- Microsoft Teams Together mode is officially retired
- Launched in 2020 during the pandemic, it aimed to provide the feeling of “being in the room” with others.
- But Microsoft says other features can now do the job better
Microsoft has confirmed that it is ending Together Mode in Teams, ending one of its most ambitious video conferencing tools.
Launched in 2020 at the height of the pandemic, Together mode allowed Microsoft Teams users to turn their calls into a virtual keynote, lecture theater or meeting room, with the aim of “feeling like they’re sitting in the same room as everyone else”, giving them the opportunity to better connect with their friends or colleagues at a time when lockdowns were in effect.
But with many offices now back open and in-person meetings unfortunately becoming more common, Microsoft says it has chosen to discontinue the tool to work on other improvements.
Fashion Goodbye together
“We’re always working to make meetings easier to join, simpler to manage, and better for everyone, regardless of device or network conditions,” Katarina Tranker, Microsoft Teams product manager, wrote in a company blog post announcing the change.
“As part of this ongoing effort, we are retiring Together Mode in Microsoft Teams.”
Tranker noted that the “fundamental need” that Together mode was designed to address can now be fully met by the modern Gallery view in Teams, which is capable of displaying up to 49 participants at once.
The changes will “simplify the meeting experience” and “reduce complexity behind the scenes,” she added, while allowing Microsoft to focus its “engineering investments” toward improvements that will benefit every Teams meeting, “such as video quality, stability and performance.”
The blog post also adds that Teams has added a range of new meeting layout options over the years, leading to possible choice overload for users and a possibly fragmented experience between desktop, web, mobile and Teams Rooms.
We hope that removing Together mode in favor of a single Gallery view will make it easier and faster for users to get to the meeting they need and reduce complexity across the board.
Users will still be able to use specialized backgrounds, with businesses able to post themes or branding images for their meetings or town halls.
This is the latest update to Microsoft Teams, as the company seeks to ensure its online collaboration tool remains relevant to users.
Among its most recent upgrades is a new feature that will automatically update a user’s workplace when they connect to an office Wi-Fi network – which will hopefully mean less confusion about where workers are, but it could be bad news for those of us looking for a quiet day at the office tucked away in a corner.
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