Microsoft: The new version of Teams will be twice as fast

A faster new version of the “Teams” communications app, Microsoft is starting to roll out for Windows to commercial customers enrolled in a preview program.

The software will be available to all customers later this year, and the company also promises new versions of “Teams” for Mac and the web.

Since its debut in 2017, companies have been quick to adopt “Teams” to keep workers connected through video calls and chats during the pandemic. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said in January that more than 280 million people use “Teams” every month, even as many workers return to the office.

The app had experienced some performance issues in 2020, which the company resolved. In 2021, with the use of “Teams” growing even more, Microsoft began building a second generation of software aimed at improving performance, said Jeff Teper, Microsoft’s president of collaborative applications and platforms, in an interview with CNBC.

Reports of a new version of “Teams” surfaced earlier this year. Teper said this caused a lot of commotion, but that he didn’t want Microsoft to announce the update until the program had met an internal goal of being twice as fast as before, using half the memory.

The new version also includes improvements intended to simplify “Teams”, some of which are aimed at helping Microsoft catch up to rivals, Teper said. The competition includes “Slack” and “Zoom”.

Source:

---