Zoom, BlueJeans And Verizon; The State Of Webconferencing
Let’s Hope We’ve Learned From Skype
You may not have heard of BlueJeans videoconferencing software until recently, however they have been in business for over a decade and in general it has enjoyed a good reputation with it’s users, including Facebook, LinkedIn, Red Hat, Intuit, Zillow and Nordstrom. In today’s world it is more than likely you have now heard of this videoconferencing suite and possibly even used it, though you probably didn’t think about purchasing it like Verizon did. As you should expect by now this is part of Verizon’s 5G plans, once rolled out and as long as you are within arm’s reach of a signal, one day you will be using it to conference on your phone.
The deal is rumoured to have been for about $400 million US, and Verizon stated that the founders and management team will remain as is and current employees will be rolled up into Verizon.
If that tempts you to switch to a different company, Zoom is probably not the best idea. Considering their lax definition of end to end encryption, the bizarre routing fix recently implemented to let you chose to keep your traffic out of China, and the newly termed Zoom bombing there were already good reasons to avoid this software. If that was not enough, today we have learned that there are two new zero-day exploits in both Zoom’s Windows and MacOS clients and the tools needed to make use of them are being offered for sale on the ‘net. These are just the latest in a long string of zero days that Zoom is susceptible to; some since patched and some not.
Be careful who you share your camera with, OK?
Verizon said BlueJeans will be "deeply integrated" into its 5G product roadmap, becoming part of Verizon Business and sold as a secure communications system for areas such as telemedicine, distance learning and field service work. Verizon's ambitions aside, the acquisition is yet another sign that videoconferencing software is having a moment.
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