14 DAY TRIAL // Microsoft is one of the companies that recorded a huge boom in the number of subscribers for Microsoft Teams this year, especially as more employees started working from home.
And while Teams keeps evolving, Microsoft is working on new capabilities that would further enhance its features, including expanding the chat and call support beyond the service.
In other words, Microsoft wants Microsoft Teams users to be able to chat with and call Skype contacts and the other way around.
And while the feature was originally projected to debut in early 2020, the company is now expected to announce such functionality later this month, most likely as soon as the next week. Spotted by Dr. Windows, the delay was probably caused by the spike in traffic that Microsoft Teams recorded.
What’s important to know is that calling someone on Microsoft Teams using a Skype account would also work for consumers, so Microsoft thus brings together two different worlds. But at the same time, Microsoft Teams accounts that are allowed to get in touch with Skype accounts need the permission of the administrator, so unless they provided with such access, the feature is turned off.
Furthermore, Microsoft Teams – Skype interoperability would be disabled by default, which means that administrators need to manually enable the option to chat with and call Skype accounts for each member.
Teams updates
Last month, Microsoft increased the number of simultaneous videos in Teams meetings from 4 to 9, something that has long been request by large companies.
“This new experience optimizes for attendees who have enabled video and places the remaining audio-only participants below the meeting stage. To provide a high audio and video quality experience, the layout will adapt, based on the user bandwidth and alter the number of videos shown to provide the best meeting experience,” Microsoft said.
More features are coming to Microsoft Teams as part of a monthly rollout, so expect another update in the coming weeks.