BlueJeans

BlueJeans by Verizon is a company that provides an interoperable cloud-based video conferencing service that connects participants across a wide range of devices and conferencing platforms.[3][4][5][6][7][8][9] It is headquartered in San Jose, California, United States.[10] Prior to its May 2020 acquisition by Verizon, the company was known as "BlueJeans Network."[11][12][13][14]

BlueJeans by Verizon
IndustryCloud Video Conferencing
Founded2009
FounderKrish Ramakrishnan, Alagu Periyannan
HeadquartersSan Jose, California, U.S.
ParentVerizon Communications[1][2]
Websitebluejeans.com

History

Krish Ramakrishnan and Alagu Periyannan founded BlueJeans Network in 2009, the development of which ended in six months of field trials for the technology. Prior to founding the company, Ramakrishnan was an entrepreneur-in-residence at Accel Partners and Periyannan was the CTO of Blue Coat Systems as well as a tech lead at Apple Inc. Stu Aaron, the company's chief commercial officer (CCO), described the early work as, "Ultimately, what we're trying to do is make video conferencing as comfortable and as casual as your pair of jeans." The company was able to acquire $23.5 million in venture capital from Accel Partners, NEA, and Norwest Venture Partners, and launched its commercial service on June 29, 2011[7][15][16][17] with Ramakrishnan as CEO.

Upon launching, Channel Insider wrote that, "BlueJeans officials said the company's any(ware) video conferencing offering will enable people using disparate video collaboration technologies not only enterprise-focused products like those from Cisco Systems and Polycom, but also more consumer-facing offerings from companies like Google communicate with each other without having to worry about new infrastructures or protocols. Essentially, Blue Jeans takes advantage of the cloud, creating a meeting environment in which visual communications users of any products can engage with anyone other people, regardless of what products they use."

The company sought to open up video conferencing to companies across the board, including small businesses and freelancers, in addition to the traditional market of larger corporations.[18] In its first 75 days, BlueJeans grew to 4,000 subscribers from 500 firms.[9][19] Upon launching, Deutsche Telekom became the company's first major channel partner. The agreement between the firms was to develop "a scalable, interoperable videoconferencing solution in Europe by the end of the year".[16] In 2011 and 2012 it added other channel partners, including InterCall, iVCI, York Telecom, and AVI/SPL.[5][9][20] BlueJeans has been used by more than 300,000 people worldwide.[6][21][22] In 2013 BlueJeans Network expanded its user base to the UK and Australia.[23][24] In November 2013, Ari Levy of Businessweek wrote that, "BlueJeans has raised about $100 million in venture funding and estimates it will stream one billion minutes' worth of meetings during 2014, a tenfold increase from this year."[25]

Verizon communications announced on April 16th, 2020, that it had entered into an agreement to acquire BlueJeans to expand its Business portfolio offerings, particularly its unified communications offerings. While the price of the acquisition was not announced, it is believed to be in the sub $500M range.[26] The acquisition was completed on May 15, 2020, with the service rebranded as "BlueJeans by Verizon."[27]

Video conferencing

BlueJeans provides an interoperable cloud-based video meetings service that connects many users across different devices, platforms and conference programs. Every BlueJeans member has a private “meeting room” in the BlueJeans cloud to schedule and host conference meetings. It operates with business conferencing solutions such as Cisco, Microsoft Lync, StarLeaf, Lifesize, and Polycom as well as consumer services like Google.[4][5][7][8][9][19][28] InformationWeek has written that, "BlueJeans is best known for bridging room-based videoconference services with consumer options like Google Talk, and doing it on an impromptu basis". This service can be used directly through BlueJeans Network or through its partner companies. For example, in 2012 BlueJeans Network began powering the videoconferencing services of InterCall.[29]

CRN described BlueJeans services as "endpoint agnostic", meaning it does not discriminate and can work with any videocall software or technology, including smartphones. This allows it to bridge between non-room-based videoconference services as well, regardless of the device or service used.[30] In 2012 Telecompaper wrote that the "Interoperable video conferencing services specialist BlueJeans Network has rolled out a multipoint control unit (MCU) that gives customers the opportunity to experience multi-way videoconferencing in the cloud. This offering allows customers to license a variable number of concurrent connections (known as 'virtual ports') from BlueJeans".[31]

Michal Lev-Ram of Fortune wrote that, "the company is mostly an enhancement—not a threat—to existing videoconference equipment makers. And whichever company ends up leading the charge, there's no question that interoperability is an inevitable must in videoconferencing, just like it was in text messaging on mobile phones. The more use corporate customers can get out of their videoconferencing systems, the more they'll invest in buying them."[17] In contrast to this, Ari Levy reported in 2013 that BlueJeans Network and similar services had begun to cut into the revenues of larger, room-based hardware system developers, due to their greater flexibility and accessing the market of smaller businesses.[25] That year BlueJeans Network also partnered with Salesforce.com, providing BlueJeans run video conferencing to all Salesforce clients through its "Chatter" tool. Forbes also wrote that BlueJeans "will also enable the sharing of presentations, documents, and video clips in real-time" for Salesforce customers.[32] Other customers for BlueJeans Network include Facebook, Foursquare, and MIT.[4][5][7][9][10][28]

Awards and recognition

In February 2012, Frost & Sullivan awarded its Entrepreneurial Company of the Year Award to BlueJeans.[9] The Wall Street Journal named BlueJeans a runner up in the Software category of its 2012 Innovation Awards.[28] In September 2012, the Telecom Council awarded BlueJeans the Graham Bell Award for Best Communication Solutions in its annual SPIFFY awards.[33] In November 2012, University Business honored BlueJeans with its 1st Annual Readers' Choice Awards in the category of Video Conferencing Services.[8] CRN named BlueJeans one of the 25 Coolest Emerging Vendors for 2012.[7] Gartner also named BlueJeans to its Cool Vendors Report for 2012.[10]

In 2013 CRN repositioned BlueJeans on its list to number six among its ten top start-ups.[34] In 2013 CIO magazine ranked BlueJeans #3 among the top ten cloud startups of that year,[35] and Business Insider ranked it among its top 21 cloud startups.[36]

Philanthropy

Over the 2012 holiday season, BlueJeans partnered with the Military Association Benefits Group and Military Comm Networks to provide free video conferencing for U.S. soldiers and their families.[10]

gollark: (<@332271551481118732>)
gollark: Please make it only send CHANGES.
gollark: I didn't change anything.
gollark: It seems to just push the entire game state across the socket every 10ms?
gollark: It is VERY inefficient and slow.

References
  1. https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2020/05/18/2034841/0/en/Verizon-officially-closes-BlueJeans-deal.html
  2. https://www.bluejeans.com/blog/bluejeans-a-verizon-company?iesrc=ctr
  3. Ryan Lawler (October 22, 2012). "Video Conferencing Startup BlueJeans Network Adds LinkedIn Integration". Techcrunch. Retrieved 1 March 2013.
  4. Klint Finley (September 10, 2012). "BlueJeans Network Brings Its Video Conferencing Software To Salesforce.com". Techcrunch. Retrieved 1 March 2013.
  5. Kim-Mai Cutler (March 21, 2012). "BlueJeans CEO Looks To Beat His Two-Time Acquirer Cisco With Low-Cost Video Conferencing". Techcrunch. Retrieved 1 March 2013.
  6. Kim-Mai Cutler (June 27, 2012). "BlueJeans Puts Another $25M In Its Pocket To Attack Video Conferencing Giants". Techcrunch. Retrieved 1 March 2013.
  7. "The 25 Coolest Emerging Vendors For 2012". CRN. August 27, 2012. Archived from the original on 1 November 2012. Retrieved 1 March 2013.
  8. Laureen Williams (November 29, 2012). "1st Annual Readers' Choice Awards". University Business. Archived from the original on 27 February 2013. Retrieved 1 March 2013.
  9. "Entrepreneurial Company of the Year Award CSP Videoconferencing Services" (PDF). Bluejeans. Retrieved 1 March 2013.
  10. "BlueJeans Network Named to Gartner's Cool Vendors Report for 2012". BlueJeans. May 4, 2012. Retrieved 1 March 2013.
  11. "Verizon Business enters into agreement to acquire BlueJeans". www.verizon.com. April 16, 2020.
  12. "Verizon is buying B2B videoconferencing firm BlueJeans". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2020-04-17.
  13. Lyons, Kim (2020-04-16). "Verizon to buy BlueJeans video conferencing platform". The Verge. Retrieved 2020-04-17.
  14. Krouse, Sarah (2020-04-16). "Verizon Buys Zoom Conferencing Rival BlueJeans". Wall Street Journal. ISSN 0099-9660. Retrieved 2020-04-17.
  15. Chad Berndtson (August 9, 2011). "Cloud Video Startup BlueJeans Network Taps First VAR Partner". CRN Magazine. Retrieved November 28, 2013.
  16. "DeTe partners with BlueJeans Network for videoconferencing". Telecompaper. June 30, 2011. Retrieved November 28, 2013.
  17. Michal Lev-Ram (March 21, 2012). "BlueJeans Network brings Skype, Cisco users together". Fortune Magazine. Retrieved November 28, 2013.
  18. "BlueJeans Tackles Video Conferencing Interoperability". Channel Insider. July 5, 2011. Retrieved November 28, 2013.
  19. "BlueJeans Network Launches Any(ware) Video Conferencing". BusinessWire. June 29, 2011. Retrieved 1 March 2013.
  20. "Deutsche Telekom gets down to business with cloud based videoconferencing solution from BlueJeans Network". Telekom. June 30, 2011. Archived from the original on 5 May 2012. Retrieved 1 March 2013.
  21. "BlueJeans Network Celebrates Momentous First Year for Its Video Conferencing Service With New Funding and New Breakthrough Functionality". BlueJeans. June 27, 2012. Archived from the original on 30 March 2013. Retrieved 1 March 2013.
  22. "BlueJeans". Crunch Base. Retrieved 1 March 2013.
  23. "BlueJeans Network expands to Australia". Telecompaper. September 13, 2013. Retrieved January 29, 2014.
  24. Kane Fulton (November 14, 2013). "Video collaboration service BlueJeans wraps legs around UK market". Tech Radar. Retrieved November 28, 2013.
  25. Ari Levy (November 21, 2013). "Cisco's Tough Sell for Videoconferencing". Bloomberg Businessweek. Retrieved November 28, 2013.
  26. "Verizon is buying B2B videoconferencing firm BlueJeans".
  27. Schultz, Lauren. "Verizon officially closes BlueJeans deal". Verison. Retrieved 28 May 2020.
  28. "Technology Innovation Awards". The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 1 March 2013.
  29. David F. Carr (April 16, 2012). "InterCall Partnership Boosts BlueJeans' Videoconferencing". Information Week. Retrieved November 28, 2013.
  30. Edward F. Moltzen (January 17, 2012). "Review: BlueJeans' Video In The Cloud". CRN Magazine. Archived from the original on November 28, 2013. Retrieved November 28, 2013.
  31. "BlueJeans Network launches cloud-based MCU". Telecompaper. March 23, 2012. Retrieved November 28, 2013.
  32. Ben Kepes (November 18, 2013). "Salesforce Picks BlueJeans For First Video Integration. But It's Complicated". Forbes Magazine. Retrieved November 28, 2013.
  33. "Fifth Annual Telecom Council SPIFFY Award Winners Announced". Web Wire. Retrieved 1 March 2013.
  34. Kristin Bent (July 10, 2013). "The 10 Coolest Networking Startups Of 2013 (So Far)". CRN. Retrieved January 29, 2014.
  35. Jeff Vance (March 20, 2013). "Ranking the Top 10 Cloud Startups". CIO Magazine. Retrieved January 29, 2014.
  36. "The 21 Hottest Cloud Startups Right Now". Business Insider. Retrieved January 29, 2014.
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