Last week, I enjoyed a careful drink -- or two -- with a high-ranking software salesman and a senior executive of a household name in (what might loosely be called) fashion.
Somehow, the conversation got around to Microsoft Teams and Zoom.
To my mind, there's little difference. I use both. Both work. I see faces, I hear voices and I occasionally smile, while admiring other people's taste in wall-adornings and casual wear.
Yet suddenly the software salesman -- let's call him Emanuel -- offered uncommon vehemence: "Oh, Zoom is a lot better than Teams."
It is?
"It looks better," said Emanuel. "It's got more options for how the participants are arranged on the screen. Everything about it is more intuitive."
This seemed like a passionate subject for him, so I probed further.
"So which one do you use more often?" I asked.
"Teams," he replied. "I used Teams first and it was the default because my company uses Microsoft Outlook and there's always a link right there to add a Teams meeting."
"So even though you think Zoom is better, you'll always use Teams?"
"I'm on video calls eight hours a day. I just do what's easiest."
"So how do you know Zoom is better?"
"Some of the clients I work with use Zoom," he said. "They send the link. Zoom is brighter and crisper."
"And you're just too lazy to use it all the time?"
"Yeah," he said. "Some of my meetings are in the middle of the night. You want me to think then?"
Still, though, his passion was peculiar: "Teams is the dumbed-down version of Zoom. Teams is what Big 5 is to Dick's Sporting Goods."
Emanuel is something of a sports enthusiast. He often sees things in sports metaphors. But equating Teams to Big 5 -- something of a ragtag sporting goods store -- seems a little harsh.
