Collaboration Services and Likely Future Investment

Many Microsoft technologies offer persistent discussions and document sharing, but not all will receive continued Microsoft investment. The technologies listed here all provide text discussions and document sharing to persistent groups.

The Future Microsoft Investment column summarizes Directions on Microsoft’s forecast of future Microsoft development effort and other investment in each technology, on a four-point scale. (A half-bar rating indicates that the only future investment in a technology is likely to be maintenance and servicing.)

In some cases, Microsoft has formally deprecated technologies (ending development and announcing that they will be retired in the future) or pointed customers to a clear replacement. For example, a detailed roadmap of features for Microsoft Teams was released in late 2017, indicating that Microsoft is investing heavily in the service to replace Skype for Business Online, and the company has begun eliminating some options to purchase Skype for Business Online.