Verizon to resell Zoom video conferencing to businesses

Zoom has struck a deal to make its cloud-based video conferencing services available to Verizon business customers, a significant win for Zoom that puts the newly public company on a more level playing field with chief rival Cisco.

In addition to reselling Zoom video licenses, Verizon will let business customers access Zoom meeting audio at no additional charge using Verizon wireless or voice-over-IP services. Verizon will also manage Zoom deployments for customers, reducing the IT resources needed for implementation.

The telecommunications giant has an existing agreement to resell Cisco Webex. It chose to partner with Zoom because of the traction the vendor has gained in the market and because of Zoom's ease of use, said Alla Reznik, Verizon's executive director of business communications products and services.

Verizon will target Cisco Webex at enterprises and Zoom at small and midsize businesses, Reznik said, "but the lines between the two are not set in stone." For Zoom, Verizon's seal of approval is a sign of its rising position in the video conference market.

"This does give Verizon an expanded audience, but it also validates Zoom with another tier-one partner," said Rob Arnold, analyst at Frost & Sullivan. Zoom already had a partnership with AT&T.

Zoom stock was up 5.4% on Thursday following the Verizon announcement. Founded in 2011, Zoom went public in April in one of the tech industry's biggest stock market debuts of the year, with share prices surging more than 70% on the first day of trading. The company, which brought in $330 million last year, is now valued at $24.8 billion.

Gartner has identified Verizon a leader in the market for cloud unified communications, with its products in that market built on Cisco Hosted Collaboration Solution and Cisco BroadSoft. Verizon's enterprise division sold $8.8 billion worth of networking, communications and security products to business last year.