Competing with unsafe' Zoom, videoconferencing on Microsoft's Teams skyrockets

San Francisco: The number of calls made using Microsoft's Teams videoconferencing software surged 1,000 percent in March as people collaborated online due to the coronavirus pandemic, the company said Thursday.

It said a new record of 2.7 billion "meeting minutes" in a single day had been reached on the platform.

This comes amid competitor Zoom being riddled by security concerns, and companies such as Google and Spacex banning the videoconferencing app from their employees’ official devices.

"We've been inspired by the ways our customers are connecting during meetings in Microsoft Teams," Jared Spataro, Microsoft 365 corporate vice president, said in a post."We've seen bosses show up to meetings as virtual potato heads and team stand-ups turn delightfully silly."

Videoconferencing has become de rigueur for work and social life as people around the world hunker down at home to avoid spreading the deadly coronavirus.

Apart from Zoom, Microsoft Teams competes with Google Meet, Cisco, and Facebook.