These new Zoom features take on Teams and Outlook in a serious way

By Fionna Agomuoh Published November 8, 2022

Zoom shared at its Zoomtopia event on Tuesday details about its new business services, which will include Mail and Calendar clients in addition to Team Chat, Whiteboard, Phone, and Meetings options.

Zoom will soon make its Mail and Calendar offerings available as a beta release, in an effort to compete with brands such as Google and Microsoft, which already have established mail and calendar services, for both general and professional customers. These include Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace. Notably, Zoom’s in-house expansion comes as both Microsoft and Google place a greater focus on their professional services.

Zoom has announced its Mail and Calendar clients, which will soon be available in beta. — Image used with permission by copyright holder

Zoom plans to have the Mail service work similarly to Microsoft Outlook, adding that the service is end-to-end encrypted. In conjunction with the Calendar, they are the flagship product of the suite. The Mail and Calendar products will then work with other features, including Team Chat, Whiteboard, Phone, and Meetings, in a single program so that users won’t have to leave the Zoom platform in order to complete their work.

With this model, Zoom aims to increase productivity, and maximize security for its end users, many of which are small businesses that might not have adequate IT staff to maintain intricate email servers, the brand noted.

“The Zoom Mail and Calendar Services (beta) are targeted at small-to medium-business customers who particularly value email privacy,” Zoom head of product Joseph Chong said in a company blog.

The brand is also confident that potential clients might find their new options viable because many are likely using Zoom as their video conference option already, The Verge noted.

Having a Calendar feature built into Zoom will make it easier to save and find your Zoom links for upcoming meetings, among other housekeeping tasks.

In addition to the beta features, the brand also announced Zoom Spots, which is a feature that urges workers on a video conference to communicate with their cameras enabled. The feature is set to roll out in early 2023.

Another upcoming feature is Zoom Virtual Agent, which is an A.I.-powered chatbot set to help customers with immediate issues. It will also be available in 2023.

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Computing Writer

Fionna Agomuoh is a technology journalist with over a decade of experience writing about various consumer electronics topics…

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