Microsoft Teams video calls likely to show 49 participants in gallery view

Microsoft’s communication and collaboration platform Teams would likely get an enhanced gallery view for video calls with 49 visible participants at a time. Currently, the Teams show only nine participants on a single screen even as it can hold a conference of up to 250 people.

With 49-person gallery view, the Teams would come in parity with the Zoom video conferencing app, which also allows 49 users on screen at once – according to news report in the CRN USA.

Cisco’s enterprise-centric conference and video call platform WebEx shows up to 25 participants. Google Hangouts for G Suite shows up to 25 people on a video call.

"The Microsoft Teams roadmap does include increasing the number of people viewable during a Teams video call to 49," the report quoted a Microsoft spokesperson as saying.

Video calling on Teams currently has a 3 x 3 grid view window that shows nine people at a time. This was raised from the original maximum of four visible participants earlier.

"We realise 3 x 3 is a start, but not good enough. We are continuing to work to include more videos during a meeting, as well as enabling support for mobile devices," a Microsoft representative posted in a Teams user feedback forum in May.

In April, Microsoft reported that Teams had grown to 75 million daily users, more than double its early March figure. On one day, it logged 4.1 billion meeting minutes.

"As Covid-19 impacts every aspect of our work and life, we've seen two years' worth of digital transformation in two months," Satya Nadella, CEO Microsoft said in April, when the company reported stronger-than-expected earnings.