Microsoft Offers Free Remote Working Solution In Wake Of Coronavirus

With COVID-19 continuing to impact people and countries around the world, teams everywhere are exploring remote work options. 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. 

In a statement announcing the free service, Jared Spataro, Corporate Vice President for Microsoft 365 said, “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.”

Teams (Part of Office 365) 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.

 Users can find out how to sign up for Microsoft Teams via Microsoft 365 blog post with further tips on the usage of the product available on this blog, including tips on working from home with Microsoft Teams.

“Microsoft Teams is a part of Office 365. If your organization is licensed for Office 365, you already have it. If you are not licensed for Teams, you will be logged into the product and automatically receive a free license of Teams 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”, says Jared.

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.

In addition to the above, Microsoft has also worked on several scenarios for different sectors on ways to utilize Microsoft Teams for free, even for organizations that don't have Office 365. Please see the links below for your consideration.

 
•    All about Microsoft Teams - https://products.office.com/en-us/microsoft-teams/group-chat-software
•    SMEs - Helping small and medium-sized businesses work remotely with Teams 
•    Security - Work remotely, stay secure—guidance for CISOs (CSO 
•    Education -  Helping teachers and students make the switch to remote learning 
•    Education - Making remote learning effective and engaging with Microsoft Education resources 
•    Productivity for all - Staying productive while working remotely with Microsoft Teams