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- Microsoft Teams Together Mode is being officially retired
- Launched in 2020 during the pandemic, it aimed to offer the feeling of "being in the room" with others
- But Microsoft says other features can now do the job better
Microsoft has confirmed it is ending Together Mode in Teams, putting an end to one of its most ambitious video conferencing tools.
Launched in 2020 at the height of the pandemic, Together Mode let Microsoft Teams users turn their calls into a virtual keynote, lecture theatre or meeting room, with the goal of “making it feel like you’re sitting in the same room with everyone else”, giving them the chance to better connect with their friends or co-workers at a time when lockdowns were in full force.
But with many offices now back open and in-person meetings sadly becoming more common, Microsoft says it has chosen to end the tool in favor of working on other improvements.
Goodbye Together Mode
"We’re always working to make meetings easier to join, simpler to manage, and better for everyone, regardless of device or network conditions," Katarina Tranker, a Product Manager on the Microsoft Teams team wrote in a company blog post announcing the change.
"As part of that ongoing effort, we’re retiring Together mode in Microsoft Teams."
Tranker noted that the "core need" which Together mode was designed to support can now be fully met by the modern Gallery view in Teams, which is able to display up to 49 participants at once.
The changes will "simplify the meeting experience" and "reduce complexity behind the scenes", she added, whilst also allowing Microsoft to focus its "engineering investments" towards improvements which will benefit every Teams meeting, "such as video quality, stability, and performance".
The blog post also added that Teams has added a range of new meeting layout options over the years, leading to possible choice overload for users, and a possibly fragmented experience across desktop, web, mobile, and Teams Rooms.
Removing Together Mode in favor of a single Gallery view will hopefully make it easier for users to quickly access the meeting they need, and cut down on complexity across the board.
Users will still be able to utilize specialized backgrounds, with companies able to publish branded themes or images for their meetings or town halls.
The news is the latest update to Microsoft Teams as the company looks to ensure its online collaboration tool remains relevant for users.
Among its most recent upgrades are a new feature which will automatically update a user's work location when they connect to an office Wi-Fi network - hopefully meaning less confusion about where workers are situated, but could be bad news for those of us looking for a quiet day in the office tucked into a corner.
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