According to the head of Microsoft, the Teams communication platform is used by 280 million people every month. And these people will appreciate what the development team has produced new version of the client for Windows, which is significantly faster. The manufacturer calls it a new chapter for Microsoft Teams, said to have listened to user feedback.
Teams were therefore rebuilt from the ground up. This, along with other optimizations, resulted in the following performance improvements:
- installation takes place up to 3x faster,
- the client starts up to 2x faster,
- connecting to a meeting is up to 2x faster,
- switching chats and channels is up to 1.7x faster,
- the client consumes up to 50% less memory,
- the client consumes up to 70% less storage space.
GigaOm came up with these numbers for Microsoft. In order for the development team to improve performance, changed the architecture. The web client has replaced the AngularJS framework with React and uses shell components Fluent. The entire application does not run in Elektron, but in WebView2.
The new corporate Teams are no longer so prominently purple and change the way channel content is displayed
But beware, there comes a moment of confusion that inevitably had to happen. The old architecture was used by Teams for business, not the consumer version. Microsoft does not even indicate if the service will finally be unified into a single client. In any case, the described changes affect the corporate client.
Redesign Teams
At the same time, there will be a redesign of Teams, which will not be dramatic, but evolutionary. Most of these novelties reach the client in June, and some even at the end of the year. The design team considers it to be one of the biggest changes intervention in the form of channels. New threads will no longer appear at the bottom, but at the top.
A preview of some elements in the new Teams
Adding posts to the bottom gave the impression of a chat, which was said to confuse users. You will be able to enter the thread and then the environment will resemble a chat again. Every now and then the environment became simpler and the buttons became less. You’ll also see thumbnails of your audience as you present.
The new Teams support components from Loop, which recently entered the next phase of public testing, so you can try it out too. Visually, the whole package is there designed in Windows 11 style. So it uses Mica material, the distinctive purple has almost disappeared from the main environment, Microsoft has painted the gray areas white.
According to Microsoft Teams, they are entering a new era:
You can also set an avatar for each chat separately if you want. You can also choose your own color for the chat bubbles. Wallpapers will be added at the end of the year. From a practical point of view, it will be a big change support multiple accounts at once, so you won’t have to log out and log in anymore. It is also expected to deploy Copilot, which will, for example, summarize the content of the meeting.
The final version of the new Microsoft Teams client will arrive in the second half of 2023. However, if companies want to, they can start testing it. The version for Windows is already available, it will reach macOS in the second half of the year.
Resources: Microsoft Design | Microsoft Teams | Microsoft Teams Blog (1, 2)
