Microsoft Teams: Definition, History and How to Use It

In today's era where technology is increasingly advanced, the modern business world is constantly flooded with new collaboration platforms striving to be the best. Of course, there are many options to choose from. One of the best solutions for team productivity is Microsoft Teams.

Microsoft Teams is a full-featured chat-based collaboration platform that can support document sharing, online meetings, and many features that are very useful for business communication.

A great team space is key to making creative decisions and communicating effectively with each other. This shared workspace platform makes things easier, especially if the team in question is based in a very large company, has a lot of remote workers, or consists of many professional team members, it can be reached more easily.

Before seeing the benefits, here's the history of the birth of Microsoft Teams

History of Microsoft Teams

Microsoft Teams was announced at an event in New York on March 14, 2017. The app was developed in an internal hackathon, currently led by Brian MacDonald, corporate vice president at Microsoft.

History Microsoft Teams was founded on March 4, 2016, with Microsoft considering an offer of IDR 8 billion USD or IDR. 111.954.2440.000.000,00 for Slack. But finally, on November 2, 2016, Microsoft announced that Teams would be a competitor to Slack.

According to Qi Lu, Microsoft's executive vice president, apps and services were the driving force behind Microsoft's acquisition of Slack. In addition, Slack placed an ad in The New York Times that said it was ready to compete with anyone. At this point, 28 Fortune 100 companies are already using Slack, but The Verge writes that 28 companies could move to Teams because the functionality is almost the same, especially since Office 365 integration doesn't cost a subscription.

ZDNet later reported that Teams would never compete with Slack. Since Teams didn't allow accounts that weren't registered on the platform at the time, freelancers and SMBs would likely continue to use Slack. Microsoft then allowed unsubscribed accounts to sign in to the Teams platform. Slack has responded by deepening its integration with Google services.

On May 3, 2017, Microsoft announced that Microsoft Teams would replace Microsoft Classroom in Office 365 Education, previously known as Office 365 for Education. Since September 7 2017, users have received the message "Skype for Business is now Microsoft Teams." And it was confirmed at Microsoft's annual conference on September 25, 2017.

On 12 July 2018, Microsoft Teams released the long-awaited free Indonesian version, which offers most of the communication options for free, but the downside is the limited number of accounts you can follow and the Teams file storage capacity.

Then in January 2019, Microsoft released an update aimed at improving Microsoft Teams interoperability across various retail computers. Then in July 2019, Microsoft announced that there were 13 million active Microsoft Teams users.

However, as of November 19, 2019, Microsoft Teams has grown to 20 million active users. Also announced yesterday was the addition of a "walkie-talkie" feature that will allow users to send voice messages to each other in early 2020.

Microsoft also announced that 44 million users use Microsoft Teams every day, in part due to the 2019-2020 coronavirus pandemic.

Features in Microsoft Teams

Chat

The Microsoft Teams app focuses on chat. Users can send standard GIFs, stickers, emojis and texts via private or group chats. Chat history is saved for shared channels, so you can use the channel as a summary to quickly record meeting duration, document changes, add new team members, and more.

Voice and video calls

Group chats can get so complex that you need to communicate in sync to make sure everyone is on the same page. The Microsoft Teams app lets you quickly switch from a group chat to a voice or video meeting. Video conferencing offers standard features such as meeting notes, screen sharing, meeting recordings, and instant messaging.

meeting space

The Meeting tab allows you to retrieve a meeting schedule from Outlook. You can also schedule new meetings in the Microsoft Teams app. Outlook will also send a notification about this schedule. If you want to schedule another meeting with external users, you can invite people from outside your organization by entering their email address when creating a new meeting in Microsoft Teams.

Fillet

Files lets you quickly find and view files in OneNote, OneDrive, and Microsoft Teams (stored on a SharePoint site). There is also a tab 'Latest' a very useful one that gives you quick access to shortcuts to the most recent documents and downloads you're working on.

Live event

With Microsoft Teams, you can even extend a meeting. The Microsoft Teams app lets you host meetings in person. Major conferences, webinars, company-wide events, presentations and more for up to 10.000 attendees, both internally and externally. Broadcast live by sharing content from your desktop or webcam. You can also connect to professional cameras and various content sources for important events.

Connectivity to other devices

The ability of the Microsoft Teams app to integrate with other devices such as smartphones, tablets, cameras, and peripherals such as speakers and headphones. This feature can increase efficiency for organizations with highly mobile teams while maintaining security for smooth business operations.

Microsoft Teams has many simple features that can make team and business development more proactive. Microsoft is serious about making products that meet user needs. Well, that's a brief info about Microsoft Teams and its main features.

Get more News and Articles on Google News