Now that the world is back at work and Microsoft knows we’ve become accustomed to working on Teams, it plans to make us pay for some of its features.
We should have known it’d only be a matter of time before we start paying for some of the app’s perks. Microsoft will start charging for features including live translated captions and time markers in meeting recordings for when a user joins or leaves the meetings.
The tech giant announced in its updated licensing agreement this week that it would be moving some features to Teams Premium.
Features moving to Teams Premium:
– Live translated captions.
– Timeline markers in Teams meeting recordings for when a user left or joined meetings.
– Custom organization Together mode scenes.
– Virtual Appointments: SMS notifications.
– Virtual Appointments: Organizational analytics in the Teams admin center.
– Virtual Appointments: Scheduled queue view.
Read More: Microsoft Teams now translates over 100 languages in chats
Microsoft will give subscribers who are on the free version a 30-day grace period before cutting them off unless they pay of course.
“After the 30-day grace period, users will lose access to features previously available in Teams without the Teams Premium add-on, unless the admin purchases and assigns Teams Premium licenses for their users,” notes Microsoft.
Those who need a bit more time to figure out if they are willing to pay for the listed features or not can use the trial license.
“ Once the trial licenses expire, users will immediately lose Teams Premium features,” added Microsoft.
It says assets like custom templates and meeting backgrounds will remain after the trial license expires, but they will become “grayed out and unusable”. We’re guessing that’s to remind you of what you once had and hopefully tempt you into eventually paying for the premium version.
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Remember, Premium isn’t available to just anyone. To buy the premium license, you or your company need to meet the requirements below, as listed by Microsoft:
– Must be a commercial, worldwide public sector, EDU, GCC, or non-profit tenant.
– At general release, Microsoft won’t offer an EDU-specific license or EDU discounts for Premium.
– GCC High and DoD tenants won’t be able to purchase Teams Premium licenses at general release.
– Users will also need to be subscribed to Microsoft 365 or Office 365 with Teams.
As hybrid and remote working slowly become standard, expect more platforms to start charging for features that were free at height of the COVID-19 lockdown. Hopefully, tech companies will polish them and sell us something that’s actually worth paying for. Alternatively, there’s always something similar on the net for free, but probably not as good.
Source: Microsoft