Verizon to resell Zoom video conferencing to businesses
Zoom has struck a deal to make its cloud-based video conferencing services available to Verizon business customers, a significant win for Zoom that puts the newly public company on a more level playing field with chief rival Cisco.
In addition to reselling Zoom video licenses, Verizon will let business customers access Zoom meeting audio at no additional charge using Verizon wireless or voice-over-IP services. Verizon will also manage Zoom deployments for customers, reducing the IT resources needed for implementation.
The telecommunications giant has an existing agreement to resell Cisco Webex. It chose to partner with Zoom because of the traction the vendor has gained in the market and because of Zoom's ease of use, said Alla Reznik, Verizon's executive director of business communications products and services.
Verizon will target Cisco Webex at enterprises and Zoom at small and midsize businesses, Reznik said, "but the lines between the two are not set in stone." For Zoom, Verizon's seal of approval is a sign of its rising position in the video conference market.
"This does give Verizon an expanded audience, but it also validates Zoom with another tier-one partner," said Rob Arnold, analyst at Frost & Sullivan. Zoom already had a partnership with AT&T.
Zoom stock was up 5.4% on Thursday following the Verizon announcement. Founded in 2011, Zoom went public in April in one of the tech industry's biggest stock market debuts of the year, with share prices surging more than 70% on the first day of trading. The company, which brought in $330 million last year, is now valued at $24.8 billion.
Gartner has identified Verizon a leader in the market for cloud unified communications, with its products in that market built on Cisco Hosted Collaboration Solution and Cisco BroadSoft. Verizon's enterprise division sold $8.8 billion worth of networking, communications and security products to business last year.
Zoom Rooms adds people counting
In other Zoom news, the company announced this month that Zoom video room systems could now track the number of people that attend meetings. The feature is available now for Mac users and coming soon for Windows and Chrome OS.
Zoom said the feature, which is off by default, does not rely on facial recognition. Rather, the room system takes pictures of attendees that are stored locally. After the computer counts the number of people in attendance, it deletes the files.
Enterprises are increasingly looking for ways to measure the return on investment for collaboration technologies, said Tom Eagle, an analyst at Gartner. People counting will help IT administrators better track usage of Zoom video rooms.
Cisco Webex also now supports people counting through the use of facial recognition technology. In addition to tracking attendees, Cisco's off-by-default facial recognition can identify attendees and display nametags under their faces.
Zoom Rooms expands third-party support
Zoom is making it cheaper for organizations to connect to meetings hosted by competitors Cisco Webex, Microsoft Teams and Skype for Business, GoToMeeting, and -- in beta -- BlueJeans. Many large enterprises have contracts with multiple collaboration vendors.
The vendor no longer requires a separate interoperability license for a Zoom room system to dial into a third-party meeting through standards-based Session Initiation Protocol and H.323connections. Previously, businesses would need Zoom's Conference Room Connector license for the room systems dialling in.
Businesses will still need to license an interoperability service for the device hosting the third-party meeting, such as Polycom RealConnect. But the change should encourage the use of Zoom room systems in situations where users would have otherwise joined from their laptops for lack of connectivity.
"Silos still exist in video conferencing in a lot of ways," Arnold said. "These initiatives show that those walls are starting to come down even more."
source searchunifiedcommunications
Industry: Unified Communications
Latest Jobs
-
- Public Sector Cyber Security Sales | UK
- England
- N/A
-
Public Sector Cyber Security Sales | UK UK | Remote / Hybrid A cyber security provider is seeking a Public Sector Sales professional to drive growth across UK government and public sector organisations. Must have current Cyber Security sales experience. Responsibilities Generate new business selling cyber security solutions into UK public sector Build relationships with CIO, CISO and senior technology stakeholders Manage the full sales cycle from opportunity to contract close Develop pipeline across central government, local government and public sector bodies Support bids, tenders and framework opportunities Experience Proven cyber security sales experience in the UK Track record selling into public sector organisations Familiarity with CCS, G Cloud or other government frameworks Strong stakeholder engagement and deal management skills Location UK based Security Requirements Eligible to obtain UK Security Clearance
-
- Security Architect | MoD - Security Cleared. OUTSIDE IR35 | Hampshire
- N/A
- Outside IR35
-
Security Architect | MOD | Security Cleared | Outside IR35 | Hampshire Commutable The successful candidate must be willing to undergo DV Clearance, ideally already holding active clearance. You will produce high and low level security architecture documentation, guiding and validating designs for systems deployed within sensitive environments. The role requires providing specialist security input into solution design, service transition and change initiatives, working closely with engineering, operations, client and third party stakeholders. You must have current hands on architectural experience, including VMware secure platform design and virtualisation architecture, alongside AWS expertise. This is an outside IR35 contract- 6 month rolling. Part of a longer term MoD project
-
- Active Directory | RBA engineer | UK Remote | SC Clearable
- United Kingdom
- N/A
-
Technical Active Directory (AD) and RBA specialist needed to play a key part in complex, enterprise scale Active Directory and access transformation programmes. You will work alongside senior team, helping reshape access models, modernise legacy directory structures and strengthen security posture across secure environments. This is hands on delivery within high impact projects where your work directly improves access control, compliance and operational resilience. Active UK Security Clearance required. This is a remote role with client travel. Implementation of Role Based Access Control across large AD estates Restructuring complex permission models, security groups and delegated access Supporting domain controller upgrades and core directory improvements Applying security hardening standards and remediating audit findings Enhancing authentication, policy and access governance frameworks Troubleshooting and resolving technical AD challenges within live environments Producing robust technical documentation and identifying project risks You must have the following technical experience Enterprise Active Directory administration Role Based Access and permission remediation OU design and governance Group Policy management Security group delegation models DNS and DHCP services Kerberos authentication / NTLM PowerShell scripting and automation Azure AD | Entra ID Hybrid identity environments Identity Governance PAM