Microsoft watched as the world went home to work via video chats

Carolyn Adolph

April 09, 2020 / 3:28 pm

Coronavirus has forced office workers home in waves all over the world. Microsoft says the connection medium they're turning to the most, unsurprisingly, is video.

Many organizations today use Teams, a collaboration platform developed by Microsoft. Teams came to home offices as millions were forced to abandon their usual work environments because of the coronavirus.

Data gathered by Microsoft shows people got home and started holding many more video meetings, as well as one-on-one video calls with colleagues.

“We've seen that people are turning on Teams meetings two times more than before many of us began is this kind of full-time, work-from- home experiment,” said Jared Spataro of Microsoft 365.

“And we've seen total video calls on Teams grow by over 1,000% in just the month of March. So it has been a tremendous flocking to video.”

Spataro said the adoption of video calls and meetings varies by country. Workers in Norway and the Netherlands turn to video meetings the most. But countries where internet service is less stable, such as India and South Africa, used video far less.

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Workers in the U.S. are in the middle of the pack when it comes to video adoption. One issue may also be related to a difference in quality between home and office internet service.

There's never been a time like this when so many people have had to transform the way they work overnight, in order to keep their organizations going at a time of crisis. Spataro said using video calls and meetings helps, but it can’t substitute for gathering and working together.

He said Teams offers ways for collaborators to have productive conversations alongside more meeting attendees. And many companies are using a myriad of other platforms and services to keep going.

However, among Spataro's team members, “the moment we'll be able to get back together, we're in a rush back into the office.” he said. “We're going to be really excited about that.”