Microsoft Teams on Fire at Spring Ignite 2021

March 18, 2021 by Dave Michels

TallkingPointz Research Note: Microsoft Teams on Fire at Spring Ignite 2021

1. Microsoft Ignite 2021

1. Ignite has been Microsoft’s annual conference aimed at developers and IT professionals. The last Ignite, also virtual, took place last September. This year, Microsoft opted to split Ignite into a semi-annual event, the first in March 2021. The next Ignite, this fall, may be a physical event. 
2. The last in-person Ignite conference, in 2019, had about 26K attendees.
3. Microsoft Teams received considerable attention at Ignite. Teams is central to Microsoft’s Productivity Suite and vision. 
4. During an earnings call with investors in October, CEO Satya Nadella revealed Microsoft Teams had 115 million daily active users. That’s more than 50 percent higher than the 75 million reported about six months earlier. 
5. It’s difficult to compare Microsoft’s adoption numbers to rivals. Google revealed it has 100 million daily active participants earlier in 2020, and Zoom reported in Aprile that it had 300 million daily active participants. 
6. Microsoft shared a few new metrics at Ignite. Direct Routing call minutes in Teams have grown eightfold, and more than four times as many organizations are using Direct Routing to enable PSTN calling in Teams. Also, Microsoft announced that Teams users placed over 650 million calls in October, up elevenfold from just a few months earlier in March 2020.

2. General Announcements

This report is primarily concerned with Microsoft Teams. Here are just a few of the other major announcements from Ignite Spring 2021: 

1. Microsoft Mesh: Powered by Azure, Mesh aims to bring mixed reality to the enterprise. It will be integrated into Teams and Dynamics 365 sometime in the future. 
2. Azure Active Directory Updates: A new conditional access can customize access policies based on location and device. Also, verifiable credentials for AAD provide a way to issue digital claims about identity attributes. 
3. Azure Percept: A new platform, now in public preview, brings AI to the edge through Azure. 
4. Azure Synapse Pathway: This new tool helps with upgrading to a modern data warehouse platform by automating the code translation of an existing data warehouse. 

Full note: 7 pages, Dave's Thoughts has has 32 points.