Is Microsoft Teams Running Better Lately? It's Not Just You, Says Microsoft

The software giant deployed several smart tricks to ensure Microsoft Teams doesn't devour all of your hardware.

Microsoft Teams is the software giant's main offering in the work-from-home market, and the company has been tweaking it to be the best it can be. The tech giant has confirmed that, during internal tests, Microsoft Teams now takes up 50% less CPU and memory since June 2020.

Microsoft's Computer-Saving Updates for Teams

As reported on ZDNet, Microsoft has been working hard to ensure its flagship work-from-home product is the best choice out there. To help this, the company reduced the impact that Teams has on lower-end devices.

There were a lot of challenges Microsoft faced when developing a slimmer Teams app. For instance, the company had to reduce the impact Teams had as the user list grows and people's computers were forced to show you 10+ webcam feeds at once.

Microsoft solved these challenges with some smart thinking. For instance, if you have nine webcam feeds in a three-by-three grid, Microsoft has the feeds rendered as one large video instead of nine smaller ones. Doing so drastically reduces the demand that Teams has on your PC.

Robert Aichner, program manager at Microsoft Research, is keen to get Teams as lightweight as it can be:

"We're committed to ensuring great calling and meeting experiences for users on low-end hardware as well as those on high-end workstations and high-resolution monitors."[...]"One of the factors we've addressed is the difference in power requirements for different customer profiles by ensuring Teams meetings are as energy-efficient as possible, regardless of setup."

A Lightweight Microsoft Teams Against Heavyweight Competition

Microsoft needs all the tricks they can use with Teams to ensure its survival in the modern era. Due to the huge influx of work-from-home employees over the past two years, competition has never been hotter for the top spot of the remote working world.

Apps such as Zoom and Slack have made their mark, with millions of workers relying on their services on a daily basis. As such, if Microsoft wants to maintain Teams as a major competitor in the remote working world, it has to ensure that its app is up to scratch.

Related: Why Microsoft Teams Is Better Than Slack

Microsoft began by making Teams an integral part of Windows 11, thus ensuring that everyone with a modern-day Windows machine had the app pre-installed and ready to go. However, giving everyone easy access to an app doesn't ensure that people will flock to it, as Microsoft learned from Internet Explorer and the early days of Edge.

As such, the company also needs to make Teams the leanest, most reliable app out there. By doing so, it helps convince people;e to use the tools already available to them instead of seeking out third-party solutions. And reducing Teams' impact on low-end PCs is the right way to go.

Making Microsoft Teams the Best It Can Be

With Microsoft Teams facing a lot of competition, it's vital that the company ensures the app runs at its absolute best. Fortunately, the company is already making great strides to reduce its impact on PCs, and it's bound to add more features in the future.

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