Microsoft to offer free remote working solution in wake of COVID-19

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 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.