Microsoft Teams — The WAVE is coming…time to grab your surfboard!

In the last 12 years, I have never witnessed as big a wave of excitement and momentum in the UC industry as right now with Microsoft Teams. Microsoft has done a fantastic job meeting/beating the product development roadmap and it’s paying off. Every single client that we speak with wants to talk about Teams. In the last 4 days, I’ve met with 24 prospective clients (in partnership with Microsoft) and here are the most frequently asked questions:

What is the difference between Skype for Business and Teams?

Skype for Business (SfB) is an enterprise real-time communication solution for chat (1:1 and group), online meetings and enterprise voice. SfB is rock solid and used globally by some of the largest organizations. The difference with Microsoft Teams is that it delivers both real-time and asynchronous team collaboration. Teams leverages the intellectual property and technology from Skype for Business (and the rest of the Microsoft IP chest) in an improved, more robust environment that brings persistent team/group chat spaces, native hooks to Office 365 apps (and many 3rd party apps) and some BIG improvements for real-time communication (specifically the video quality in the desktop, web and mobile apps).

Can Teams replace my current web/video meetings tools?

Yes. As an veteran of the UC space, I’ve seen my fair share of web/video meeting tools over the years. I am excited to report (based on my experience) that Microsoft Teams stands tall against anything on the market today for online meetings. The new features planned for June 2018 will address the remaining requirements for clients looking to replace legacy, disparate meeting tools with Microsoft Teams. The most common meeting tools that we are speaking with organizations about replacing with Teams today are WebEx, GoTo Meeting and Zoom.

Important caveat: if you have end users that use online meetings for advanced use cases (e.g. online learning environments with breakout rooms), that is not currently supported in Teams. If you have any questions about what’s available, feel free to ask questions in the comment field below.

Is Microsoft Phone System ready for prime time?

It depends on your requirements. We are working with organizations of all sizes (500–20,000 end users) with standard phone requirements and initial Microsoft Phone System pilots are going very well. We are also working with organizations with complex requirements (e.g. contact center) and Teams (as as standalone) isn’t quite ready (but it will be soon).

Our recommendation is to evaluate the possibilities with Teams in a controlled pilot with a defined group of users. Arkadin has created a Teams Pilot program in partnership with Microsoft to guide clients through the Teams testing journey. For more information on the Pilot process: request here.

How much does Teams cost?

Microsoft Teams licensing is included in all 3 Office 365 enterprise licenses (E1, E3, E5) at no additional charge. Woohoo! Persistent Chat (1:1 & Group), online meetings (with VoIP Audio, Video and screen share) and native integration to Office 365 suite is all included.

The additional charges come into play for:

• Dial-in Audio Conferencing (with E1, E3: $4 USD p/user p/month. E5 it’s included at no additional charge)
• Microsoft Phone System (with E1, E3: $8 USD p/user p/month. E5 it’s included at no additional charge)
• Calling Plans (see more info here)
• Managed Services (for organizations that want to make a great first impression and manage the user transition carefully, there are partners like Arkadin that can help consult, plan, deploy and operate Teams as a managed service)

What does the transition look like from SfB to Teams?

This is an important question and it’s difficult to answer without digging into all the facts of an organizations current situation. At a high-level, there are 2 approaches: the simple upgrade journey and the gradual upgrade journey. Here is an article that explains it in great detail.

Simple Upgrade Journey

In a simple upgrade journey, you first deploy Teams in Skype for Business with Teams collaboration–only mode as part of evaluation and early adoption, and then implement Teams-only mode with the goal of eventually retiring Skype for Business from the environment for all users in the organization.

Gradual Upgrade Journey

A gradual upgrade journey delivers a specific upgrade mode to a specific group of users (also called a cohort), depending on their communications and collaboration requirements. Over time, the entire organization can converge into using Teams only and eventually replace Skype for Business. However, if your organization has compelling business reasons to keep Skype for Business — such as a dependency on a Unified Communications Managed API (UCMA)–based solution that integrates with line-of-business applications, or an ethical wall solution currently available for Skype for Business only — you can upgrade a majority of users to Teams-only mode while retaining Skype for Business users in one of the Skype for Business modes for a portion of your user population.

Should we deploy SfB or go straight to Teams?

Organizations that are looking at Microsoft as a greenfield UC deployment are now presented with a decision; SfB or Teams? It’s important to call out that it doesn’t have to be one or the other. Microsoft has developed Teams to allow organizations to leverage both apps until Teams reaches feature parity with Skype for Business Online.

Here is what we are hearing/seeing as decision points:

• Required workloads (If collaboration/meetings/standard phone; Teams is ready for prime time. If advanced telephony functionality is required, may require mix of SfB and Teams).
• User demographics/personas (A user population open to new technology and okay with continuously evolving platforms is a great fit for Teams. A user population that is hesitant to change may be a better fit for Skype for Business right now)

What’s the best way to test Teams?

We’ve seen 2 approaches:

1. organic approach: activate licenses and see what happens
2. managed approach: professionally-managed project run by a service provider (or qualified on-staff resources)

Every organization has varying levels of on-staff expertise and/or cycles to properly manage a pilot. First impressions matter with new technology in the enterprise. We recommend option #2 to ensure the best possible user experience with Teams.

What are the gotchas to be aware of?

Teams is evolving quickly. The partner eco-system is working hard to catch up. The gotchas that we are helping clients plan for are:

• devices (headsets, handsets, meeting room systems)
• paging systems
• contact center
• reception console
• gateways

If you have other Teams-related questions, please share them in the comments and I’ll be happy to get answer them.