Spiceworks study finds the Office 365 app is catching up with Skype for Business in popularity
Elly Yates-Roberts |
Professional network for the IT sector Spiceworks has found that the number of companies using Microsoft Teams is expected to almost double in the next two years, with 41% of IT professionals expecting their employer to use the tool by 2020, compared to 21% today. Despite being launched only two years ago the platform is the second most popular business chat app, with Skype for Business holding the top spot.
Microsoft Teams is free with Office 365 and includes group chat and web conferencing.
“Real-time chat applications that work across multiple operating systems and devices are now ubiquitous,” wrote Peter Tsai, senior technology analyst at Spiceworks in a blog post. “Some of these collaborative chat apps offer functionality that email can’t, including chat rooms, video conferencing, social features and more.
“Overall, the use of collaborative chat apps has grown over the last couple of years, although at different rates. Skype for Business has maintained the lead overall, but we expect this to shift as it gets replaced by Teams. This will likely give Teams an even bigger lead over the next couple [of] years.”
Spiceworks’ study that surveyed 901 IT professionals found that 70% of large businesses, 61% of medium-sized and 58% of small firms are using collaborative chat apps. Large businesses are adopting Teams at a faster rate than small and medium-sized firms.