Product of the Day
Microsoft launches Teams Essentials
The new version of Microsoft Teams is designed for small businesses to hold meetings, chat and collaborate at a lower price.
Microsoft has announced the general availability of Teams Essentials, the first standalone Microsoft Teams offering designed specifically for small businesses. Teams Essentials gives small businesses a professional and affordable meetings solution to support collaboration, connection, and productivity in a hybrid work environment. At $4 USD per person, per month, Teams Essentials is one of the most competitively priced online meeting and collaboration solutions in the market.
“We know how difficult the past 20 months have been for small businesses. They’ve had to demonstrate extreme flexibility to adapt, often with limited access to tools and technology,” says Jared Spataro, corporate vice president of modern work at Microsoft. “Teams Essentials is built specifically to meet the unique needs of small businesses, enabling them to thrive in this new era of work.”
Teams Essentials provides features for hosting professional meetings and collaborating in one place:
- Unlimited group meetings for up to 30 hours
- Meetings with up to 300 people
- 10 GB of cloud storage per user
Teams Essentials also includes existing and new capabilities available in the free version of Teams to meet the needs of small businesses:
- Simple, easy invitations require only an email address. Users are not required to sign up, sign in or install Teams to participate in a meeting.
- In addition to Outlook Calendar integration, new Google Calendar integration makes it easier to schedule meetings in Microsoft Teams.
- Professional meeting tools and capabilities like meeting lobby, virtual backgrounds, Together mode, live closed captions and live reactions.
- Never lose context or continuity with always-available chats in Microsoft Teams.
- Quickly start a group project and host meetings with anyone, assign tasks to teammates, and create polls to receive feedback quickly all in one hub with the new small-business group chat template.
According to LinkedIn data, SME open job postings are up 81.9% year over year compared to 1 Nov 2020. Small businesses need the flexibility to hire from anywhere and technology opens the door to new employee workstyles, such as synchronous and asynchronous collaboration. Teams Essentials offers small businesses an affordable way to work, collaborate, and grow. Customers can buy Teams Essentials directly through the Teams website or from a variety of Microsoft Cloud Partners to suit their needs.
Visit the Microsoft 365 Blog to learn more about Microsoft Teams Essentials.
