Technology
Like Zoom, you 're going to see 49 people this fall Microsoft teams.
Microsoft is extending to 49 participants, which was announced on a blog post Monday, in the course of a team meeting. The maximum number of members participating in a private team meeting is 250; the paid plans of rival Zoom allow up to 500 at one time.
But the 49-person screen view — which was announced less than Microsoft planned less than two weeks ago — meets Zoom's max. Teams are set to present this month 's view for 49-person as a preview for all users.
It is one of many features that Microsoft adds to teams.
The goal is to support its educational product teams, which the company says are involved in the remote learning industry with over 150 million students , faculty and institutional leaders and teachers. However, the organization does not say how many educators use it concurrently.
Apart from the wider view, Education Teams have open spaces where students work in smaller groups, study reports and insights into teachers and a student lever option. It also implements controls to ensure that students can not unattendedly begin class meetings and restrict who can attend a meeting.
Education teams will also include a lobby area, where participants can be verified before admission. It is not clear if these apps are desktop only.
Microsoft says it adds new features based on what teams of educational customers have heard, including teachers and educational leaders, many of whom expect more than before the pandemic to utilize technology. Most of the educators surveyed by Microsoft expect to be a mixture of remote and traditional in-class learning in the 2020-21 school year.
The teams are pushing new features to a halt in the first quarter of 2020 when they try to reach Zoom, which saw enormous growth.
Besides the latest redesign of the 49-person Zoom view, teams have recently added a possibility to personalized background images, and introduced a real-time noise reduction feature in March, with more people starting to function remotely because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
