Microsoft is facing backlash after announcing that it will begin to retire Office 365 connectors within Microsoft Teams. According to a blog post, the company states that new “connector creation will be blocked within all clouds” beginning August 15, and that “all connectors within all clouds will stop working” on October 1.
This has put enterprises around the globe on edge, as it will potentially disrupt workflows across industries that use Teams as a part of their production. As a solution, Microsoft proposes “Power Automate workflows as the solution to relay information into and out of Teams.” Judging from the backlash the company is receiving online, however, most don’t believe they have been given enough time to effectively make such a transition. One user asks if the company has learned from “insufficient transition deadlines,” in a comment on the blog post, carrying a sentiment that is echoed across other reactions to the news. “You have given users three months, two of which are during peak holiday season where many staff will be on annual leave for parts of it, to move service integrations away from connector format to possibly something they have never even looked at it. Why?”
Jeremy Roberts, Senior Analyst at Info-Tech Research Group, is quoted by ComputerWorld as saying “it is not entirely clear why they are choosing to do this. They say it is about scale and depth, but there are certainly some kinks they will have to work out. I do not know that their user base was begging for the sort of scale they would get from Power Automate replacing their basic connectors. The cynic in me says they derive benefit from pushing Power Automate premium licensing.”
