Data Backup Digest

Microsoft Teams was officially unveiled in early 2017. Designed as a communication platform to keep local and remote workers connected, much like Slack, Microsoft Teams really exploded in popularity amidst the COVID-19 pandemic of 2019 and 2020. Now boasting more than 250 million monthly users and counting, it’s one of the most popular apps of its kind.

Primary Features

Because it’s been added onto the standard Office 365 subscription model at no additional cost, organizations that maintain an active subscription can use the service without paying extra. This gives them access to all of the features seen in Microsoft Teams, which currently includes:

• Teams: Various groups, communications, and individuals can join a team via a specific URL or through an invitation set by a team administrator or owner.
• Chats: Text-based chat, complete with emoji support, also gives users the option to chat with themselves as a means of saving files, notes, and comments.
• Channels: Specific channels can be created to enable communication without the need for email or SMS.
• Telephony: Microsoft Teams can also replace traditional telephone lines with a public switched telephone network (PSTN).
• Virtual meetings: Easily schedule meetings and invite others with a handy hyperlink.
• Live Events: Microsoft Teams’ Live Events are meant as a replacement for Skype. It supports broadcasts to as many as 10,000 individuals.
• Breakout rooms: Administrators can split their large meetings into several small groups.

As expected, features like this make Microsoft Teams a major competitor amongst productivity apps of today. Not only are they competing with the likes of Slack, Skype, and others, but the service can even replace traditional telephones lines and SMS messaging. But how well do these services perform?

Boosting Performance

Developers with Microsoft Teams have been working on improving performance and reducing its power requirements over the past few years. Many of these improvements have been rolled out across various phases, which officially began in October 2020.

• Late 2020: This update effectively reduced the overall CPU load when using a video camera, thus optimizing video capture capabilities.
• Early 2021: Various screen elements were consolidated in this update, ultimately resulting in improvements when processing multiple video streams.
• Mid 2021: Microsoft Teams added support for direct video rendering, which now occurs on-screen instead of at the web layer.
• Late 2021: Numerous improvements were made in late 2021, including GPU rendering optimization and preview rendering optimization.
• Early 2022: Microsoft Teams reduced their power requirements by up to 50% during video meetings involving 10+ participants.
• Mid 2022: Page load times were improved and latency was reduced when messaging other users on the Teams platform.

It’s safe to say that Microsoft is dedicated to making their platform one of the most streamlined and comprehensive solutions available. However, the upgrades and improvements likely won’t stop there. Since it’s still so early on its lifecycle, it’s anybody’s guess as to what we’ll see next from the Microsoft Teams platform.