A group of Google engineers reportedly spearheaded an initiative to acquire Zoom in 2018, according to a report from The Information.
While the internal effort did not go far, the group of engineers explored a potential acquisition cost and the projected unit economics of Zoom if it transitioned over to Google Cloud. The team analyzed this for both Zoom and other undisclosed companies.
A Google spokesperson told The Information that the company has never “seriously evaluated” acquiring Zoom and has never had a large-scale agreement for employees to use Zoom.
Earlier this year, Google banned its employees from using the Zoom desktop app on company computers. The company has also beefed up its Meet conferencing service to better compete with Zoom and other video conferencing services.
Even if talks had advanced at Google, it was likely they would not have resulted in much, as Zoom founder Eric Yuan rebuffed acquisition offers from Microsoft.
