Microsoft Celebrates the 3rd Anniversary of Teams: The Hub for Teamwork and Productivity

SINGAPORE – Media OutReach – 20 March 2020 – Microsoft marks the
third anniversary of Teams this week — a platform that is continually
shaping a new culture of work and collaboration worldwide.

 

Thousands
of organizations, large and small, have been using Teams as a hub for daily work,
helping them to stay connected and engaged. Worldwide, 44 million people are
using Teams on a daily basis*, including 93 of the Fortune 100. Industry
leading organizations are rolling out Teams enterprise-wide — in fact, 20
customers have more than 100,000 employees actively using Teams, including
Ernst & Young, SAP, and Continental AG, as well as Accenture, which has
440,000 employees actively using Teams.

 

“Since
we launched Teams three years ago, it has evolved to become the hub for
teamwork — a place where you can meet, chat, call, and collaborate all in one
place. We will continue to improve and expand experiences for all workers to be
as productive and connected as possible. As the COVID-19 outbreak continues to
push people everywhere into remote work and learning, enabling remote work for
our customers has never felt more important, and we are grateful for the
opportunity to do so.” Said Jared Spataro, Corporate Vice President, Microsoft
365.

 

What’s New in Teams

To mark this
milestone, Microsoft announced a number of new updates that will come to Teams.

 

• Real-time noise suppression minimizes distracting background noise, allowing users to hear what’s being
  said.
• The raise hand feature lets anyone in the meeting send a visual signal that
  they have something to say — especially useful in large meetings, when remote
  participants chime in when they need to speak.
• Integrated Teams and
  RealWear HMT-1 head-mounted device. For
  first-line
  workers to access information and communicate hands-free with remote experts
  from their job site.
• Bookings app in Teams to ensure that appointments like healthcare patient consults, client
  meetings, or job candidate interviews can be easily scheduled, managed and
  conducted.
• Pop out chats into a separate window to
  help you streamline your workflow and toggle more easily between ongoing
  conversations.
• Offline and low-bandwidth support lets you read chat messages and write responses,
  even without an internet connection, making it easier for you to move things
  forward no matter where you are.

In addition
to the new features, Microsoft is also expanding the Teams devices ecosystem,
with new devices certified for Teams. The Yealink VC210, now generally
available, is the first collaboration
bar certified for Teams, and brings together speakers, microphone, camera and
the Teams app to deliver a meeting experience for smaller conference rooms that
is simple to install and easy to manage. In addition, the Bose Noise Cancelling headphone 700 UC will be available for
purchase in late spring.

 

With these new
capabilities, Microsoft aims to build the very best meeting experiences for
customers and bring technological solutions to traditionally underserved
professionals, including first-line and healthcare workers.

In Asia, Teams
is enabling a range of organizations stay productive and connected even when
they need to work apart. Japan’s Civil Court proceedings has been streamlined
with Microsoft Teams, starting with evidentiary proceedings of civil court cases in nine locations across
Japan as of February 2020, and an additional five locations from May 2020. This
marked the global debut of Teams as a tool used in civil court case
proceedings.

 

As one of
the oldest schools in New Zealand, St. Mary’s College is moving rapidly into
the future with Office 365, and Teams as
a key collaborative tool for the application of learning and development. The platform has helped
both students and teachers adapt to online learning much faster, with students being
able to have live conversations with educators, and teachers armed with the assignments
feature to manage deadlines for tasks.

 

*We define daily active
usage as the maximum daily users performing an intentional action in a 24-hour
period across the desktop client, mobile client, and web client. Intentional
actions include sending or replying to a chat, joining a meeting, or opening a
file in Teams. Passive actions like auto boot, minimizing a screen, or closing
the app are not included.

About Microsoft

Microsoft
(Nasdaq “MSFT” @microsoft) is the leading platform and productivity company for
the mobile-first, cloud-first world, and its mission is to empower every person
and every organization on the planet to achieve more.