For some time now, with the rise of telework, communication and collaboration tools on the Internet have become increasingly popular in the workplace. Among them, two applications such as Zoom and Microsoft Teams stand out, which compete with each other to offer the best solution within the field of communication.
Microsoft Teams has been a tool that has experienced spectacular growth since our quarantine in 2020. For its part, Zoom has become one of the key platforms, especially in educational centers during that same time. The two have become key tools since then and although they seem very similar applications, they have marked differences.
Zoom, videoconferencing your specialty
It is an application created in 2011 and specially designed to make video calls in the cloud. It is currently used to hold internal meetings within the same organization or external between different users. It is also used to hold seminars, press conferences or within the student environment such as institutes or universities to teach non-face-to-face classes.
That is why we are faced with a tool that focuses more on communication than on team collaboration. To offer more collaborative solutions, it can be integrated into a platform like Slack to be used within it. When it comes to videoconferencing, participants will be able to set up live chats, both audio and video. It allows to host groups of up to 100 people for free, being able to expand the number in its payment options up to 10,000 active members
Microsoft Teams, aimed at team collaboration
Originally launched in 2016, Themes has become the great bet as a collaboration and communication platform by Microsoft. Above all, from its enormous growth during the quarantine of 2020. Its popularity has been such that it has managed to unseat Skype as a video calling application in the new Windows 11 operating system, which will be released next October.
It is characterized by having full integration with Microsoft 365 so it can be especially useful for organizations and companies that have a subscription, making it especially easy to share calls, meetings and documents. It is also worth mentioning that its interface is not too friendly, it consumes a lot of system resources and only allows internal meetings within the same collaboration team. It supports video meetings of up to 300 people simultaneously with no time limit, as well as streaming events. In addition, you have the possibility of making both group and private written chats.
When to use each app
As we have commented, the key difference between the two applications is that Microsoft Teams is an integrated platform developed for collaboration and communication , facilitating many of the facets of working life within an organization without the need to resort to external platforms. On the other hand, Zoom is an exclusive tool for making virtual calls . It does not have the collaboration power of Teams but it does, in addition to allowing internal meetings, it also allows them externally. To use it as a collaboration tool, it is necessary to integrate Zoom with a dedicated application such as Slack.
That is why both tools are ideal for the type of function they are designed for. If we are looking for a tool with which to make group video calls with any user, Zoom is the option. If we are looking for a more complete communication and collaboration tool to be used within the same organization, Microsoft Teams is the choice.
