I was looking at all the coverage of Windows 11 and a few things caught my eye. One is Teams. I understand everything is about Teams. Now an apps platform for collaboration within the enterprise. People used to centre things on Outlook but in 2021 it appears Teams is becoming the hub of activity with Outlook taking a step back to a degree.
However, at home my Microsoft 365 Family subscription gives me 60 minutes of Skype calls a month. I do use this rather than my landline when sitting at my PC. While many people are now using Zoom, I will still Skype some people. They are often surprised by the incoming call because they had forgotten that Skype starts automatically. Once the shock is over, they can still do Skype.
Microsoft spent $8 billion on Skype. For the brand and as its primary consumer IM and video system. Yet we now have Teams for families. I am trying to get around how, as an individual, the concept of a “team” works. My wife has an iphone and we imessage or Skype. I guess I need to check if Teams interoperates with Skype. I have not really tested this as a consumer.
Microsoft hasn’t really made the move to Teams for consumers. The product is there but it doesn’t seem to be doing as much as Skype. Is Skype dead? Is the $8 billion a write-off now? I don’t know. Teams for consumer seems very odd right now and I don’t know how to even get my head around it.