Did you know Verizon acquired a video conferencing app back in 2020? It’s fine if you haven’t because Verizon has announced that its “BlueJeans” video app will be shutting down.
Early into the COVID-19 lockdown, companies and individuals alike were scrambling for ways to stay connected, turning to existing competitors like Google Meet and Zoom. Other companies, like Verizon, saw an opportunity to bring their own video conferencing solution to the suddenly booming market.
In May 2020, Verizon acquired BlueJeans, a business-focused video app that first launched in 2011. At the beginning of 2022, Google and Verizon partnered to preload the BlueJeans app on (since-discontinued) Glass Enterprise Edition 2 smart glasses sold by Verizon. More recently, BlueJeans gained a free tier this year, opening the app to many more potential customers and competing with the free consumer-ready services of Google Meet and Zoom.
That said, I was personally unaware of BlueJeans until I joined a Verizon-hosted meeting last week. Suffice it to say BlueJeans didn’t take off in popularity.
Today, members of Verizon’s BlueJeans service were sent an email explaining that the app is being “sunset.” The first phase of that shutdown process is that the free trial and the free “BlueJeans Basic” tier will no longer be available as of August 31, 2023. While not stated in the email we’ve received, business customers of BlueJeans will likely be given a longer period to transition off of the platform.
Dear BlueJeans User,
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.
BlueJeans is an award-winning product that connects our customers around the world, but we have made this decision due to the changing market landscape.
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. If you have saved any recordings on BlueJeans, you may download them prior to August 31, after which time, your content will be deleted in accordance with the BlueJeans privacy policy.
In the meantime, if you have any questions, feel free to contact us at https://support.bluejeans.com/s/contactsupport.
Finally, we want to take this opportunity to thank you for being a valued BlueJeans user.
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