be a well-being hub dedicated to providing mental health and wellness education, news and resources. It will include content and tips from experts on how to stay healthy mentally, physically and emotionally.

Verizon Media has also announced a $10 million donation in advertising inventory to support mental and public health response efforts.

At the time of this announcement, Tami Erwin, CEO of Verizon Business said, “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.”

Tami added, “Collaboration and communications have become top of the agenda for businesses of all sizes and in all sectors in recent months. We are excited to combine the power of BlueJeans’ video platform with Verizon Business’ connectivity networks, platforms, and solutions to meet our customers’ needs.”

Today, BlueJeans’ Cloud-based Video service currently serves a wide variety of business segments from small organizations to some of the world’s largest multinational brands and has played a significant part in continuing those companies’ operations during the ongoing work-from-home surge.

Founded in 2009, BlueJeans has quickly earned a place among the most-used B2B Video Conferencing software platforms.

BlueJeans competes with other unified meeting solutions such as Cisco WebEx, Zoom, GoToMeeting, Google Meet (Recently renamed from Google Hangouts Meet), UberConference, Microsoft Teams, Jabber, and Zoho Meeting.

The most distinct feature of BlueJeans is its Enterprise-grade security that promises users of a fully-shielded privacy framework against bot attacks and hacking events.

Product Suite includes:

• BlueJeans Meetings
• BlueJeans Rooms
• BlueJeans Events
• Command Center
• Dolby Voice®

The transaction will combine BlueJeans’ simple, smart and trusted meeting platform with Verizon’s unified communications-as-a-service business immediately. Customers will benefit from a BlueJeans enterprise-grade video experience on Verizon’s high-performance global networks. In addition, the platform will be deeply integrated into Verizon’s 5G product roadmap, providing secure and real-time engagement solutions for high growth areas such as telemedicine, distance learning, and field service work.

Quentin Gallivan, CEO of BlueJeans Network said, “The combination of BlueJeans’ world-class enterprise Video collaboration platform and trusted brand with Verizon Business’ next-generation Edge Computing innovation will deliver highly differentiated and compelling solutions to our joint customers.”

Quentin Gallivan  added, “We are very excited about joining the Verizon team and we truly believe the future of business communications starts today!”

BlueJeans is regularly cited as one of the market-leading video conference and collaboration tools, including Cloud-based meetings and large, interactive events that are simple, scalable and secure.

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