New Delhi, Jan 26 (IANS): Microsoft has added 20 million more users to its video collaboration tool Teams to surpass 270 million monthly active users, as Omicron-triggered Covid wave spread across the globe.

The company has surpassed 270 million monthly active Teams users as of its second quarter that ended December 31 — up from 250 million monthly active Teams users it announved in July 2021.

According to Satya Nadella, Chairman and CEO of Microsoft,

organisations are using Teams to run their business with collaborative applications that bring business process data right into the flow of work.

"Monthly usage of third-party applications and custom-built solutions has grown 10x in the last two years, with new and updated apps this quarter from Atlassian, Monday.com, SAP, and Workday," Nadella said during the company's earnings call late on Tuesday.

"With Teams Rooms, we're bringing Teams to a growing ecosystem of devices to help people stay connected and participate fully in meetings from anywhere. The number of active Teams Rooms devices more than doubled year over year," he informed.

With Mesh for Teams, Microsoft is bringing the metaverse to Teams, helping employees at organisations like Accenture access a shared immersive experience where they can have watercooler-type conversations, and even whiteboarding sessions.

"Teams is rapidly becoming the standard for unified communications. Over 90% of Fortune 500 companies used Teams Phone this quarter," said Nadella.

Microsoft has integrated a Teams Chat button into the Windows 11 taskbar to get more people to try Teams' consumer capabilities.

It also introduced a new standalone Teams Essentials SKU for small-and-midsize businesses.