Verizon To Buy Videoconferencing Software Company BlueJeans (zdnet.com) 17
Verizon announced Thursday that it's buying BlueJeans as part of a push into the unified communications market. From a report: Verizon said BlueJeans will be "deeply integrated" into its 5G product roadmap, becoming part of Verizon Business and sold as a secure communications system for areas such as telemedicine, distance learning and field service work. Verizon's ambitions aside, the acquisition is yet another sign that videoconferencing software is having a moment. The novel coronavirus pandemic has highlighted the need for collaboration and videoconferencing software, as millions of employees work from home and increasingly rely on software tools to stay connected.
How'd that Yahoo thing go? (Score:4, Insightful)
Can't wait to see the train wreck.
Will Verizon slow non-BlueJean conferencing (Score:3)
Of course they will.
Re: Will Verizon slow non-BlueJean conferencing (Score:2)
How is it by the way, that Verizon can hold a monopoly on entire cities? I thought that was a crime. It ruins the "OMGFREEMARKET" after all.
Re: (Score:2)
They'll slow it down to make it as bad as BlueJeans.
Why can't we have video Standards? (Score:3)
I can call a Verizon customer from my ATT phone. I can even Text a Verizon customer from my ATT phone. However, Video Communication seems to be running off a mismatch of different branded technology.
Re: Why can't we have video Standards? (Score:1)
Do keep on mind that Ma Bell built the entire phone system in the US and held it as Ana absolute monopoly. During those decades there were essentially no advances at all in phone tech until they were broken up and had to compete and were forced to lease their lines to competitors so don't go looking for regulated video conferencing unless you want it to be locked in to some government chose
Re: (Score:2)
XMPP?
Re: (Score:2)
WebRTC
Re: (Score:2)
We do! (Score:2)
SIP and RTP have been implemented for a long time now. Everyone on a VoIP/NGN phone network is using it. It is not limited to audio.
There is ZRTP for trivial to use very secure decentralized (think PGP philosophy made easy) security, SRTP for classic centralized (TLS-based I think) security, and since clients are generally general purpose computers (which includes smartphones), they offer the usual batch of video and audio codecs.
In Jitsi Messenger, you could configure which codecs to disable or prefer. But
Buy high, sell low - the Verizon way! (Score:3)
Bluejeans eh. (Score:2)
Just logging in on a meeting or conversation was working only half the time.
OK, last time was about 2 years ago and they might have fixed a few things.
Re: (Score:2)
It was pretty unreliable 2-3 years ago but they at least seem to have more POPs and audio issues have been resolved for the most part. But I also upgraded my internet at home so that could also have had an effect.
What exactly does one need a "company" for... (Score:2)
... to do videoconferencing?
There is a lot of actually good free, open source and simple software for this out there.
Like Jitsi [jitsi.org], with a long history of being competent and going further than others. Jitsi Meet, is like Zoom without the trainwreck. And VideoBridge had no problem doing thousands of video streams on one server, a decade ago.
I may sound like a shill, but I really like the guys, ever since I saw the amount of features (like ZRTP, provisioning, etc) back in the old Jitsi Messenger.
This Bluejeans
Unfortunate (Score:3)
Dead end (Score:2)
If they were smart they would leave it alone as it is the obvious pretender to Zoom.
If past history is anything to go by Verizon will can all of the development and let it rot but only after locking it down and charging for any useful features.
BlueJeans, we hardly knew ye