Microsoft is launching a new, improved version of the Microsoft Teams chat client, redesigned to be faster and easier to use. The application will finally be available for Windows and Mac and can be downloaded for free. The announcement of the general availability of the new version of Teams was published by Microsoft on October 5 and presents the various improvements to the application, especially in terms of performance and productivity.
According to Microsoft, the updated Teams app is now twice as fast and has 50% less memory. The company said that installing the app would be three times faster and starting or joining meetings would be twice as fast, with the app now taking up 70% less storage space.
Microsoft has also made a significant performance improvement, moving from Teams’ Electron foundations to Microsoft’s Edge WebView2 technology. The company also adopted the React JavaScript library and focused on improving the design of Microsoft Teams using the Fluent design language system for several user interface improvements.
Today, Microsoft is pleased to announce the general availability of the new Microsoft Teams app for Windows and Mac, including for education customers. The new Teams app is also rolling out in public preview for Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) and Government Cloud (GCC, GCC-H, DoD) customers.
Earlier this year, Microsoft ushered in a new era for Microsoft Teams with the public preview of the new Teams application. The goal was to redesign Teams from AZ to deliver a faster, simpler, smarter, and more flexible app that helps you stay productive and collaborate more effectively. The preview version of the new Teams app was up to twice as fast and used 50% less memory.
Since releasing the new version of Teams, Microsoft has made remarkable progress. The new Teams app now offers full parity for almost all features, including custom apps, third-party apps, meeting rooms, 7×7 video, queues, PSTN calling, contextual search across chats and channels, cross-viewing a conversation on a channel, etc much more. Microsoft focused on delivering high-quality performance and improving fundamentals in areas such as reliability, security and IT management to ensure the new Teams app meets the changing needs of your business.
With the move to general availability, new features and improvements will be available exclusively in the new Teams app. It supports Multi-Tenant Organizations (MTO) and Multi-Tenant, Multi-Account (MTMA), enabling seamless communication and collaboration between tenants and accounts across tenant boundaries.
Upgrading to the new Teams app is quick and seamless – no migration required! Classic Teams users will automatically upgrade to the new version of Teams in the coming months. To start your Teams journey today, simply hit the switch in the top left corner of the classic Teams app. With just one click, join the millions of users who rely on the new Teams app to stay connected with colleagues, partners and customers and achieve more together. This report from GigaOm, an independent analytics firm, explains why your organization should prioritize upgrading to the new version of Teams.
A faster, optimized app for better performance across multiple platforms
The Teams application is developed on the React framework to improve the speed and performance of the application on Windows. Using Edge WebView2 to host the new Teams app helped reduce memory and storage usage by sharing resources with Edge. Efforts to update core technology have resulted in a more efficient and reliable Teams app. According to GigaOm, the new Teams app is, on average, twice as fast when it comes to loading the app, joining meetings, and switching between chats and channels, and it uses up to 50% less memory and storage than classic Teams -Application.
There are also significant performance improvements on Mac, including the ability to switch between chats and channels more quickly and access relevant information more quickly and efficiently with more scrolling. Teams runs natively on Mac, providing Mac users with an improved app experience. Mac users now benefit from increased performance through more efficient use of device resources and an optimized Teams experience, even when using multiple high-resolution monitors during calls or meetings. New security improvements on Mac include better application security through a containerized application model, simplified application updates through Microsoft AutoUpdate, and web security enhancements such as Content Security Policy, trusted types, and more.
The new version of Teams also gives you a faster application that is optimized for more efficient use of system resources in your VDI environment. When testing the public version, rolling out this month, we found improvements in latency for key scenarios such as app launch, chat switching, and meeting joining compared to the classic Teams app.
A simplified user experience that allows you to get more done with fewer clicks
The new version of Teams offers a simplified and streamlined user experience, making it easier for you to personalize your experiences, stay on top of your notifications, and get more done with fewer clicks. The Microsoft team is excited to introduce advanced customization options that give Windows and Mac users more control over the interface. The new Teams app automatically selects light or dark mode and switches depending on your system settings, making Teams better fit into your workspace. The new version of Teams offers improved support for color-sensitive users and uses Windows 11 contrast themes so users can choose a color palette that best suits their needs. You can effectively track your message and notification activity with features like Mark All Read in Activity rolling out now and Mark All Read in Chats or Channels coming soon to the new teams .
With the new version of Teams, Microsoft is also making improvements to optimize the experience for people using keyboard shortcuts or screen readers, so everyone can use Teams more fully. You can use keyboard shortcuts more effectively in Teams by seamlessly navigating between list items like the activity feed and discussion threads, allowing you to accomplish more tasks with fewer keyboard shortcuts. Some usability improvements have been made for users using screen readers. These improvements help eliminate repetitive information, make common tasks easier to interpret, organize channel conversations more effectively, whether they are original messages or message replies, and more.
A more flexible app for seamless communication and collaboration between tenants
Companies often need to manage multiple tenants, whether due to mergers and acquisitions or the need to support global subsidiaries and testbeds. The new Multi-Tenancy Organizations (MTO) feature in Teams enables a more seamless experience when collaborating with colleagues in an MTO group and accessing resources in other tenants in the group, regardless of how the identity infrastructure is managed. MTO helps enable rich collaboration and meeting experiences while breaking down silos and uniting users across tenant boundaries. MTO enables users to connect and collaborate with the right users with improved people search results across multiple tenants.
Features like Multi-Tenant, Multi-Account (MTMA) in Teams enable you to collaborate more effectively across organizational boundaries, stay connected to multiple accounts simultaneously, and receive real-time notifications regardless of location. Account used. You can seamlessly interact with users across multiple accounts and organizations without having to disconnect from a call or meeting, which won’t disrupt your workflow.
With the cross-cloud authenticated meeting feature in the new version of Teams, you can seamlessly join a meeting hosted on any Microsoft cloud, whether commercial or government, without logging in to your account having to deregister the original client. The host verifies the participants’ identities at the start of the meeting. You can be sure that other participants do not have access to other information of the host tenant.
A smarter Teams app to improve your productivity
The new Teams app is the foundation for next-generation AI experiences like Microsoft Copilot. Copilot in Teams helps you stay on top of your tasks by allowing you to track conversations, conduct more effective meetings, and bring everything together in one place. Copilot Chat in Teams lets you follow conversations by quickly reviewing key points, actions, and decisions without having to scroll through long threads. You can increase the productivity of your meetings by using Copilot in Teams meetings to summarize key discussion points – including who said what and where people agree or disagree – and suggest action items, all in real time during of a meeting. With the power of Microsoft Graph, Copilot can find and exploit information hidden in documents, presentations, emails, calendar invites, notes and contacts and bring them together in your Teams app.
Start your Teams journey today
The new version of Teams allows Microsoft to bring new features to market faster. New functions and options as well as extensions to existing functions will in future only be available in the new version of Teams.
With just one click you can access the new Teams application. You can easily pick up where you left off in classic Teams, and your chat messages, teams and channels, and apps will appear in the new version of Teams.
For Microsoft enterprise customers, starting with Current Channel, this announcement marks the beginning of the transition to the new version of Teams for end users within the classic Teams application. Microsoft will soon begin making the new version of Teams the default app for all Teams users on a schedule detailed on this page.
Source: Announcement of the new version of Microsoft Teams
And you ?
What do you think of this new version of Microsoft Teams? Which functions do you find interesting and useful?
See also
Microsoft Teams 2 will use half as much memory and abandon Electron for Edge Webview2. The application is intended to be integrated into the Windows 11 taskbar
Microsoft deletes the data of professional Teams users on the free version if they do not upgrade to a paid plan. Discussions or meetings are not saved in the new free Teams
According to a report, Microsoft is preparing a completely redesigned new version of Teams with better performance, which is scheduled to be previewed in March