Oh, the humanity! Microsoft congratulates itself for Teams inflicted on 115m daily users

Microsoft broke out the collaborative backslappery during its Q1 FY21 earnings call and revealed some actual usage numbers for one of its platforms: Teams has more than 115 million Daily Active Users (DAU). The news came amid general whoopery for some impressive revenue figures for Q1 of Microsoft's fiscal 2021. That is quite …

[Mike 137]

"45.3 million consumers have now signed up to Office 365"

Another 45.3 million who can lose all their data when their credit card provider has a systems glitch (TSB?)

If you value it, store it yourself, so you know it's still there when you need it. Cloud as an execution platform can have huge advantages (access to sophisticated code you only need occasionally, flexible load, etc) but cloud as a retention platform is a recipe for disaster as everything depends on your subscription being made perfectly, on time, every time (and of course on the service remaining available). It's an accident waiting to happen, particularly for consumers, who may not have the backup capability to protect themselves.

[a_yank_lurker]

Turds

We got Turds at work when we ditched Skype. While Turds' numbers went up, Skype's went down. Net gain to the Rejects of Redmond, 0. Net loss to Zoom, 0.

[Anonymous Coward]

Teams installed itself on my computer without my permission and was hard to remove. That makes is malware in my book.

[Bigg Phill]

Your computer?

When you say "your computer" are you sure you don't mean "my employer's computer" and when you say "installed itself" are you quite sure it wasn't your system administrator installing it?

[Hollerithevo]

Teams vs Skype

My business delivered Teams to us. We were told that, just like Outlook, it would be monitored. So far, everyone is still using Skype, because we have been told that it will remain unmonitored. And of course we have other channels. I find Teams visually dull.

[czechitout]

OK, I'll say it

I actually like Teams. It has taken a while, but I now find that it is the application I have open on one screen all the time. It benefits from you going all in, I've worked with clients who have separate video conferencing, document management etc. tools and Teams feels like a clunky addition, but if you use it for all your meetings, document storage instant messaging and even task management, then it really comes into its own.

It isn't without its flaws, why you can only have one document open in Teams at a time is baffling, but you soon learn how to work around these foibles.

[GrumpenKraut]

Re: OK, I'll say it

Could we agree on "all video conferencing programs are shitty in their own special way"?

I use Teams for teaching, with a document camera to show my "black board", a piece of paper. Why oh why do I (and only me) see it as (1) a thing so tiny it is useless and (2) fucking mirrored? (solution to that: let somebody share it back to you!)

And what an insane hog it is: battery supposed to be good for like ten hours, with Teams it is just *two*.

[czechitout]

Re: OK, I'll say it

You're falling for the "not going all in" issue. If you shared your screen and then doodled in whatever application you prefer, it would show large on your screen and not mirrored.

But yes, it is annoying only being able to see your cam as a tiny thumbnail.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: OK, I'll say it

This actually causes us a serious issue in a 'blended' (in-class + online) live teaching environment: the teacher cannot project a 'large' version of what they themselves are doing up on the classroom projector using Teams for in-class students to see when *also* in a call with remote students. Only the other people on the call can see the teacher's feed 'large'. There are hacks and workarounds -- e.g. Teams + ManyCam + Camera app, or use a Mac with Teams + QT Player -- but none that I could reliably deploy to teaching staff; they have enough to deal with. Zoom wins here (unfortunately).

A/C because work.

[Robert Grant]

Re: OK, I'll say it

Zoom wins here (unfortunately).

I'm constantly amazed at how many people on El Reg root for the giantest corporation on the planet, known to kill innovation once they achieve shady dominance, over alternatives.

[ovation1357]

Re: OK, I'll say it

Why "(Unfortunately)"?

I have to use both Teams and Zoom (and also Slack) for work every day and in my experience Zoom is hands-down the best for video conferencing - it's smooth with flexible layout options and lots of configurability.

Personally I utterly hate Teams - the UI is just awful and the chat is like an extremely poor clone of Slack. I also find that the UI is extremely buggy, especially in the Android app, where it's often not possible to get the button bar to appear, OR the buttons are there but don't update when pressed so you think you're still on mute even when it actually did unmute (or vice versa).

I'd far, far rather be presenting meetings or lessons/training on Zoom

[GrumpenKraut]

Re: OK, I'll say it

Not sure this works: that camera tile is part of the Teams window and there is nothing I can do about it being ridiculously small. In fact (right click on it) the only action offered is "crtl-C to copy" which is as useful as an extra arm on your nose.

In case I am missing something obvious, I am not used to MS-Windows. Coming from Linux without a desktop (just a window manager) things feel strange and thoroughly confusing to me.

[Bigg Phill]

Re: OK, I'll say it

There's a whiteboard tab in the meeting that is preserved after the session ends.

I presume you've tried and disregarded this?

Or it's something that isn't shipped in the education version (which is a baffling decision by MS if so)

[GrumpenKraut]

Re: OK, I'll say it

Whiteboard tab? Never seen. I assume I do not have it, it is likely the education version I have. Will try to find out.

Thanks everybody! ---------->

[Bigg Phill]

Re: OK, I'll say it

Actually this does remind me of the one thing I find genuinely annoying about Teams: inconsistent UI experience.

To get all the extra tabs (including meeting notes as well as whiteboard) as well as the chat tab, I think you have to open the meeting you are in via the calendar in the sidebar (going from memory - day off)

If you open the chat tab within the call, you only see the chat

I've often had meetings where I've referred to the Whiteboard and nobody else can find it because it's not actually in the meeting window. So if it turns out you did have a whiteboard but didn't know it was there, it happens to all of us

[GrumpenKraut]

Re: OK, I'll say it

> inconsistent UI experience.

LOL, that is putting it mildly. I think it is called "Mystery Meat Navigation". Boy does it suck, elephants through a straw. Sadly this seems to be creeping into more and more programs.

What is wrong with good old menus? Do they not look "cool" enough or what is it?

bombastic bob was right on this ----------->

[Dave K]

Re: OK, I'll say it

Previously I used a combination of SFB and WebEx on the company/customer laptops I had. Must admit, I do find Teams better than those two. As you say, it isn't without its flaws, but it's an improvement on what I used to have to use...

[GrumpenKraut]

Re: OK, I'll say it

I recently was in a Big Blue Button Session and liked that somewhat. Each program has strong and weak points, in Zoom you can neatly control which sub-window you see and how big it is.

Teams works good enough for me. By now nearly everybody has and uses Teams where I work and so I use it exclusively for teaching, just one particular meeting left using Zoom.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: OK, I'll say it

Teams has saved me a huge amount of traveling and even without the pandemic would be a game changer to be honest.

Just wish I was allowed to work from home but .. employer won't permit it.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: OK, I'll say it

I guess the passengers on your bus/train/plane appreciate you being physically present too.

[Dwarf]

Constant interrupts

Constant interrupts by being added to things that you sometimes need to know about.

Hate the thing. End up muting all sorts of conversations so that I can get some real work done without the constant interruptions, yet they call this progrress.

[Martin Summers]

Re: Constant interrupts

That's a company/you problem rather than a Teams problem.

[Khaptain]

Re: Constant interrupts

Have to agree with Martin, but then again I have see other user screens that are just full of smileys...and Lols.

Maybe I am lucky but my immediate colleagues are serious and only write the strict minimum in order to get things moving...

Software never resolves human problems when it has the capacity to exaggerate them .....

[ForthIsNotDead]

Re: Constant interrupts

Yep. Did the same. 99% of the conversations are noise.

[Halfmad]

Re: Constant interrupts

Set yourself to busy, don't answer. Same as telephone calls when you were in the middle or something.

I mean heaven forbid an adult has to adult..

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Constant interrupts

> Set yourself to busy, don't answer.

That would be useful if there were a way of specifying an allow-list of people you don't mind interrupting you - like your immediate team, or the guy doing something urgent for you.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Constant interrupts

Yeah, if only there was a way to group people together. You could even have a special name for such a thing, like, oh, I dunno, "team", or something.

[beardman]

teams have one major drawback

it's the lack of multiple account support.

[Bigg Phill]

Teams Vs alternatives

At my workplace (for reasons I still don't understand/know) we bought Slack even though Teams was already in our 365 subscription.

They both have their plus points but what I find annoying about comparison style reviews is they always use Slack as the benchmark and judge Teams by how "Slacky" it is as if you're comparing different kitchen knives.

The reality is you're comparing a good kitchen knife with a kitchen that contains a comparable knife.

Teams does so much more and as another poster said, it's only when you go "all in" that you appreciate this.

The new team = new SharePoint site feature is particularly impressive and similar tricks are available with Stream and Planner/Tasks.

I do like Slack's "draw on the screen share" feature as it makes remote pair programming / mentoring much easier and why Teams can't hide a hyperlink like Slack and pretty much every other MS Office app does is something that regularly infuriates me.

Teams handles conversation threads much better than Slack and it annoys me that none of the support channels where I work use it (i.e. the places where multiple threads are of most use)

I think the next step for Teams should be to put Email in the sidebar and then there's no need to have Teams and Outlook open at the same time

[Trollslayer]

Re: Teams Vs alternatives

The files are stored in Sharepoint within Teams.

[0laf]

Teams works well enough. I hate the name since it sounds stupid to have a Teams meeting with your team.

It seem to rely a lot on other people muting and unmuting themselves.

Teams recording is a GDPR bombscare as it Teams chat since MS seem to think it's a good idea for everyone to have everything forever.

If any of this is fixable it is within the fiendishly complex 365 config. And MS move stuff every day.

But it's better than Webex by a mile and it's got flexible enough to let me tell the work Zoom fanbois to piss off and stick to Teams.

[MrBanana]

The end is nigh

Teams, Zoom, GoToMeeting, Skype, Webex, Kaltura.... The video collaboration horsemen of the covid apocalypse are massing.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: The end is nigh

Exaggeration.

Teams has won the race anyway. None of those other packages are used really. Sure, toss the odd outlier my way, but Teams has won.

[ovation1357]

Re: The end is nigh

When you say "won" you might be technically correct, but then it was never a fair race really...

Just about every business already runs O365, so when they got given a 'free' collaborative tool which is installed by default, they became a lot less likely to shop around when Covid hit and there was a sudden need to do more remote working.

I think you're being a bit disingenuous to say that none of the others are being used. If the numbers are something like 115m for Teams and 12m for Slack (and I think it's a similar 12m-ish on Zoom IIRC) then just those two are holding around 20% of Microsoft's share, which is hardly insignificant...

I know of at least two small businesses I deal with who are completely invested into Zoom and don't use Teams at all. It may be king in the corporate environment but there are plenty of smaller business, domestic users and educational settings which are making very good use of the others.

To me this massive spike in Teams adoption is just another "The Internet" icon from Microsoft. Another abuse of their dominant position in the market to push their product in such a way that managers won't be able to justify to the accounts department why they should be subscribing to <insert competitor here>

[Maventi]

Re: The end is nigh

"Teams has won the race anyway. "

In the enterprise space yes, through brute force (O365 bundling) rather than merit alone.

In consumer space Zoom has the big mindshare, to the point Zoom has almost entirely replaced Skype as a coinage for video conferencing. Nobody says "hey let's Teams with the grandparents this evening".

[Gotno iShit Wantno iShit]

collaboration platform

You've misspelled 'memory hog'

[Michael Wojcik]

Re: collaboration platform

To be fair, it also eats a grotesque amount of CPU during conferences.

[Anonymous Coward]

Some way of separating group chats from meeting chats?

I like the group chat on teams - it's useful for things like incident investigation where all involved parties can be invited to the chat and can update as and when they have finished their bits.

But there's no list of chats. Only recent chats which is swamped by meeting chats which are invariably "I have to drop off now" as well as automated X joined; Y left etc.

If I want to go back to look at the chat log for an incident 3 months ago because that incident has just happened again - well it's impossible, or at least seems to be.

Recently I had a query from the National Audit Office re a security risk item on a project that I finished on 8 years ago! Email maybe shit but at least I was able to find (with effort) what they wanted. I simply cannot imagine ever being able to do that with Teams.

[0laf]

Re: Some way of separating group chats from meeting chats?

You'll have to get an admin to dig in with ediscovery to find shit like that.

PITA to deal with compliance requests

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Some way of separating group chats from meeting chats?

Teams is a fing nightmare for EIR, FoIA, DSAR, disclosure issues.