If you use Microsoft Teams but notice any performance issues, or the software tends to eat up more battery life than you think is reasonable, Microsoft is looking to fix both of those issues.
As reported by The Verge, the company is testing a new version of the communication app and readying its widespread launch. According to the “sources familiar with Microsoft’s plans,” the company has already started to “broadly” test the next generation of Teams with employees. Microsoft plans to roll out a preview of the new version of Teams in March.
Known as Microsoft Teams 2.0 or 2.1 internally, Microsoft has been working on this new Teams client for years. The app should use 50 percent less memory, tax the CPU less, and result in better battery life on laptops.
The details line up with a series of tweets by Rish Tandon. The former CVP of Engineering for Microsoft Teams said that the new version of Teams would be completely rebuilt from the ground up, “moving away from Electron to Edge Webview2. Teams will continue to remain a hybrid app but now it will be powered by #MicrosoftEdge. Also Angular is gone. We are now 100% on reactjs.”
The executive said that the changes would allow Teams to support “multiple accounts, work life scenarios, release predictability, and scale up for the client.”
Microsoft reportedly plans to roll out the new version of Teams in a preview in March. Users who try out the new version will, according to the report, be able to switch back to the original app if need be.
The news comes a couple of weeks after the company launched Teams Premium, a new tier of service that integrates the communication service with OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, to enable new AI features like Intelligent Recap, Personalized Timeline Markers, and improved live translation. Microsoft also recently integrated OpenAI’s technology into Bing, which it has been recently rolling out widely.
