Verizon is shutting down its BlueJeans video conferencing service.

In an email sent to BlueJeans’ service members — and published by 9to5Google — on Tuesday, August 8, Verizon outlined that the solution’s suite of products is being “sunset” due to an evolving and volatile market situation.

The news has since been confirmed on LinkedIn by EMEA and APAC boss Joe McStravick on LinkedIn.

He said:

“After taking a few days since the recent announcement that we are sunsetting BlueJeans by Verizon products and services, it is a moment to reflect, appreciate, and look ahead.”

“I want to thank all my amazing friends, colleagues, partners and customers who have reached out to check in on me and the team over the last 48 hours, it means a lot.

“This outcome is not a reflection of the team, who are some of the best I have had the honour to work with and if you are looking for incredibly talented individuals please reach out on this post and I will connect you with amazing talent.”

The first phase of the sunsetting is that BlueJeans Basic and free trial offerings will reportedly be discontinued as of August 31, 2023, and customers’ access to the services will be halted. Customers can still access those services until this time. All paid-for subscriptions appear to have been removed from the BlueJeans website.

The email wrote:

Thank you for being a valued user of BlueJeans by Verizon services. 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.”

There is no mention of BlueJeans’ enterprise customers as being restricted by the August 31 deadline, so it can be inferred that they will be provided with a more extended transition period to prepare for the end of BlueJeans’ services.

If Basic customers have saved any recordings on BlueJeans, they can download them before the August 31 cutoff, but their content will be deleted to comply with BlueJeans’ data privacy policies.

Verizon acquired BlueJeans — an enterprise-targeting video conferencing app — in a deal estimated between $400 and $500 million in spring 2020 at the height of the coronavirus pandemic. Verizon acquired BlueJeans having identified a market opportunity to compete with Zoom, Microsoft Teams and Google Hangout as the world gradually adapted to the new normal of remote and hybrid working.

Verizon’s BlueJeans Plan

Verizon launched multiple partnerships and solutions over the past three years to engage a larger potential customer base and to distinguish it from competitors — including one notable new offering earlier this year.

In March, BlueJeans Basic, the offering that shuts down on August 31, was launched as a new video conferencing plan that allowed up to 25 people to meet for free. BlueJeans Basic aimed to offer people unlimited meetings with no time limit.

“We also realize there is no one-size-fits-all approach to business, just like one size doesn’t really fit all when it comes to the clothes we wear,” Chris Lewter, VP and GM at BlueJeans, commented at the time. “To better fit the needs of individuals and small businesses that may not require enterprise-level services, we’re excited to expand on our BlueJeans Meetings platform with a solution that emphasizes the most important basics—better audio quality and HD video reliability—to help them grow their business.”

BlueJeans highlighted the user experience of its platform, promoting research that found 95 percent of respondents thought BlueJeans Basic was easy for SMBs to use than its competitors, and 94 percent found it more reliable.

Last year, BlueJeans also partnered with Google Glass to ensure its Meetings product could be preloaded onto Glass wearables sold by Verizon, specifically the (since discontinued) Glass Enterprise Edition 2 smart glasses.

The partnership, initially announced in September 2021, was planned to allow supervisors to see the view of remote frontline employees such as engineers, technicians and warehouse workers.



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