History and Background of Microsoft Teams

The next generation of Skype for Business is Microsoft Teams. Teams will be the replacement for Skype for Business but, as of writing this book, it is not yet a full replacement. Most users will still need to use Skype for Business as well. We will explore this further in The Parts of Skype for Business section.

Before the development of Teams, Microsoft had seriously considered buying Slack, which is now the direct competitor to Microsoft Teams. The news broke on March 4^th 2016 about Microsoft's consideration, which was opposed by Bill Gates. He thought that Microsoft should focus on improving Skype for Business instead. The Executive Vice President (EVP) of Applications and Services at the time, who wanted to purchase Slack, left Microsoft later that year and Teams was born. Teams was announced on November 2^nd 2016 and launched...