Microsoft introduces Teams Essentials for small businesses

The pandemic unquestionably accelerated the move to working from home, and the likes of Zoom and Microsoft stepped up to provide the tools needed for this shift.

Today, Microsoft announces the general availability of Teams Essentials, a standalone, lower-priced version of Teams designed specifically for small businesses.

The meetings solution offers unlimited group video calls for up to 30 hours, meetings with up to 300 people, file sharing, calendaring and 10GB of cloud storage per user.

"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," said 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 is priced at $4 USD per person, per month.

The new solution is available from a variety of Microsoft Cloud Partners and also direct from Microsoft.