Microsoft Teams Balloons To 44 Million Daily Users Amid COVID-19 Outbreak

Companies all around the country have sent employees home to work amid the coronavirus/COVID-19 outbreak to help prevent the spread of the virus. Many of those people who are working from home are communicating with teams and coworkers using Microsoft Teams, which just so happened to turn three years old this week. Amid the coronavirus outbreak, Microsoft has seen unprecedented use of Teams, noting that it now has more than 44 million daily users.

That figure has grown by 12 million users in the last seven days alone. Microsoft says those 44 million daily users have generated over 900 million meeting and calling minutes on Teams each day this week. Microsoft says that it has become "very clear" that enabling remote work is more important than ever and will continue to have lasting value beyond the coronavirus outbreak.

The coronavirus outbreak could be the push many companies needed to let more workers work from home. After the outbreak passes, we may see a number of the new remote workers continue to work that way. Even before the coronavirus outbreak, Microsoft Teams had a large number of remote workers and major companies using its services.

According to Microsoft, 93 of the Fortune 100 have used Teams to help employees stay connected and engaged. Out of all the companies using teams, Microsoft boasts that 20 customers have more than 100,000 employees each actively using Teams. That includes Ernst & Young, SAP, Pfizer, and Continental AG. One company, Accenture, has 440,000 employees actively using teams. Overall, over 650 organizations have more than 10,000 users each on Teams.

Microsoft is currently supporting 53 languages and has added new features recently. New features include real-time noise suppression to minimize background noise, and a raise hand feature that lets everyone in the meeting see when someone has something to say. As Microsoft Teams is seeing a boom in use for business, Steam is seeing an uptick in gaming as the service shatters concurrent player records.