Microsoft Teams Essentials is a brand new standalone model for small companies

Microsoft is creating its first standalone model of Microsoft Teams for small companies. Microsoft Teams Essentials will probably be priced at $4 per person per 30 days and supply entry to the core assembly options of Teams with out the standard Office app bundling that requires a costlier Microsoft 365 plan. This standalone model makes Teams much more of a Zoom competitor, as Microsoft is dropping its Slack-like channels performance in favor of a extra simplified chat interface and a concentrate on conferences and video calls.

“It’s the first standalone offering of Microsoft Teams designed specifically with small businesses in mind,” explains Jared Spataro, head of Microsoft 365. “It brings together features small businesses need to serve customers, including unlimited group video calls for up to 30 hours, group chat, file sharing and calendaring.”

Microsoft Teams Essentials fills the hole for smaller companies that has existed since Teams launched almost 5 years in the past. Until now, small companies have had to decide on the Microsoft 365 Business Basic plan — priced at $5 per person per 30 days and growing to $6 in March — or rivals like Zoom, Slack, Google Workspace, and extra.

The variations between Microsoft Teams Essentials and Microsoft 365 Business Basic plans are primarily round Teams performance and cloud storage. Essentials solely affords 10GB of OneDrive storage, in comparison with the 1TB out there on Business Basic. Essentials additionally lacks assembly recording and transcripts performance, real-time translation, breakout rooms, and whiteboard integration.

Microsoft Teams Essentials additionally drops the groups and channels performance of Teams, so it’s extra focused at companies that depend on apps like Teams or Zoom for video calling and conferences. Private and group chat will nonetheless work in Microsoft Teams Essentials, although.

Microsoft is concentrating on smaller companies which have relied on Zoom all through the pandemic right here. Zoom is a competitor that the software program maker recognized as an “emerging threat” final 12 months, and providing a standalone model of Teams looks like an enormous step in competing with Zoom and even Google’s Workspace push.

“The pandemic and acceleration of using video calling and virtual tools changed overnight,” explains Nicole Herskowitz, common supervisor for Microsoft Teams, in an interview with The Verge. “We’re seeing at this point in time a lot of small businesses saying ‘What’s my future model?’ They’re almost doing a broader rethink, and many of them kind of raced to pick up tools very quickly to just stay afloat, and now they’re looking at their long-term strategy to engaging better with customers, with employees.”

Image: Microsoft

Microsoft clearly sees a chance to choose up small companies which are making an attempt to steadiness various instruments that don’t all the time work nicely collectively. If you’re a part of a small enterprise proper now, you would possibly use Zoom for video calls, Slack for group chat, after which Google Workspace for e-mail and calendar. Google has been centralizing its chat and communications apps into Gmail all through the pandemic and opening Google Workspace up for everybody to make use of. Slack has app integrations that attempt to make these separate apps extra seamless to make use of.

Nobody has the proper resolution, and Microsoft Teams Essentials lacks the app extensibility to essentially convey all these separate small enterprise options collectively. Microsoft is together with Google Calendar integration into Teams Essentials quickly, although, which is a vital step in making Teams really standalone.

If you’re a small enterprise weighing the price of Zoom, Google Workspace, Slack, and different instruments, Microsoft Teams Essentials might look interesting at simply $4 per person per 30 days, particularly when a Zoom Pro license is $14.99 per 30 days.

Microsoft Teams Essentials is available today direct from Microsoft or by means of its common companions and resellers.