Why Microsoft Teams is so much better than zoom and leeway for collaboration

I’ve been a bit of a naysayer from Microsoft Teams for the past few months.

During the COVID-19 lockdowns, I disapproved of the complexity of this collaboration app and avoided it like a wet gym sock. I thought:

Microsoft does not understand how we work. The app has too many functions. It doesn’t fit the lifestyle of modern home workers. I hate the color purple.

It was like a big lump of bloated software collecting dust in an application drawer. I didn’t want to click on it, and I didn’t want to know how it worked. Sometimes I reluctantly posted a few documents and tested features, all the while wishing I was back on Slack.

I’ve consistently told people that Microsoft Teams is a joke.

I was wrong.

In the past, I’ve advocated for Slack and Zoom because, at least in most of my day-to-day work, they are functional, streamlined, and intuitive. It’s easy to chat with people on Slack, and the features are so easy and simple that you can teach them to a newly-hit intern (depending on the intern). Zoom became de facto for most employees because the video chats are smooth and reliable.

Using teams with a real – you know–team the past weeks have completely changed my perception. I think it’s a bit bloated, with too many features that people will never use. There’s a task management system called Planner that’s just a click away, but it lacks serious automations and is a whole galaxy away from the power and simplicity of Trello. It’s incredibly annoying that you can’t jump into threads like you can in Slack. And don’t even get me started on some missing video chat features. (When you turn off your camera in Teams, you become an icon, a small photo at the bottom of the screen. I keep thinking someone isn’t on a call and ask when they join. In Zoom, you see a blank screen.)

And yet, here we are. I like Teams.

Microsoft has made a name for itself in technology because of one word. Maybe it’s a multi-billion dollar business too simple, but the word is integration. Outlook is integrated with Word which is integrated with Teams. Over the years people have used a different word for that (monopoly), but if you’re trying to finish a report and you’re alone in the office, the integration is excellent. I was able to start a video meeting with people with one click. Excellent! I can do that in Slack. But then in a few more clicks I was able to add 17 more people, as well as schedule meetings with them in Teams, and collaborate on a Word document.

I will go further a few steps. I’m now starting to think that Teams is much better for collaboration during the (hopefully final months) of the pandemic. We need integration now more than ever. If I can click once to start a meeting with 10 people instead of sending them the link, I’ll take it. Listen to me: the individual tools in the Microsoft ecosystem aren’t always better. I prefer Slack and Zoom. What I’ve found is that the COVID-weary version of me prefers one ecosystem that can do everything. The pandemic has changed my views.

That leads us to Google. There are only two companies vying for dominance in the total productivity of knowledge workers. (Unfortunately, Apple doesn’t seem to know what they’re doing in this regard. There is no Slack, Zoom, or Teams alternative for actual business productivity.) Google and Microsoft are the two that stand up.

Google comes closest to Microsoft in making it all run smoothly and intuitively, but Google Meet is a long way from Teams. They are not even in the same class. If only it wasn’t! I prefer Google Docs to the online version of Microsoft Word, and Gmail (as part of Google Workspace, which used to be called G-Suite) is much better than Microsoft Outlook, especially for those of us who never delete an email and rely on an inbox search every five seconds.

For now, it’s easy to start a video chat (and add a team) in Microsoft Teams and integration with Outlook for group chat scheduling.

When things finally get back to normal, I might be ready for the sleek, simple and intuitive approach with Slack and Zoom. We will see.