Is Teams about to Zoom into first place?

Whilst Zoom is still grabbing headlines, for positive reasons now that their 90-day security improvement programme concludes, Microsoft Teams continues to come on leaps-and-bounds. With 80+ million daily users the product has been adopted by loyal Microsoft corporates as well as domestic users able to use Teams free with no conference time limit.

But against Zoom, the success story of lockdown? We should remember Microsoft has a history of entering markets as an underdog that someone else has developed or dominates (remember Excel against mighty Lotus, or IE against all conquering Netscape, or Word against Word Perfect etc) only to become the lead player. This could be the next one and Zoom with its 300 million daily users will be acutely aware of it.

But what is new on the Teams horizon ?

As at early July’20, in this most competitive of markets, Teams is still evolving catching up to Zoom as a video conferencing system but ahead of it as a collaboration system. As the successor to Skype, which is end of life in 12 months’ time, many new Teams features are due or under discussion (see later), but only one is genuinely new and firing a shot back at Zoom:

Something New – Together Mode

Being released now, so you’ll likely get it in August, is something genuinely new - ‘Together Mode’.

Microsoft has looked deeply into ‘Zoom fatigue’ given many of us are spending lots of time on a daily basis on video conference calls and, quite frankly, finding it tiring. Aiming to be seen to remain interested and engaged by intensively looking at the camera (yes, we know those of you off camera are doing email etc) whilst keeping track of all the other participants on the call, each moving against a different background in those little boxes is actually quite draining. Especially as you are doing it for seemingly hours a day.

So enter Teams ‘Together mode’. Teams AI rearranges all the images of the participants heads and shoulders not only against a common background but against one that makes everyone cleverly appear to be in the same room – a coffee shop or lecture hall for example, but all together. This is easier on the eye and aims to visually create a sense of togetherness that lack of access to the office has denied us. It will also no doubt generate a sub industry of room backgrounds as we all search for the most interesting room to hold our meeting (Colosseum anyone to conclude that dispute resolution meeting?).

So, once in a call you can look up at the colleague talking in the row above you (remember University Challenge?), and even conduct high-five’s. It’s fun, but the psychologists also state its easier on the eye, and therefore less tiring. One up to Microsoft over ‘Zoom fatigue’ with the emphasis on Zoom. Will it beat Zoom - not on this alone, but they are catching up.

Other Teams features coming:

• Firstly, Teams can now accommodate 300 participants in a call, up from 250. Another leap to 1,000 is expected – with premium doubling to 20,000 participants
• This month (July) it is expected that the number of participants viewed on a call will increase from 9 to 49
• Lobby management is under development, with no date as yet. I suspect this will be here in around 3 months’ time with similar facilities to that already available under Zoom; This is particularly useful for lawyers in Family or other disputes where placing some of the participants back into the lobby for a set period of time (“to cool off”) may be useful before inviting them back into the main conference again.
• Polling (now) – A growing number of Teams apps are available now including polling your audience for an immediate conference survey
• Lighting – You will be able to shortly (August) to add lighting effects to enhance your avatar.

Duncan Eadie is Principal consultant with Professional Plus Solutions, a leading technology consultancy serving the legal community for 21 years.