San Francisco, Sep 13 (IANS): Alongside new features to compete with rivals, video-conferencing platform Zoom has announced that it is now renaming Zoom Chat to Zoom Team Chat to enhance teamwork and collaboration.

The platform said it has already made significant investments in Zoom Team Chat's capabilities, and it will unveil even more enhancements later this month.

"Our comprehensive platform makes it easy for people to connect across places, spaces, and devices, so work is… well, less work. Central to the success of our platform is our persistent team collaboration and messaging hub," the company said in a blogpost.

"We used to call it Zoom Chat. As of today, we are officially renaming it Zoom Team Chat, to usher in the future of persistent messaging and further enhance teamwork and collaboration," it added.

The company said Team Chat extends beyond instant messaging. It is a powerful collaboration hub that leverages 1:1 and group chats as well as channels to integrate workstreams, keep projects on track, and connect stakeholders.

Team Chat brings together messaging, file sharing, third-party integrations, video, voice, and whiteboard in one place to simplify how you collaborate.

When you need to elevate a chat conversation to a phone or video call or share an idea via whiteboard, you can do so at the touch of a button right in Zoom Team Chat, the company said.

Additionally, Team Chat is a valuable external communication tool. It provides a seamless and secure communication experience for external contacts, including consultants, vendors, clients, and more. A notice in the chat or channel "compose" message box even identifies when an external user is present.

"We will also continue to evolve other areas of our portfolio to meet your current and emerging demands. We have introduced three new products this year alone to elevate visual collaboration, enhance the customer experience, and improve sales motions," the platform said.