Member Info for bigsmoke

Given broader market

‘‘Twas a toss up between SHG and COBR, glad I went for COBR.

Surely news due soon.

Stew - they have the approved buyback authority. They could get the SP above £1 in no time if they want. And, within 4 months they’ll need to or face the company being bought for washers.

It is very exciting and support for the strategy. Microsoft should be investing/ supporting LOOP in its competition against zoom. Plain and simple.

m/c - £35m

reminder:

"LoopUp is a cloud communications platform for external and specialist communications. The platform combines internationally-differentiated cloud telephony, business-critical external remote meetings, and premium managed events and webcasts. Our customers benefit from a global, fully-managed service, and an emphasis on security, reliability and simplicity, delivered with deep domain expertise and caring customer support. We are proud to be trusted providers to over 5,000 organisations worldwide, including more than 20 of the world's top-100 law firms. The Group is headquartered in London, with offices in San Francisco, New York, Boston, Chicago, Denver, Milton Keynes, Madrid, Berlin, Malmo, Hong Kong, Barbados and Australia"

£10.7bn acquisition of Five9 ...
"It is now prioritising its cloud-calling product Zoom Phone and conference-hosting product Zoom Rooms."
"Five9's call centre software is used by more than 2,000 clients ... "

Zoom bets billions on hybrid working in Five9 deal

Video conferencing firm Zoom has struck a multibillion dollar deal to buy a cloud-based call centre operator in a bet on the future of hybrid working.

The firm announced the $14.7bn (£10.7bn) acquisition of Five9 in a blog post on Sunday.

Zoom boss Eric Yuan said the deal would allow its customers to "reimagine the way they do business".

It marks the firm's biggest takeover, and comes even though staff are beginning to return to the office.

Investors have been watching for clues as to how the firm would fare as social distancing restrictions lift and more people are vaccinated.

The pandemic, which prompted an abrupt shift to remote work for many businesses around the world, transformed Zoom into a household name practically overnight.

Zoom has said it does not expect growth to continue at the pace it enjoyed last year, but so far business remains strong.

The company expects sales to rise more than 40% this year, reaching more than $3.7bn (£2.66bn).

In the last three months of 2020, sales were up 370% compared to the same period in 2019, hitting $882.5m, it said in March.
media captionFrom pet and child interruptions to catching fire, here's a look at the times online meetings went wrong

The firm, which charges businesses for its remote meeting software in addition to more limited free use for the general public, said the acquisition of Five9 marked a shift in strategy. It is now prioritising its cloud-calling product Zoom Phone and conference-hosting product Zoom Rooms.

"This acquisition is... positioning us to accelerate Zoom's growth and play an even stronger role in driving the digital future, bringing companies and their customers closer together," its founder Eric Yuan said.

Five9's call centre software is used by more than 2,000 clients such as Under Armour, Lululemon and Olympus, and the deal is expected to be completed in the first half of 2022 having been approved by the boards of both companies.

"This is a high-priced deal which appears to attempt to build out the Zoom Phone offering," said Neil Campling, an analyst at Mirabaud Securities.

But he added: "Paying such a high price for a non-differentiated offering smacks of attempts to move into adjacent markets as Zoom fatigue sets in."

A question mark has been raised over the future of hybrid working, although other tech firms such as Google and Microsoft have invested in their video-conferencing offer during the pandemic.

But others such as global workspace provider IWG have said that they expect working from home some of the time will become the norm - especially as firms will be looking to save money and be more environmentally-friendly by using less office space.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-57893155

hold up or stick up?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-57255380

I mean buying IP etc

Wonderful

I.e. “LOOP acquires Skype” lol

Wonder if there is any meat on the Skype bones worth picking?

What number? Of employees?

Plenty folks said don’t take up allowance, which provided immediate 10% return

Agreed. WW

Could be chatbots