Tom Talks Microsoft Teams and Microsoft 365 news and opinions

Microsoft retiring the Microsoft Teams Win 10 S app effective November 29, 2018

In an interesting direction, Microsoft are “retiring” the Microsoft Teams for Windows 10 S (Preview) app in the Microsoft Store, effective November 29, 2018. This is the Progressive Web App/Hybrid Web App version of the Teams client. When this change is implemented, the Microsoft Teams for Windows 10 S (Preview) app will no longer be available to install and will no longer function if currently installed.

If you are using Windows 10 S or Windows 10 in “S mode” Microsoft now recommend using the web app instead of the desktop app (though the web app has a number of limitations compared to the desktop today).

This mainstream Microsoft Teams Windows desktop app, which is built on a open source platform called Electron. will continue to exist and be the primary windows client. Since the Surface Hub can’t run electron, I imagine that will get some kind of dedicated client or experience.

I wrote previously about the Microsoft Teams for Windows 10 S app and about electron and PWAs, as I thought with progressive web apps being widely promoted as the future of cross-platform development, especially in Windows 10, this would eventually become the primary client, but that appears to not be the case.

The very knowledgeable Keith Kabza, Solution Architect at Microsoft, pointed out that Electron is developed and maintained by GitHub, and now Microsoft own GitHub, so from that point of view it is aligned.

Reference: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoftteams/get-clients

Microsoft Teams for Windows 10 S app in the store today: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/p/microsoft-teams-for-windows-10-s-preview/9nsv22gv8q6n

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About the author

Tom Arbuthnot

A Microsoft MVP and Microsoft Certified Master, Tom Arbuthnot is Founder and Principal at Empowering.Cloud as well as a Solutions Director at Pure IP.

Tom stays up to date with industry developments and shares news and his opinions on his Tomtalks.blog, UC Today Microsoft Teams Podcast and email list. He is a regular speaker at events around the world.

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Tom Talks Microsoft Teams and Microsoft 365 news and opinions