Not All Teams Are Built the SameNot All Teams Are Built the Same

Microsoft last week made team collaboration announcements associated with the Microsoft Inspire and Ready events now taking place in Las Vegas. This marks the third, consecutive major Microsoft event with significant developments announced for Teams (Ignite 17 and Build 18).

Over these past 18 months or so, Microsoft and Cisco have transitioned their epic UC battles to workstream collaboration. Both companies appear to have concluded that the future of enterprise communications and collaboration will center around messaging-centric solutions.

Cisco introduced its workstream collaboration app as Project Squared in November 2014. It generally released that teams product as Spark in March 2015, and rebranded it to Webex Teams this past April. Microsoft previewed Teams in the fall of 2016, and generally released it in March 2017. These are the applications that the companies promote as central to their visions for communications and collaboration.

To a casual observer, the two applications likely appear identical. They both (now) have the word "Teams" in their names, feature persistent messaging, and offer options for integrated voice and video communications. Both offer simplified meetings with integrations to room system hardware and calendar systems. Both offer an emerging ecosystem of solutions that extend into other workflows and applications. Both even use their own versions of an application called Graph for contextual insights.

However, these products aren't the same. Several fundamental differences may make one or another more appropriate for a specific implementation. In this post, I'll highlight six key areas that customers and prospects should carefully consider.

Freemium
Microsoft announced last week that its Teams solution is now available for free. This is a pretty significant change for Microsoft that will broaden the appeal of Teams. However, a free service level is the norm in this space, and available from most competitive solutions, including Cisco Webex. In both cases, the free versions provide a great way to trial the solution.

Ironically, neither Cisco nor Microsoft sell workstream collaboration à la carte. Both offer their team messaging applications through bundles. Microsoft includes Teams in all paid subscriptions to Office 365. Cisco includes Webex Teams with its Webex Meetings and Webex Calling services, as well as its Flex plan bundles. Both companies offer several add-on options.

These bundled approaches are different than what's available from many competitors. For example, Slack and Facebook offer their enterprise workstream collaboration applications as standalone subscriptions. However, Cisco uses its Freemium model as a component of its solution for guest access.

Guest Access
Workstream collaboration apps facilitate team collaboration. Unfortunately, the concept of a team is still largely associated with groups within a single enterprise. Since it's increasingly common for teams to include external participants, each solution offers different approaches to guest access.

The problem is hardly new. UC systems went through this with IM/p federation. We also saw video systems become much more useful after browser and click-to-join options made them friendlier to external users. Team collaboration is more complex due to all the rich data, data ownership, and integrations.

Step one is external users will need an account. This will either a guest user account sponsored by the host, or a free account that can be added or federated with a paid account.

With guest access accounts, the host company provides a set of credentials for each guest participant. This usually requires administrative support from IT. Each set of guest account credentials represents a separate, additional login. Heavy users will end up with numerous accounts. Microsoft Teams (and several others) work this way.

Cisco promotes what it describes as a single instance model that allows any Webex Teams user (paid or free) to be added to any conversation. The result is that a Webex Teams user can participate in teams across any number of organizations with a single account/login. Although the single-instance model can be restricted by IT, its key benefit is that teams can bypass IT and collaborate instantly. Related to this is the subject of compliance, yet another area of differentiation where Webex Teams has more granular controls.

Continue to next page for more distinctions between Cisco's and Microsoft's teams solutions

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Threaded Conversations
Most messaging apps present various conversations as a single stream of messages in chronological order. Large groups can get noisy.

A threaded conversation refers to the ability to branch replies off specific messages. It's more complex than it sounds both technically and in terms of user interface. For example, new messages can become harder to find because they may not appear on top of the conversation thread. Most consider a threaded conversation a smoother, less cluttered experience than a single stream of messages within a channel, but to some degree it's also about personal preference.

For those who desire it, Microsoft's support of threaded conversation presents a compelling distinction that favors its Teams solution. Ironically, Google disrupted Microsoft's email model with threaded messages -- now it's Microsoft's turn to use threading as a competitive differentiator.

Whiteboards and Meeting Rooms
Microsoft also last week announced the general availability of a new whiteboard app for Windows10. Microsoft's software-first approach allows users to collaborate in a free-hand, graphical way. The app supports smart objects and works with a standard Windows 10 stylus. At this time, the app is restricted to Windows 10 devices, but an iOS and Web version are coming. This app replaces the whiteboard app previously launched on the Surface Hub.

Cisco offers the Webex Board device that can supplement or serve as a meeting room system. Although it lacks some features such as smart objects, the combined hardware and software provides a tightly integrated experience that can detect users and share content across all Webex clients.

Microsoft and Cisco see their Teams apps as clearinghouses for synchronous and asynchronous conversations. Today, our conversations -- including meetings -- are more likely to continue across different modalities. Both offer global conferencing services with a soft client and in-room solutions. Webex Teams additionally offers whiteboard and local content sharing (Webex Share) within a single application.

It's safe to assume that Cisco opted to rebrand Spark to Webex Teams to leverage its leadership in conferencing more fully. Cisco offers a broad selection of room systems, all now natively integrated into Webex. Microsoft relies on multiple third parties for hardware and interoperability services, but does offer some powerful software-based services, including translation and transcription.

Encryption
Cisco and Microsoft take very different approaches to encryption (see related No Jitter post). Microsoft uses the more common method of separate encryption cycles for storing and transmitting data. As Microsoft controls server-side encryption, it retains control of customers' data just as it does with OneDrive and Office 365 email.

With Webex Teams, Cisco supports an option that only decrypts customer data in the client, leaving data always encrypted in the cloud. The customer can retain complete control and ownership of its data. With Webex Teams, for example, even Cisco administrators can be precluded from accessing customer data.

Network Services
Microsoft is building out communications services for Teams. It already offers dial-in numbers for global conferencing and offers UCaaS capabilities in North America. That means Microsoft can replace third-party UC solutions and separate carriers with a single, bundled Teams service. Cisco also has global dial-in numbers, and shares a similar vision regarding integrated UCaaS, but intends to do so through its ecosystem of Cisco HCS and BroadSoft providers as well as its installed base of customers with Cisco UC solutions. Cisco is expected to share more details regarding the BroadSoft integration at its November Connections conference.

Microsoft and Cisco also offer a bring-your-own carrier option to add telephony to their hosted Teams environments.

These are some of the key differences between the Teams apps from Cisco and Microsoft. Of course, these aren't the only two options. Compelling workstream collaboration applications are also available from RingCentral, Unify, Slack, Facebook, and others... and more offerings are expected.

These solutions represent a significant change in the way organizations communicate and collaborate. They tend to be more central to workflow, as they contain people (directories, teams, contacts), content (documents, integration to other apps) and communications (real-time and asynchronous).

As the available options increase and mature, there are significant differences to consider. I've outlined some big differences here, but it's a long list. Most of the available solutions have little resistance to adoption. Customers should also evaluate data ownership and migration options should they opt to change solutions in the future.

Dave Michels is a contributing editor and analyst at TalkingPointz.

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