Does 7x7 video conferencing make Teams a legitimate alternative to Zoom? What else do they need to do?

CloudEnd-User Services & CollaborationApplications & Platforms+17 more
3.4k views3 Upvotes11 Comments
Director, Technology Strategy & Innovation / Chief Enterprise Architect in Software, 1,001 - 5,000 employees
Teams recently went 3x3 (vs 7x7) which helped tremendously. Microsoft has announced 40+ in the future. Teams was already an alternative to Zoom as it was essentially 'free' with our O365 subscription.
2 3 Replies
Community User in Software, 11 - 50 employees

Thanks Phil - my post here was referring to that announcement of 40+ (they said by the fall I think). I know because of this specific current/past limitation, a lot of people didn't make the full jump to Teams... was curious if this was the last enhancement they needed to capture that audience - - or if there were more improvements needed, leaving them still "stuck" paying for Zoom...

1
Director, Technology Strategy & Innovation / Chief Enterprise Architect in Software, 1,001 - 5,000 employees

Gotcha. It will definitely help, however I am not convinced that it is the 'only' thing keeping people from adopting Teams. For those that record a lot of interactions and use these recordings to publish, Teams has a long way to go (Zoom allows for non-filtered sound, local download of recordings, separate audio files, multiple compatibility formats, etc). Also simple things like the ability to remember your 'backgrounds' setting is missing from Teams. Teams is a a bit late to the game but is catching up quickly.

1
CIO in Education, 1,001 - 5,000 employees

Agree with Phil. Video quality and ease of use are still 2 areas where Teams continues to lag behind. They are making up ground, but need to excel on these 2 fronts to ever surpass Zoom.

1
CTO in Software, 201 - 500 employees
It will certainly be a good and welcome enhancement, but overall I find it hard to compare the two. In the feature-by-feature comparison as a video conferencing solution Zoom might have a significant lead. However, Teams is not a point solution, but more of a Integrated Collaboration Environment (ICE) - Microsoft 365 native with many 3rd party integrations (and growing). Then again, not everybody needs that.
3
Director of IT in Manufacturing, Self-employed
Teams has a long way to go.
1
Director in Manufacturing, 1,001 - 5,000 employees
Web conferencing has been around for close to 20 years. Yet SKYPE and now TEAMs still cannot do what WEBEX and GENYSYS did as far back as 2005

Do their developers even look at competitors? Or have they ever hosted a call of more that 10 people

Teams is primitive. It works but it’s actually worse than SKYPE in my opinion
6
Director of Technology in Government, 501 - 1,000 employees
I am in the public sector and Teams is great for collaboration but we use Zoom Webinar for our public meetings like city council and Planning & Zoning. There are tools in Zoom Webinar for public meetings that Teams cannot provide at this point.
4
Director of IT in Software, 201 - 500 employees
I do not see Team as direct competitor to Zoom or alternative of Zoom. Teams is part of larger saas offer as part of O355 so if an organization uses O365 heavily teams have the native integrations and can do stiff that others can’t. For example teams has pbx capabilities but I don’t think it has intention to be direct competitor to any pbx. There are many organizations that uses both so Zoom and Teams does not exclude each other
5 1 Reply
Director in Manufacturing, 1,001 - 5,000 employees

Agree completely.  The precursor Business SKYPE, which is slightly different that personal SKYPE is a better comparison to ZOOM, WEBEX, GENESYS etc.   However, our company dropped business SKYPE, & WEBEX and went full TEAMS to replace as our IP Phone solution, and conferencing tool, even for external meetings.  TEAMS just wasn't ready for that in 2018, and still isn't in my opinion.  If you do depend and use all the other O365 features, there isn't a replacement for TEAMS.  And that is Microsoft's strategy.   For purely hosting a virtual meeting, Business SKYPE was better than TEAMS, and WEBEX and other dedicated conferencing tools are better than Business SKYPE.

3
CIO in Software, 51 - 200 employees
Of course there are concerns...process  mining, master data management, performance, process and workflow compliance, vendor lock in, source code control, security, patch management, automation, integration, reporting..a lot. IT work is only getting bigger with it. We need to build a whole ecosystem around it but business benefit is too big to ignore
4

Content you might like

Do you agree with this statement? By 2025 Cyber Attackers Will Have Weaponized Operational Technology Environments to Successfully Harm or Kill Humans.

Disruptive & Emerging TechnologiesAugmented & Virtual Reality (AR/VR)Bots+3 more

Strongly Agree9%

Agree65%

Neutral15%

Disagree11%

Strongly Disagree0%


223 PARTICIPANTS
889 views1 Upvote

If you are a current SAP customer, when do you plan to migrate to SAP S/4HANA?

People & LeadershipStrategy & ArchitectureCloud+73 more

No plans on undergoing a migration yet34%

Currently deploying SAP S/4HANA27%

Migrating to SAP S/4HANA within the next 1-2 years19%

Migrating to SAP S/4HANA within the next 3-6 years10%

Already have SAP S/4HANA in production9%


3998 PARTICIPANTS
31.5k views154 Upvotes32 Comments

Any guidance for an org that’s growing its software engineering team to a distributed, global model? What mistakes are commonly made that should be avoided?

EngineeringTeam & Organizational DesignTalent Management & Performance
21 views

As we all work to define the 'value' of Data, Digital and Technology in our respective companies - what 'categories of value' are you defining against which you track milestones beyond the more traditional financial categories linked to things like Return On Investment (ROI)?

Process ManagementKPIs, Metrics & Reporting
Read More Comments
2.3k views1 Upvote5 Comments

What are your suggestions for tools that integrate Apple devices into the enterprise Single Sign On (SSO)?

InfrastructureSecurity & GRCManagement Tools
80 views