San Francisco (AFP)

The number of video calls made via "Teams", Microsoft's video conferencing solution, jumped 1000% in March, according to a report published Thursday by the computer giant which finds itself in competition with Zoom, a queen containment applications.

On March 31, "we witnessed a record 2.7 billion minutes spent in meetings in a single day, an increase of 200% compared to the 900 million minutes of March 16," said Jared Spataro, vice President of Microsoft 365, which includes a software suite.

"Meetings with colleagues, teachers who teach their students via virtual classes, and CEOs who hold question and answer sessions with thousands of employees, we are all finding new ways to get together remotely," says he.

"We have even seen chefs appearing at meetings in the guise of virtual potatoes," he still laughs.

He believes that this period will "change the way we work and connect forever", and takes as proof that in China "there are still twice as many new users of Teams every day compared to the end of January" .

Most communications services broke their records last month, as half of the world was called upon to stay at home to stem the coronavirus pandemic.

One platform in particular has stolen the show from all the others: Zoom has been widely adopted beyond businesses, its traditional customers.

It surpassed 200 million attendees at daily meetings in March, up from 10 million last December.

Industry pillars, like Google Hangouts, Slack or Teams, don't want to be left behind.

And some popular features at Zoom also appear at home.

The option to customize your background (to appear to be at the beach or in a library), for example, is suddenly available on Teams.

Microsoft will also install a "raise your hand" button, which indicates that you want to speak during a video meeting.

Last week, Zoom was halted on the rise by security and data privacy scandals.

The company has since mobilized to correct the flaws and better protect the meetings. But the opportunity was too good for his rivals ...

"At Microsoft, privacy and security are never something you think about afterwards," Jared Spataro wrote in an online statement on Monday.

© 2020 AFP