Microsoft has announced that its Teams application will be replacing Skype for business as its primary teamwork software. This announcement was made during the keynote of its Ignite conference in Orlando, Florida.
It is said that this is the technology giant’s defence against upstart Slack in the workplace collaboration software market. Microsoft says over 125,000 are now using Microsoft Teams and Slack says 50,000 groups pay to use its application. Microsoft did not say how many organizations use Skype for Business.
Interestingly Microsoft just replaced Lync with Skype for Business three years ago and it introduced Microsoft Teams last year November to compete against Slack. (Skype for Business is different from the free Skype app.)
Microsoft also said it would be adding new Skype voice and video technology which will add advanced calling capabilities to Teams.
“Microsoft Teams will evolve as the core communications client,” said Ron Markezich, Microsoft’s corporate vice president of Office 365, in a press briefing. “We will make Microsoft Teams the hero and primary experience for all voice, video and meetings.”
“We think the vast majority of our customers will go toward Microsoft Teams as that hub for teamwork,” Markezich said in an interview.
Microsoft plans to continue supporting Skype for Business, especially for companies that run the software on their own data centers, but Microsoft expects its subscription-based Office 365 users to migrate to Teams over time as more communication features are added.
