With the rapid spread of COVID-19, employers around the world including Google have resorted to asking their employees to work from home so as to avoid infection. This has meant that there is a rise in the need for remote working platforms.
As a response to this, Microsoft has announced that it will avail its hub for teamwork in Office 365, Microsoft Teams, for free to the public to enable remote working. Teams is a chat-based collaboration tool that provides global, remote, and dispersed teams with the ability to work together and share information via a common space. With Microsoft Teams, users can utilize features like document collaboration, one-on-one chat, team chat, and more.
The free Teams version will give users unlimited chat, built-in group and one-on-one audio or video calling, 10 GB of team file storage, and 2 GB of personal file storage per user. Users will also get real-time collaboration with the Office apps for web, including Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote.
Organizations which are licensed for Office 365 already have it. However, for those not licensed for Teams, they will be logged into the product and automatically receive a free license that is valid through January 2021. This includes video meetings for up to 250 participants and Live Events for up to 10,000, recording and screen sharing, along with chat and collaboration.
Jared Spataro, Corporate Vice President for Microsoft 365, had this to say, “At Microsoft, our top concern is the wellbeing of our employees and supporting our customers in dealing with business impact during these challenging times. By making Teams available to as many people as possible, we hope that we can support public health and safety by making remote work even easier.”
You find out how to sign up for Microsoft Teams here.