Microsoft Teams – Now Free!

Yes that’s correct you have read it right.  Microsoft have now released Teams (July 12 2018) as a free to use app for up to 300 users.

Microsoft uses the same Office 365 infrastructure to host both the free and enterprise versions so you’ll automatically get the updates.

When you set up the free version of Teams you create an Office 365 tenant and an Azure Active Directory instance to support the tenant.  Whoever creates the tenant becomes the owner of the first team in the tenant and can then invite others to join.

Practically the Same?

There’s not a lot missing in the free version of Teams with the exception of the Meetings and Calls icons in the navigation bar.  You’ll also be missing the o365 management tools e.g. Teams and Skype for Business Online Admin Center.

You’ll get 10 GB of SharePoint Online storage to store files for channels, and every user in the tenant gets 2 GB of OneDrive for Business storage to share files in personal chats.

You have access to over 140 apps and bots but the free version doesn’t allow access to Microsoft apps like Planner and Stream.

Meetings can use the audio and video features of Teams but lack the enterprise-focused Microsoft Phone System features like PSTN.

Training

So if you need to know how to use Teams properly within your organisation give us a call.  Microsoft Teams Introduction course outline.