Microsoft Teams

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Microsoft Teams
Microsoft Office Teams (2018–present).svg
Microsoft Teams Desktop Application Screenshot.png
Microsoft Teams' channel tab, as seen on the Microsoft Windows operating system
Developer(s)Microsoft
Stable release
Android1416/1.0.0.2021063702 / June 14, 2021; 3 months ago (2021-06-14)[1]
iOS3.8.1 / June 8, 2021; 3 months ago (2021-06-08)[2]
Windows, macOS1.4.00.22472 / August 26, 2021; 21 days ago (2021-08-26)[3]
Linux1.4.00.13653 / June 8, 2021; 3 months ago (2021-06-08)[4]
Written inTypeScript, Angular,[5] React Electron
Operating systemWindows, Linux, macOS, iOS, Android, Web
Available in45 languages[6][7]
List of languages
TypeCollaborative software
LicenseProprietary commercial cloud software
Websiteteams.microsoft.com

Microsoft Teams is a proprietary business communication platform developed by Microsoft, as part of the Microsoft 365 family of products. Teams primarily competes with the similar service Slack, offering workspace chat and videoconferencing, file storage, and application integration.[8] Teams is replacing other Microsoft-operated business messaging and collaboration platforms, including Skype for Business and Microsoft Classroom. Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, Teams, and other software such as Zoom and Google Meet, gained much interest as many meetings have moved to a virtual environment. As of 2021, it has about 145 million users.[9]

History[]

Microsoft announced Teams at an event in New York, and launched the service worldwide on March 14, 2017.[10][11] It was created during an internal hackathon at the company headquarters, and is currently led by Microsoft corporate vice president Brian MacDonald.[12] Microsoft Teams is a web-based desktop app, developed on top of the Electron framework from GitHub which combines the Chromium rendering engine and the Node.js JavaScript platform.[13]

On August 29, 2007, Microsoft purchased Parlano and its persistent group chat product, MindAlign.[14]On March 4, 2016, Microsoft had considered bidding $8 billion for Slack, but that Bill Gates was against the purchase, stating that the firm should instead focus on improving Skype for Business.[15] Qi Lu, EVP of Applications and Services, was leading the push to purchase Slack.[15] After the departure of Lu later that year, Microsoft announced Teams to the public as a direct competitor to Slack on November 2, 2016.[16][17]

Slack ran a full-page advertisement in the New York Times acknowledging the competing service. Though Slack is used by 28 companies in the Fortune 100, The Verge wrote executives will question paying for the service if Teams provides a similar function in their company's existing Office 365 subscription at no added cost.[18] ZDNet reported that the companies were not competing for the same audience, as Teams, at the time, did not let members outside the subscription join the platform, and small businesses and freelancers would have been unlikely to switch.[19] Microsoft has since added this functionality.[20] In response to Teams' announcement, Slack deepened in-product integration with Google services.[21]

On May 3, 2017 Microsoft announced Microsoft Teams would replace Microsoft Classroom in Office 365 Education (formerly known as Office 365 for Education).[22][23] On July 12, 2018, Microsoft announced a free version of Microsoft Teams, offering most of the platform's communication options for no charge but limiting the number of users and team file storage capacity.[24]

In January 2019, Microsoft released an update targeting "Firstline Workers" in order to improve interoperability of Microsoft Teams between different computers for retail workers.[25][26]

In September 2019, Microsoft announced that Skype for Business would be phased out in favour of Teams; hosted Skype for Business Online was discontinued for new Office 365 customers that month, and will be discontinued entirely on July 31, 2021.[27][28]

On November 19, 2019, Microsoft announced Microsoft Teams reached 20 million active users.[29] This is an increase from 13 million in July.[30] It announced a "Walkie Talkie" feature in early 2020 that uses push-to-talk on smartphones and tablets over Wi-Fi or cellular data. The feature was designed for employees who speak with customers or run day-to-day operations.[31] On March 19, 2020, Microsoft announced Microsoft Teams had hit 44 million daily users,[32] in part due to the COVID-19 pandemic.[33] Microsoft reported that by April 2020, Microsoft Teams had hit 75 million daily users. On a single day in April, it logged 4.1 billion meeting minutes.[34]

On June 22, 2020, Microsoft announced that its acquired video game live streaming service Mixer would shut down in July, and that its staff would be transferred to the Microsoft Teams division.[35]

Features[]

Chats[]

Teams allows users to communicate through chats. Chats in Teams are persistent so users do not have to check a conversation history unlike Skype for Business. Teams allows users to format text, use emojis, during chats. Users can choose to mark a message as urgent or important. Important messages show up with a red side border and an exclamation mark, urgent messages notify the receiver at regular intervals until they are seen.

Group Chat

It supports one-on-one as well as group chats. Users can create call in groups.

File Sharing

It allows file sharing through chats.

Teams[]

Teams allows communities, groups, or teams to join through a specific URL or invitation sent by a team administrator or owner. Teams for Education allows admins and teachers to set up specific teams for classes, professional learning communities (PLCs), staff members, and everyone.[36]

Channels[]

Within a team, members can set up channels. Channels are topics of conversation that allow team members to communicate without the use of email or group SMS (texting). Users can reply to posts with text as well as images, GIFs and custom made image macros.

Direct messages allow users to send private messages to a specific user rather than a group of people.

Connectors are third party services that can submit information to the channel. Connectors include MailChimp, Facebook Pages, Twitter, PowerBI and Bing News.

Calling[]

Calling is provided by: instant messaging, Voice over IP (VoIP), and video conferencing inside the client software. Teams also supports public switched telephone network (PSTN) conferencing allowing users to call phone numbers from the client.

Meeting[]

Meetings can be scheduled or created ad hoc and users visiting the channel will be able to see that a meeting is currently in progress. Teams also has a plugin for Microsoft Outlook to invite others into a Teams meeting.[37] This supports thousands of users that can connect via a meeting link.[38]

Teams Live Events[]

Teams Live Events replaces Skype Meeting Broadcast with the ability for users to broadcast to 10,000 participants on Teams, Yammer or Microsoft Stream.

Education[]

Microsoft Teams allows teachers to distribute, provide feedback, and grade student assignments turned-in via Teams using the Assignments tab, available to Office 365 for Education subscribers.[39] Quizzes can also be assigned to students through an integration with Office Forms.[40]

Protocols[]

Microsoft Teams is based on a number of Microsoft-specific protocols.[41] Video conferences are realized over the protocol MNP24, known from the Skype consumer version. The protocol MS-SIP from Skype for Business is not used any more to connect Teams clients. VoIP and video conference clients based on SIP and H.323 need special gateways to connect to Microsoft Teams servers.[42] With the help of Interactive Connectivity Establishment (ICE), clients behind Network address translation routers and restrictive firewalls are also able to connect, if peer to peer is not possible.

Usage[]

Teams daily active usage
July 11, 2019 (2019-07-11) 13 million[43]
March 12, 2020 (2020-03-12) 32 million[44]
March 19, 2020 (2020-03-19) 44 million[45]
April 29, 2020 (2020-04-29) 75 million[46]
April 27, 2021 (2021-04-27) 145 million[47]

See also[]

References[]

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External links[]

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