In summary, Teams makes it easier to collaborate using Microsoft 365 by bringing everything into one place for the first time.Īs the name of the product suggests, Microsoft Teams is structured around ‘Teams’.

Integrate with 3rd party Apps through Tabs, Connectors and Bots.

Search across all of your O365 documents and folders.

Post messages in larger social channels (Yammer).

Create, share, edit and find content (SharePoint, OneDrive and OneNote).

Manage calendars and meetings (Outlook).But it looks set to become the main way that teams collaborate digitally for a significant chunk of the world’s workforce. The trial-by-fire mass adoption (7 million in a week!) of Microsoft Teams in the midst of COVID-19 is likely to force rapid evolution of the platform’s purpose. And as it does so, workers won’t accept the friction synonymous with old systems and software. The world is working more and more digitally. Other competitors are choosing to integrate with these two behemoths instead: Cisco Webex, Zoom, and almost every other virtual meeting room vendor are jumping aboard Microsoft's surging flagship. Its main competitor, Slack, has fallen behind with 10 million active users. Its user base has more than doubled since November 2019, and more than tripled the 13 million of July 2019. The platform’s short history has been defined by rapid growth.

Created during an internal hackathon, what was originally an instant messaging platform snowballed through integration after integration into something more: a unified platform for online work - combining the functionality of the entire Office365 suite into one location.

After Bill Gates came out against the purchase, Microsoft decided they could beat them, rather than join them. Microsoft Teams was born out of a proposed $8 billion Microsoft bid for the chat-based platform, Slack. And it’s set up to enable collaboration between anyone in your business. Teams is deeply integrated with the Office365 suite, bringing into a single app all of these Office365 features. But Teams is much more than a place to talk to your colleagues. Microsoft Teams is a chat-based messaging and video-call application which is Microsoft’s answer to Slack.

Microsoft teams launcher