Microsoft Teams would allow up to 49 participants to be on screen in a video meeting at some point in the future. It has now confirmed that a preview of the video meeting feature will be available this month, with a general availability expected by the fall. The feature may not come any sooner for some users, including educators who have been forced to use Teams or Zoom to conduct online classes during the COVID-19. At the start of the pandemic in the US and Europe, Microsoft Teams only allowed four participants to be on screen in a video meeting at a time. In May, it increased that number to nine participants, a limit that a Teams engineer admitted wasn’t good enough. However, as ZDNet reported, teachers complained that the number of nine participants does not meet existing needs, given that classes typically have 30 students, whom teachers must observe.
Some teachers have resorted to “clumsy” solutions to cope with the new conditions, while others have used Zoom for a fee, even though they were Office 365. Teams is integrated with Office 365 for Microsoft’s business and education customers. This week, an anonymous user asked on the Teams user forum to increase the number of participants, which was limited to nine, emphasizing that this limit does not facilitate online teaching and, moreover, asked for an update on when this feature would be available. Another user named Barry commented on the same forum that he wants to see all participants in a video meeting, as is the case with Zoom, noting that Zoom requires someone to pay extra to access some features.
This numerical limit is a significant difference between Microsoft Teams and Zoom, which already allows up to 49 participants to appear on the screen at the same time. Because of this feature and its general ease of use, Zoom has seen daily user growth during the pandemic. Specifically, from 10 million users before the health crisis, it reached 200 million users in March. Microsoft earlier this month began allowing these Teams users to create video meetings, in addition to joining them, that are created by paid Teams accounts. And last week it enabled custom backgrounds in Teams. Barbara Holzapfel, Microsoft’s General Manager of Education, said that it is important for teachers to be able to see all their students at the same time during online teaching, as it increases student participation and social and emotional connection.
That’s why, previewing the new feature this month and making it generally available in the fall, the company will support up to 49 participants on screen at once. In the fall, educators will be able to create virtual Breakout rooms so students can meet and collaborate in small groups. Also coming this fall is a new trending view to enhance Teams for Education’s analytics capabilities, such as class participation reports and Class Insights to show student engagement. Microsoft will also add a new meeting feature to Teams that will prevent students from starting meetings without a teacher present. Since the outbreak of the pandemic, Microsoft has been working on developing new features aimed at keeping Office 365 users in Teams, boosting group chat in Teams from 100 to 250 participants and introducing Skype for consumers and Teams. Microsoft has also improved broadcasting capabilities, using Skype technology, and made it easier to install custom Power Apps-based business apps in Teams.
