AV Magazine AV Magazine 
Verizon is shutting down the BlueJeans videoconferencing app it acquired in May 2020.
On 8 August, members of Verizon’s BlueJeans service were sent an email explaining that the app is being “sunset”, according to a report on 9to5Google.
The email read: “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.”
The BlueJeans Basic tier and free trial offerings will be discontinued on 31 August. However, the service will continue to operate as normal for BlueJeans’ business customers until at least December 2023.
BlueJeans was launched as a business-focused videoconferencing app in 2011 by Alagu Periyannan and Krish Ramakrishnan. However, the co-founders left within two years of Verizon’s acquisition, as did former chief executive Quentin Gallivan and chief finance officer Robert Park.
In July 2020, Verizon teamed up with Indian telecoms provider Bharti Airtel to unveil the Airtel BlueJeans range of videoconferencing solutions. The BlueJeans Telehealth platform, which allows health providers to meet patients virtually, was also launched.
In June 2021, a range of new features was added to BlueJeans to help users combat video fatigue, maintain privacy, boost engagement and enable meaningful collaboration from wherever they work.
Among a series of developments unveiled in autumn 2021 was the BlueJeans Spaces collaboration platform – a 2D/3D immersive workspace, digital hub and integrated virtual office for creating engagement and alignment. An Android-based version of BlueJeans Rooms that ran on the Poly Studio X series was also introduced.
Early in 2022, Google and Verizon partnered to preload the BlueJeans app on the Glass Enterprise Edition 2 smart glasses sold by Verizon.
A free tier was added to BlueJeans this year, making the app accessible to a wider range of potential customers and allowing it to compete with the free consumer-ready services of Google Meet and Zoom.
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