Zoom is here to stay going into the fall 2024 semester, but it will be phased out and replaced by Microsoft Teams.
Alicia Medros, assistant vice president of teaching and learning technologies for Enterprise Technology and Services (ET&S) said she received a recommendation from the University System of New Hampshire to keep Zoom for the next year.
After the contract ends, Medros said she is unsure of what the future of Zoom on campus could be. However, she said Zoom is likely to stay in some capacity for webinars and livestreams.
“We’ll be transitioning people off of Zoom starting pretty much this summer to get people moved over to teams,” Medros said.
She said the goal is most people will start to use teams starting in the Spring 2025 semester.
Through a survey conducted by ET&S, Medros said she found 94% of responses to the survey could be done in either Teams or Zoom.
Other responses that could only be done in one or the other were mainly concerns surrounding webinars, she said. Additionally, some raised concerns over the integration between Zoom and Canvas.
Elise Morrissette, IT group help desk manager, was unavailable for an interview, but previously told The Equinox in Dec. 2023, “I can really see … the staff departments on campus really leveraging Teams.”
By switching to Teams she said the school is able to save money, by relying solely on the Microsoft 365 suite.
For the past contract, ending in the summer of 2024, Medros said USNH and the community college system spent around $110,000 together. She noted the two systems negotiate the prices together.
However, she said when the university system and community college system renegotiated that contract for this year, it saved $17,000.
Medros said she was unsure of how much USNH spends on the Microsoft 365 suite.
“It is not an additional cost it’s already something that we’re paying for,” Medros said.
The Equinox is waiting for a response to an open records request for that financial information.
Tim Bruns can be contacted at
tbruns@kscequinox.com
