Blog: Has Microsoft Teams Just Screwed You?

The buzz this week is that Skype for Business Online is now going to become Microsoft Teams: the UC world has been tweeting and retweeting and posting screen grabs of admin consoles like crazy. On top of this Microsoft Teams has just released Guest Access as a GA feature and the world has been tweeting and RT’ing and blogging about this as well.

On top of all this, MS Ignite is in a couple of days, and you just KNOW they will be dropping a few bombshells in there to get tongues wagging, blogging fingers tapping and tweets flying around the globe.

So let us break this down:

If, as looks to be the case according to herehere and here Skype Online is going to become Microsoft Teams the question seems to be is this just a front-end UI type thing or will it be fundamental changes on the back-end? If it does change the back-end then as Mark Vale says it is a whole new ecosystem. How will this effect On-Prem installations of Skype for Business moving forwards?

With Microsoft Teams now firmly on the product roadmap for O365, what is next for this complete newcomer (and for me most importantly) how is this going to impact on the IT Pro’s skills?

At the point of writing this I have not seen any requirements yet for someone with knowledge of Teams but it will not be long in coming. I can honestly hold my hands up currently and say that I have no clue what makes a good Teams person or a bad one. I have seen people from an Infrastructure, O365, Exchange, SharePoint and Skype background writing about the product and speaking about it at various User Groups and Meetups – have we finally come to the point where we have a product that is so integrated with so many products that there is no natural progression to start dealing with it?

I am not going to lie: I am confused as all hell. 

Anyone else?

If the key to remaining relevant in an industry that is constantly evolving is to specialise to a point where you are an expert in something, it would appear that Teams has just evened the playing field for everyone. Can everyone become a Microsoft Teams Specialist regardless of their background and if so does that mean that it will devalue the role of a ‘Specialist’ in this area..?

Please folks – hit me with some enlightenment…