Bulletins

Zoom pushes deeper into the enterprise with $14.7 billion deal for Five9

The all-stock acquisition adds communications technology used by call-center professionals to Zoom's widely used videoconferencing software.

Eric Yuan, founder and CEO of Zoom

Eric Yuan, founder and CEO of Zoom

Photo: Michael Short/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Zoom took advantage of a 35% rise in the price of its stock over the last year to acquire call-center tech company Five9 for $14.7 billion, the companies announced Sunday.

Five9 sells a cloud service that companies use to manage their interactions with customers, either through voice calls or other online support channels. Assuming the deal closes in the first half of 2022, Five9 will be an "operating unit" within Zoom and current Five9 CEO Rowan Trollope will report directly to Zoom CEO Eric Yuan.

Zoom also expects Five9 to boost sales of its Zoom Phone technology, which is designed as a replacement for aging wireline voice communication systems still used inside a surprisingly large number of big companies. The two companies will hold a (what else) "Zoom Video Webinar" on Monday morning at 8:30 a.m. ET to discuss the transaction in greater detail.

Tom Krazit

Tom Krazit ( @tomkrazit) is Protocol's enterprise editor, covering cloud computing and enterprise technology out of the Pacific Northwest. He has written and edited stories about the technology industry for almost two decades for publications such as IDG, CNET, paidContent, and GeekWire, and served as executive editor of Gigaom and Structure.

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