Groups Linux Consumer Replaced by new Progressive World-wide-web Application in December 2022
Microsoft plans to retire the Linux desktop customer for Groups in early December. Customers read the news in late August in Microsoft 365 concept middle notification MC412007. Apart from MC412007, Microsoft hasn’t posted any other news on the subject matter, and owing to the lack of Linux purchasers in my tenant, I did not receive the notification, which accounts for the deficiency of coverage here to day. Some Linux-centric web sites picked the news up and noted Microsoft’s bald assertion that:
“We will be retiring the Microsoft Teams desktop shopper on Linux in 90 times (early December), which is currently offered in public preview. All customers on the Microsoft Groups Linux desktop shopper will have to changeover to the internet or PWA edition, which is wherever we will carry on to commit our improvement methods.”
Microsoft at first declared the Groups Linux consumer in December 2019 as the “1st Microsoft 365 application coming to Linux desktops.” The customer is distributed in .deb and .rpm formats. Shortly immediately after launch, buyers understood that the Linux client lacked parity with the other Groups desktop customers in areas like track record outcomes for conferences and calls. Concerns flowed and Microsoft pushed by updates at a continual tempo, but the Teams Linux customer by no means attained function parity.
PWA on Edge or Chrome
The announcement also claims:
“Teams PWA is an evolution of our Linux internet practical experience – it presents the “best of the web with vital functionalities of client”: zero-set up, lightweight, and has a loaded established of attributes. For case in point, the PWA variation supports capabilities this kind of as:
- Background blur and custom backgrounds
- Reactions and increase hand in conferences
- Substantial gallery and alongside one another manner
PWA also supplies desktop-like application capabilities these kinds of as:
- Program notifications for chat and channel Dock icon with respective controls
- Software car-start out
- Effortless access to method app permissions”
Microsoft hasn’t made a Groups progressive web app (PWA) readily available nevertheless. The announcement indicates that the PWA will be offered to shoppers right before Microsoft retires the Linux desktop app.
Provided that Firefox does not guidance progressive net applications, Linux consumers will have to use Chrome or Edge to operate the Groups PWA. Firefox users can continue making use of the existing Teams browser client. Specified that the Groups PWA will operate on Edge and Chrome, there does not appear to be any cause why it really should not also assistance Windows and macOS desktops way too.
Couple of Will Mourn the Passing of the Groups Linux Consumer
Centered on the opinions from some Linux people, it does not appear like the demise of the Linux desktop app will be a sorrowful situation. The Linux customer is buggy and lacks some of the options available in the Windows and macOS desktop consumers, a issue that people today before long understood just after installing the consumer.
I know various people today who mounted the Groups Linux shopper out of fascination, but none who use it for manufacturing functions. This seems to match what other individuals have experienced and it in all probability will not be a good issue for anyone to shift to a PWA.
From a Microsoft viewpoint, canning the Groups Linux client would make perception much too. I’m absolutely sure that they have advancement and aid engineers committed to the Linux consumer that can be utilised in other places.
On to Teams 2.
In one particular sense, the retirement of the Teams Linux client is regrettable. Even so, it is also comprehensible. If the consumer has not obtained traction with its possible person foundation and a better (PWA) different is available, then it tends to make sense for Microsoft to go methods into exactly where they can make the greatest lengthy-expression impact. This is especially so in mild of the truth that Microsoft is in the center of transitioning the Teams shopper from the 1. architecture to a new model with promises of better general performance, increased functionality, and reduced memory footprint. I suspect that the need to have for engineering methods to fulfil the commitments manufactured for Teams 2. contributed to the determination. In any circumstance, putting a inadequately used and buggy customer out of its misery would seem like the suitable issue to do.
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