After becoming a central part of pandemic life, Zoom is looking to branch out: The Information reported that it has already begun working on a corporate email service, and is looking into building a calendar app and directory services as well.
But Eric Yuan reportedly doesn't just want to build any old email client; he wants to build the next generation, and figure out what email should look like in the coming years.
Zoom is spending much of its energy becoming a platform, allowing people to build apps and integrations on top of their ubiquitous Zoom calls. Branching out into other apps altogether would put Zoom — which is also investing heavily in text chat — in much more direct competition with Microsoft 365 and Google Workplace, both of which have spent 2020 pushing and improving their own Zoom competitors.