Dive Brief:
- Zoom is rebranding its chat hub, now named Zoom Team Chat, and adding a set of new features in a bid to expand its enterprise clout.
- By the end of the month users will be able to schedule meetings directly from the chat, set reminders and integrate with third-party apps, among other features, the company announced Monday.
- With the revamped chat capabilities, Zoom Team Chat will also let meeting hosts share the meeting chat with attendees, doing away with misplaced data or links.
Dive Insight:
In shaping its post-pandemic enterprise strategy, Zoom is extending beyond its video chat core. The rebrand of its chat tool speaks to the company's quest to spread across more work processes.
The pandemic brought a spike in consumer and enterprise adoption for Zoom, and its footprint in the business realm continues to grow. During its Q2 earnings call, for the period ending June. 30, Zoom said it reached 204,000 enterprise customers, up 18% year-over-year.
But in the spread across the enterprise landscape, Zoom must contend with loyalty to enterprise staples — and bundled subscriptions — that define the Microsoft and Slack user base.
“Zoom Team Chat creates a persistent, asynchronous messaging-based collaboration platform that is analogous with Microsoft Teams and Slack," said in an email Mike Fasciani, senior director analyst at Gartner.
Zoom customers already use Microsoft Teams and Slack, so interoperability between Zoom Team Chat and other services "may be necessary for Zoom to find its footing with this application," Fasciani said.
