Microsoft Teams: The All-in-One Solution for Everything

Today, we’re going to take a closer look at Microsoft Teams, which over the past few years has revolutionized the concept of integrated collaboration tools (also known as Unified Communications). Here’s an overview of what this extraordinary product has to offer.

We exchange...in teams!

It is important to look back at the various changes Microsoft has undergone over the years regarding its desire and need for interfaces related to communication and collaborative management. For those who remember, back in the days of Office 2007, Microsoft launchedCommunicator, a chat system integrated with Office (requiring the deployment of a Communicator Server, linked to a specific environment Exchange). Voice features could only be used between environments within the same domain. This solution was itself an evolution of an older product known asNetMeeting. It wasn’t untilOffice Live Meetingthat we had a solution offering a fully integrated environment within a single interface—including audio vi VOIP , video, and document sharing—all of which were fully secure.

Subsequent iterations, such as Lync and Skype For Business, have enabled Microsoft to evolve its offering, also providing the ability to create comprehensive telephone management systems (including the ability to manageSIP trunks). This approach requires having servers dedicated to this purpose within the IT infrastructure. Skype For Business, being integrated into the offering of Microsoft 365, paved the way for the transition of telephony and collaboration needs to the cloud.

To understand what a " SIP Trunk " is and how it differs from analog telephony, here's a video:

Microsoft Teams was launched in 2017. At that time, Slack was the main competitor in the collaboration space. The goal was to provide a comprehensive user experience, entirely based on SaaS , that was easy to deploy within companies. Here is the interface of its competitor, Slack:

Slack does not include a phone feature. The need to better organize collaboration within the suite Office 365 is evident, Skype For Business as it is primarily a tool for video conferencing and telephony. Although document sharing and screen sharing are available, certain features expected from other Microsoft solutions are still missing—and that’s where Teams steps in to meet those needs. The administration and resource management for Teams is handled through cloud Microsoft’s platform, in Office 365:

For those who aren't (yet) familiar with Microsoft Teams, here's a brief video introduction:

Here is a condensed training course on Microsoft Teams, for beginners:

Now that we’ve covered the main features of Teams and its interface, let’s talk about the integrations available on Teams. One of these is the use ofphone services on Teams. When it comes to this feature, not everyone in countries where Teams is available has the same options. In Switzerland, you must use local carriers (Sip Trunk). To do so, you can rely on specialists like Lambert Consulting to guide you toward the Teams phone system best suited to your business.

Here is a video presentation (in English) about telecommunications at Microsoft Teams:

In short... can we work together?

Microsoft Teams represents a major advancement in activities related to Office 365. The ability to integrate with third-party applications and invite external collaborators into your environment are just a few of the features that allow Microsoft Teams to claim a leading position among enterprise collaboration tools—as well as for organizations of all sizes. It’s also worth noting that Teams is available for free (with some limited features), making it very easy to set up a work environment for a small business. It’s also important to note that the Microsoft client Teams is available on all operating systems (Windows, Mac, Linux, Android, and iOS).

Author: Michel Aguilera