Today’s business world is making a deep dive into virtual project collaboration. One oddly positive side-effect of self-isolation has involved the widespread discovery and embrace of a powerful, efficient way for individuals to work and communicate remotely, from one-to-one conversations to large-scale digital meetings. For instance, it seems like practically everyone has either used or heard about Zoom by now. But up to 75 million inhabitants of the Windows ecosystem are now making use of another integrated collaborative platform -- Microsoft Teams.

Like Slack and Zoom, the other two heavy hitters in this arena, Microsoft Teams enables your employees to use videoconferencing, screen sharing, file sharing, and chat to conduct virtual meetings fluently. However, it holds one special advantage over its rivals: full integration with Microsoft’s own popular line of productivity apps, including Trello, Smartsheet, Mural, and ServiceDesk, not to mention old favorites like Outlook and Calendar. (Third-party developers are producing more and more new productivity apps all the time; some app-creation platforms even let you even build your own.)

Does your organization currently maintain a Microsoft 365 business subscription? If so, then you (like some 258 million other subscribers) are free to use Microsoft Teams at no additional charge. Why not use a platform that your subscription already pays for, instead of purchasing an entirely separate solution -- one that lacks Microsoft Teams’ compatibility with the apps you regularly use?

You might find that other collaborative platforms do specific things better than Microsoft Teams. Slack, for instance, is famous for its killer-app chat, while Zoom boasts a uniquely clean and simple user interface. For overall productivity in a Windows-based office, however, you’ll find Microsoft Teams hard to beat.

Want to get started with Microsoft Teams or any other new software? Contact our Austin IT support team at Gravity Systems!