Microsoft launches Teams Essentials, a professional and affordable solution aimed at SMEs

• Companies can access the collaboration tool for €3.40 per month, per user

The Portuguese business fabric, made up of more than 99% of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), represents an important contribution to the country’s competitiveness and economic recovery. With this segment of companies in mind, Microsoft announces the availability of Teams Essentials, the first independent offering from Microsoft Teams that offers a professional and affordable solution to support collaboration, connection and productivity in a hybrid work environment.

“We have seen accelerated growth in the number of new small and medium-sized companies in the Portuguese market. Despite the pandemic, this segment remains vibrant, with great relevance in the national business fabric and a strong contribution to economic growth. Teams Essentials was created precisely to provide this type of companies with tools and technology that allow them to boost their journeys of digital transformation and thrive in this new work paradigm”, says Diogo Pinto Sousa, Small, Medium & Corporate Lead at Microsoft Portugal.

Teams Essentials brings new features like unlimited group meetings of up to 30 hours, organizing meetings of up to 300 people and 10GB of cloud storage per user. The new offer also includes features available in the free version of Teams to meet the needs of SMEs:

• Simple and easy invitations just by providing an email address. If a user doesn’t have Teams, they don’t need to sign up or install to join a meeting;
• In addition to the Outlook calendar integration, Google’s new calendar integration makes it easy to schedule meetings in Microsoft Teams;
• Professional meeting tools and resources such as meeting lobbying, virtual backgrounds, “Together” mode, and live captions and reactions;
• Messages are always available in Microsoft Teams chat which allows you to never miss the conversation.
• Quickly start a group project and organize meetings with anyone, assign tasks to teammates and create polls to quickly receive feedback in a single hub with the new chat model for SME groups.

According to LinkedIn data, open SME job postings increased 81.9% from last year. More than ever, SMBs need flexibility to contract, regardless of location, and technology that enables new ways to work, such as synchronized and asynchronous collaboration. Teams Essentials offers SMEs an affordable way to work, collaborate and grow.

Teams Essentials, available on the Teams website or on Microsoft Cloud Partners, is the most competitive collaboration and meeting solution on the market and is available for €3.40 per month, per user.

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