Zoom Reportedly Planning To Offer Email, Calendar Services

Zoom has easily become one of the biggest buzzwords this year thanks to the surge in video conferencing use. But while future work might always include some aspect of online collaboration, Zoom might become yesterday's news as quickly as it became tech's new unicorn. Now the company is reportedly looking into ways it could remain relevant and profitable even in the distant future and it seems that it has set its eyes on conquering emails and calendars next.

To some extent, video conferencing, emails, and calendars make a perfect combination for modern work and productivity. Meeting links are often passed around in emails and added to calendars while appointments and emails are often brought up in meetings. According to sources, Zoom might be mulling over that kind of integration and is aiming for a "next-gen" email experience.

It wouldn't be the first to have such a lofty goal but it will be approaching it from the opposite end. Slack, for example, started out as an "email killer", only adding video calls later when the demand got stronger. Zoom naturally started with video conferencing and is now looking to capitalize on its name to entice users to switch email providers.

It will be facing an uphill battle, though, more than it has with its core service. Google and Microsoft still hold the lion's share of email and calendar services and these are far more ingrained and integrated into enterprise ecosystems than Zoom is. There might even come a time when people will forego Zoom entirely because of the integration that Google Meet and Microsoft Teams have with existing services and platforms.

The report says that Zoom is planning to launch an early version of this email service in 2021. That said, the idea is apparently still in its very early stages and might not even see the light of day if it turns out to be an unpopular and unprofitable idea after all.