Zoom may be getting ready for its biggest expansion yet: the company is preparing to launch email and calendar apps, The Information reported, and could do so before the end of this year. That would turn Zoom, which has already evolved from a video chat platform to a competitor to Slack and whiteboard apps and even your office phone, into a full-fledged competitor to Google Workspace and Microsoft Office.

Getting into other work apps would seem like a departure for Zoom, but it makes sense the company would go after them. Zoom CEO Eric Yuan has long said he prefers to be a partner to other work tools rather than replace them, but as Zoom’s own platform ambitions have grown, so has the company’s desire to own more of the work ecosystem.

Calendar and email are both heavily used as scheduling tools, too, which means Zoom could integrate more deeply with companies that already use it. And on the flip side, both Google and Microsoft are trying to edge Zoom out: the Meet button in Google Calendar seems to get a little bigger every day, and those companies are betting their default status will ultimately win.

Source: The Verge