A gift of gratitude, Microsoft has said that it will lift the time limit placed on video calls from its Teams application, allowing participants to participate in calls that span 24 hours.
This development comes days after rival Zoom announced that it will also lift the 40 minutes time limit (temporarily) on the day of Thanksgiving, to help families spend more time with their family in these tumultuous times. Microsoft, however, has decided to outperform its competitor, announcing that it will allow users will be able to get access to 24-hours of free video and voice calls (permanently) with up to 300 participants.
In a blog post announcing the newly added features, the tech giant informed, “To help you stay connected in the coming months, you will be able to meet for 24 hours with up to 300 participants until further specified.”
This will give Microsoft Teams a massive advantage over Zoom or Google Meet, which have yet to expand their offerings. While Zoom has taken the first step in this direction, it’s just a temporary offering, and with this new announcement, we might see a lot more users gravitate towards the offering from Microsoft, especially for official work.
Microsoft also advertised other added features in the same blog. The company has stated that from now, users will be able to chat with contacts from both iOS and Android even if they do not have the application installed on their phones. The company said, “Simply type a contact’s name or phone number to add them to a group chat and, if they are not on Teams, they can receive and send replies to the group via SMS, keeping the conversation flowing.”
The tech giant also informed that the SMS participants will also get a link to download the application which will make it easier for them to download and install the application. Microsoft has also notified that this feature is available in preview for users in the US and Canada. However, at least for now, it is only available for group chats with two or more participants. While contacting via SMS, standard charges will be applied, the company stated.
The application has also added a feature by which you can get notified when your loved ones leave or arrive at a location. The company also added that to help ensure the privacy of users this location feature will only work if the user is already sharing their location with the person setting up location alert for them. There is also an option by which the user can stop sending the location alert. To disable this feature, the user needs to only stop sharing their location.
With all these new offerings, Microsoft Teams is looking to present itself as the obvious choice when it comes to all your video conferencing needs, and from the looks of it, the plan is going pretty well.
