MICROSOFT TEAMS ANNOUNCEMENT BACKGROUND UPDATE

My personal favorites are custom channel announcement backgrounds, improved search and domain-specific search, and calling shortcuts for Teams Phone. Read on to learn more about the latest updates and how they can benefit you and your organization. From the new Microsoft Teams app in VDI to improvements in chats, webinars, town halls, Teams Phone, Teams Devices, Platform, and Frontline Workers, there is something for everyone. This month, we are excited to showcase 49 new features and enhancements that will help you collaborate more effectively, streamline your workflow, and stay connected with your team.

MICROSOFT TEAMS ANNOUNCEMENT BACKGROUND UPDATE

This is another move by Microsoft in the battle to gain and retain users of its collaborative working platform and to ‘make hay while the sun shines’ in terms of maximising the surge in demand created by the pandemic and directed by Microsoft’s advertising campaigns.Īnnouncing the roll-out of these new features and the enhancements to the free version of Teams will help Microsoft to compete against challengers Zoom and Slack, and will add value for users and give them more reasons to stay loyal to Teams.Happy New Year! Welcome to our December 2023 update of What's New in Microsoft Teams. Other features that users of the free version of Teams (up to 500,000 users) get include unlimited chat and search, audio and video calling, 10 GB of team file storage and 2 GB of personal file storage per person, the ability to use the Office web apps (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote) and unlimited app integration. These include being able to schedule meetings and send out invitations in advance, and to turn on live captions during calls and meetings to make them more inclusive. With Zoom announcing end-to-end-encryption for its free version, Microsoft now has its own new, competitive features for the free version of Teams. New Features For The Free Version of Teams The types of backgrounds that Microsoft says its Teams users now have access to include The Simpsons living room, a mountain of LEGO building blocks, a collection from Fox (the Masked Singer, Family Guy, Duncansville and more), an Xbox theme, a blue or green Microsoft Solitaire background and event-specific collections such as 20 virtual backgrounds for users to show their support for the LGBTQI+ community.

Commercially, it looks likely to be another way to help Teams to compete against the likes of Zoom, which has grown its user base exponentially during the lockdown.

The stated idea behind the change is that it offers an easy and fast way for users to get creative and to express themselves in meetings.

The new background feature enables users to use custom backgrounds by uploading their own images or choosing one of the collections of backgrounds available online.

New Features in Teamsįollowing on from its original announcement in April about the introduction of pre-selected backgrounds or a blur effect (introduced last year) in video calls on the platform, Microsoft Teams has now announced the roll-out of new custom background effects in Teams, along with new features in the free version of Teams. Microsoft has added custom backgrounds and live captions to Teams in its latest move in the battle between video conferencing and collaborative working online platforms.

Microsoft teams announcement background