INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Microsoft opened up the news floodgates this morning, in the kick off to its annual Inspire event in Vegas
One of the more compelling announcements of the bunch is the addition of a free version of Teams
The Slack competitor has been kicking around in some form or other since late-2016, but the $60 a year fee has likely made it a bit of a
nonstarter for smaller businesses
After all, it Slack free tier that helped the work chat app gain so much traction so quickly
A free version makes a lot of sense for Microsoft
Signing users up for Teams is way to get more feet into the door of its application ecosystem, which was once ubiquitous in offices
Once they&ve download teams, workplaces will be hooked into the Microsoft 365 suite
The free tier actually brings a fair bit of the app to up to 300 people per workplace
Here the full rundown of features per Microsoft,
Unlimited chat messages and search.
Built-in audio and video calling for individuals,
groups, and full team meetups.
10 GB of team file storage plus additional 2 GB per person for personal storage.
Integrated, real-time
content creation with Office Online apps, including built-in Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote.
Unlimited app integrations with 140+
business apps to choose from—including Adobe, Evernote, and Trello.
Ability to communicate and collaborate with anyone inside or outside
your organization, backed by Microsoft secure, global infrastructure.
The company done a good job hooking in enterprise customers, but as it
notes, SMBs constitute 90+ percent of businesses globally, so that a whole lot more devices to tap into
The free tier is available in 40 languages starting today
