Microsoft Teams v Zoom

2. Built in Meeting Notes

As Zoom is made to be utilised as a video conferencing app, as mentioned earlier in this blog, however Teams is a tool for collaboration, whether that be via a video call, a team chat or sharing your internal documentation.

With internal documentation in mind Microsoft have included built in meeting notes for that very purpose.  Meeting notes are a great place to capture and share notes before, during, and after a Teams meeting.

To access the notes section via the ellipsis (...) on your meeting bar, click Meeting notes and a new tab will be created in the current channel. A link to the notes will also be sent to the channel. This gives you a super quick way of ensuring there's a record of the meeting where all can access it. 

So we make that 2-0 to Teams.

3. Live Captions

We've tried this one in several meetings and it can even recognise accents some of which we can't even understand, so it's a fantastic tool if you have to mute for some reason or to understand that heavy accent.

Don't get us wrong it doesn't get every word correct, however the captions are real-time and appear at the bottom of your screen as in the image below. 

Zoom does offer a closed captioning feature, however it has to be typed manually and there's always margin for error with this as well as it not being real-time.

Another one in the back of the net for Teams, 3-0.

4. Background Blurring

Backgrounds in your video call have become part and parcel of your meetings whether they are bespoke ones, like ours, to advertise your business or just to hide the mess in your front room or home office.

Both Teams and Zoom offer custom backgrounds for your meetings but if you really don't like a background in your call Teams offers background blurring (Zoom doesn't offer it natively) which is showcased perfectly in the video below.

So that's another one for Teams making it 4-0!

5. Virtual Rooms with Colleagues

Virtual rooms, or Together Mode as Microsoft call it, is a relatively new feature for Teams which we wrote about in a blog earlier in the year.  This feature shows you everyone sitting next to each other without the knowledge of the rest of the attendees knowing that's how you are viewing it.  But it is just a quirky way of viewing the call you are on and it is optional! 

Zoom has the option to switch between speaker or gallery view so that you can see the person speaking at that point or everyone in the call at once.

So we can't really give this final one to Teams as these are very different features whilst being on the same lines, so the consolation point goes to Zoom.

Final Score

So that's a pretty convincing win for Teams with a 4-1 win.  As we said at the outset Zoom does have it's place but we love the functionality for business that Teams offers and Microsoft continue to add more bells and whistles all the time.

If you would like to know more about Teams we are running a free 30 minute webinar on Friday 11th December and you can book your place here.

The team at Affinity are available to answer all of your questions about Microsoft 365 and you can talk to them right here.

* Generic images and video courtesy of Microsoft.