In this research note, we map Microsoft’s hybrid work business strategy, analyzing its various partnership and acquisition moves by technology, to trace its course over recent years and explore its intentions for the future. Microsoft has played a fundamental role in shaping the modern workplace. From its role driving individual computing into the office during the 80s and 90s to its contribution to networking, and on to its current, central position, in contemporary cloud services with the Azure platform. With the recent launch of Microsoft Places, a workplace platform (available in 2023) for hybrid and in-person work, Microsoft fully intends to use its size and inertia to heavily influence the future of work. The growth of their remote working collaboration tool, Teams, provides a useful benchmark here. Daily active users of Teams grew from 20 million in 2019 to 270 million in 2022! Of course, driven by COVID-induced lockdowns during 2020 and 2021, but also […]