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Following the shift to remote working, Zoom quickly became one of the most well-known SaaS players in the tech industry. Now, the company is beginning to offer hardware subscriptions.
On Tuesday (7 July), video conferencing platform Zoom announced the launch of its new ‘hardware as a service’ (HaaS) programme in the US, which aims to minimise the friction associated with hardware procurement.
Through its new HaaS offering, the company is offering a range of subscription options for phone and meeting room hardware at fixed monthly prices.
Customers in the US will be able to choose from a variety of hardware solutions from manufacturers including DTEN, Neat, Poly and Yealink.
Zoom’s HaaS offering will run on ServiceNow’s cloud computing platform, which helps companies to manage digital workflows for enterprise operations. While announcing that it was entering the HaaS market, the company also announced a partnership deal with ServiceNow, which first became a Zoom customer in 2018.
In the years since, ServiceNow has used Zoom Enterprise for its 11,000 global employees to host video meetings across desktop, mobile and conference rooms. Through the partnership, ServiceNow plans to replace its legacy hardware phone system with Zoom Phone.
Zoom’s hardware subscription
The Californian SaaS business said that its new HaaS programme will provide low up-front costs and predictable budgets, a single invoice for simple end-to-end procurement, options to provide scalability and managed support.
Velchamy Saknarlingam, president of product and engineering at Zoom, said: “Amazing hardware partnerships are a key part of Zoom’s ecosystem. With many people globally coping with today’s unique challenges, easy access to hardware is critical for offices, distance learning, telehealth and more.
“Zoom hardware as a service will help users adapt to new work-from-anywhere environments by making it easier than ever before to get access to the latest and greatest hardware for Zoom Rooms and Zoom Phone.”
On the company’s website, it explains how the subscription works.
Businesses can view the hardware options before submitting an order request, and then a specialist will help complete the order before it is deployed.
Roopam Jain, industry director of unified communications and collaboration at Frost and Sullivan, commented on the announcement: “Hardware as a service is a game-changer that addresses key IT challenges of heavy upfront hardware costs, complex deployments high-tough support, and cumbersome device life-cycle management.”
