Microsoft make teams available as a free version, regardless of an Office 365 subscription. Free version is offered in 40 languages and is ideal for freelancers, startups or small businesses, write the Redmond.

Free version offers unlimited messaging and search up to 300 users. Users get 2GB of personal storage plus 10GB of storage for the entire team. The tool also provides audio and video calls to individuals and groups, as well as the ability to integrate up to 140 third-party applications – such as Adobe, Evernote or Trello. The hope of Microsoft is probably that users of free version sooner or later opt for an Office or Microsoft 365 subscription.

Compared to Slack, the free version of teams is more extensive, as the American ‘Computerworld’ summarizes. Among other things, Team Office Online is integrated with Teams, while Slack has no Office integration. Microsoft offers unlimited search; at Slack this is limited to 10’000 messages. Also, the space is lower in free Slack version. While Microsoft offers as well an audio and video telephony for groups, this feature is limited till two participants at Slack.

 

Further innovations for Microsoft 365

In addition to the collaboration tool, the bundled Microsoft 365 offering includes Office 365, Windows 10, and security and mobility solutions. Microsoft 365 has been available for about a year. Now the Redmond has announced about few innovations. These includes Microsoft Whiteboard for Windows 10 and soon also for iOS and as a web version. The whiteboard can be used in real time, writes the company. It can be operated with pen, touch or keyboard and allows not only text input but also free drawings, the insertion of images from Web and creation of notes and tables.

Also new is the ability to create “events” and deliver them as videos live or on demand in Microsoft 365. Events included timeline feature that allows you automatically to rewind to a specific speaker, as well as voice-to-text transcription.

The new workplace analytic solution for Microsoft 365 will also be rolled out in a preview version. This allows it to evaluate how co-workers work together, whether meetings are efficient or whether the employees work too much in their free time. In addition, Microsoft MyAnalytics rolls out in Microsoft 365, a tool that gives users tips in Outlook. It should suggest, for example, to block appointments for their own work, when the agenda is slowly filling up.

 

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