Microsoft Launches Teams After Four Months Of Previewing The Corporate App

Microsoft is launching Teams, its chat-focused workspace for Office 365, on Tuesday (March 14) in 181 markets around the globe.

According to a report, Teams is taking on Slack, Facebook, Google and Amazon in the enterprise messaging marketplace. Microsoft had been testing Teams for four months and said it has added more than 100 new features to the app during the preview. Some of those new features include the option to create public teams, schedule meetings and make mobile voice calls. The features were added to entice corporate customers and also includes technology that improves security, legal and regulatory compliance, noted the report.

“It’s part of an overall landscape that’s changing. Microsoft in Office has always been the kings of personal productivity, and it was always about, ‘Hey, what can you do to get more accomplished yourself?’” said Brian MacDonald, Microsoft corporate vice president for Teams in the report. “With cloud computing trends, the general attitude is more about ‘What can I achieve in a team context?’ and so the timing is right for that.”

Microsoft reportedly said it has greater than 50,000 companies using Teams during the preview including household brands such as Alaska Airlines, ConocoPhillips, Deloitte and Expedia. Teams comes free in business editions of the Office 365 subscription service. Now that Teams was launched officially, it will be automatically be turned on and available to use. In the preview phase of Teams, the service had to be turned on by an IT administrator. In addition to officially launching Teams, Microsoft announced new partnerships for the app, including SAP and Trello. Microsoft also said it would make regular updates to Teams with some of the soon-to-be released features including Office 365 external guest access capabilities.