Teams – the standard in the business world for internal, and often external, contact.  But why?  Anyone old enough to remember Instant Messager?  Skype was the 2^nd generation of quick chat programs.  There was a feature to send a text message, a feature to have a voice call, and a feature to have a video call, though the video call feature was limited.  Nice and basic.  Except…when you start moving beyond a handful of people, like 9 or 10, Skype started to get unstable. 

So, when you have a multi-national corporation with almost 220,000 employees, how do you communicate effectively?  Especially when remote work becomes a necessity rather than a one-off situation?  While I was working at Wells Fargo a number of years ago, the company switched from Skype to Microsoft Teams.  Skype was a basic program, nothing fancy, no extra features.  Because of that, it was both easy to learn and limited in a business environment.  There was the usual grumbling about something new and about how much time it takes to retrain on a more complex system.  However, once Teams was established corporate wide, communication went a lot smoother.  

Teams was integrated with other Microsoft Office products; Skype was a stand-alone program.  Teams could hold video calls with multiple screens and simultaneous screen sharing and video; Skype could only handle the bare minimum screensharing and was always slow and laggy.  Teams allowed for conversations to be shared, saved, participants added and removed, and categorized; Skype could save chats in a basic text format, but only if you remembered to do so before closing the window.  Teams had gifs (YAY GIFS); Skype had a limited set of emojis.  Teams was bundled with Microsoft Office; Skype was a stand-alone program, purchased separately. 

So, with all the benefits, why would anyone stay with Skype?  It was basic.  It did what it said on the box and didn’t have anything extra.  But it was aging badly.  New technology was moving faster than the developers could accommodate.  Microsoft did what any large corporation does when faced with a competitor in a vulnerable situation: they made an offer to buy out the competition.  Once Microsoft had both Teams and Skype, they could transition everyone to one platform.  And the one they’re going to pick is the one they have already proven to be more able to adapt with changing technology: Microsoft Teams. 

So, for a measly $8.5 billion USD, Microsoft has eliminated competition, improved their own standing, and taken over a market share they have been competing with for years.  (Insert gif, one of TONS of Teams emojis, and an Office Paperclip meme here.) 

Hugs and Hi-Fives! –Val