Microsoft added the Teams “Together” feature during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 to help employees feel as if they were working together in the same space. Now that everyone is back in the office, the company is eliminating this feature and moving users to the Gallery. Microsoft explained in its Insider blog that the move will reduce the complexity of implementation while boosting video quality.
Microsoft justified the cuts to Together mode, saying that it “increases cognitive load for users” and “adds implementation complexity across all platforms.” It also suggested that this mode could create an unstable video experience on mobile and other “minor” devices that lack processing power.
Gallery Mode, in contrast, will allow “smoother video on modest devices” through adaptive video tile counting that prevents machine overload. It will also simplify the meeting interface and resources can be put into improvements like “super-resolution, denoising, and improved color accuracy,” Microsoft said.
A big elephant in the room is that Teams is widely disliked by users. One of the main reasons often cited for this is performance issues and another is that teams are overly complex. Dropping together could help with both of those issues, provided Microsoft redirects resources toward making the “fundamental video improvements” it’s promising.
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