Skype vs Microsoft Teams which One is Better for Communication?

Bronze Contributor

Microsoft Teams and Skype are both great communication tools but they address different scenarios and you will need to use them based on your requirement and here I am going to discuss about those requirements.

 

We could say we have two part of communications in our life, those who are communicate in company or place of work. We might be formal with them and we have professional and work-related communication. There are presentations and video conferencing using PowerPoint slides and our communication will be moderated and we need to follow certain rules and regulation. Another part of our communication is when we have informal meeting with our friends and family, we do have some internal rules and there is no formal moderation and management required and we just want to have conversation about anything.

 

Microsoft Teams is like your company office on the internet. There is manager and rules and formal conversation, we have to make sure rules are followed and productivities are being measured, so we need to be able to control the company, share documents, do online presentation and seminars. It could be class where students want to play around, so teacher needs to manage class, make sure students won’t play around with settings to cause trouble for other students. Conversations are focus and there are many monitoring and management tools there and they should be there so your communication feels like you are communicating in Office and when you enters Microsoft Teams, you are inside your office and you act like employee and you have options like one-to-one chat and group chat with your colleagues and so on. If someone causing trouble in company, so ethic community might take action and it is in hand of company, likewise such actions could be taken internally by administrator.

 

Skype is like your home; your friend’s home and it is for communicate informal with others. There is no much like moderation and management and controls and policy. We don’t have a manager or moderator in family meeting. Skype developed to be like your home in cyberspace, you could communicate with your friends and family and have informal communication. If someone disturb you and attempt to abuse Skype, you could report as abuse and block the user and by report abuse Skype team will take required actions (similar to when stranger causing trouble and police will take action).

Therefore, if you want to know whether you want to use Skype or Microsoft Teams, you will need to ask what you are going to do? Are your communication with your coworker in office or you are talking or meeting your friend in your home or in public place. The style of your communication determines which product is more suitable for you.

 

One last communication product is Skype for Business, you could see it like how you see Microsoft Teams and depending on requirement you should decide whether to use Microsoft Teams or Skype for Business. We might have a co-worker who are also close friend, so you could have them on your Skype and Microsoft Teams.

2 Replies

@Reza_Ameri-Archived 

 

Comparing Teams and Skype is an interesting discussion as there is certainly a fair amount of confusion amongst some users as to how they differ etc and the lines are becoming increasingly blurred.

 

 Skype for business for example is going to get phased out (ending July 31st 2021) and be replaced by Teams. So in a business environment Teams is the way to go for sure. You can of course (if enabled in O365 settings) include skype accounts in meetings, add them as contacts etc (they dont get all the same features like document collaboration of course).

 

Also, and this is just my feeling & not officially confirmed, I think Skype consumer edition will get phased out also and MS will push people to user Teams 'consumer' version. A strong indication of that was when they released the free Teams version in late 2018. Whilst targeted at small businesses etc and as a direct challenge to slack, I can see this version of teams being pushed as the new skype for end users.

 

So whilst I agree that Skype currently is the tool for  'home' and Teams for 'work' a large part of that is due to people being familiar with Skype as Teams already can fulfill any function Skype can. It will take time to bring Teams into the consciousness of the general public. Its a big call to replace something so well known it has become a verb. For example 'skype me later' is instantly understood were as 'Teams me tonight' would elicit confused looks in response.

Im sure Microsoft will want to make any transition very carefully in order to limit any damage such a high profile product and user base such as Skype. The whole COVID-19 situation though will actually have helped them in a way by bringing Teams into public view for considerably more people than before in a very short space of time. That , along with the considerable uptake in the business world that is placing Teams amongst other essential office tools like Word, Excel, Outlook etc will likely only accelerate Teams consumer along the path of replacing Skype.

 

 

@philrice, I would like to thank you for taking time and reading my post and thank you for your valuable insights on this discussion.

 

One limitation of Microsoft Teams is being on public cloud and some users would be looking for on-premise solution (private cloud). However, Microsoft Communication services were all in two separate lines, one for business and one for consumer. So let way when it was Microsoft Lync, it was also Skype. And business model of Skype and Microsoft Teams are different. For example, from my experience lecturer and teachers prefer Microsoft Teams for its administrative features and presentations function and moderation and they report like they want such feature on Skype (some students will remove others from meeting in Skype) . While in causal meeting like family and friends people don't like such administrative feature and it is troublesome for them. So depending on scenario, they will decide which one is better.

 

I guess we might see more integrity between Skype and Microsoft Teams but they would have separate lines. I am saying this based on experience with Skype and Skype for Business where we could search contacts and gives ability to communicate with Skype users in Skype for Business. Microsoft will drive by customer's feedback and we have to observe users' experience and encourage them to share their feedback in both products.