A new business service plan is coming to Microsoft Teams in mid-March, according to reports. Teams Pro will add meeting intelligence and webinar functionality to the Teams platform, giving Microsoft the ability to target a significant new market. Microsoft Teams has already captured much of the work in the home market since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, becoming as essential to remote work as a good monitor or desktop. However, competition is fierce among online collaboration platforms, and Microsoft knows it must continually reinvent Teams to meet the challenge posed by Zoom and Google Meet. As a result, the upcoming Teams Pro plan will be welcomed by users frustrated with the online meeting options the platform currently offers. While details are scarce, it is believed that Teams Pro could include features like dynamic views in addition to webinar functionality.
The pro plan
There is currently no word on whether Teams Pro will be free or released as a paid add-on. The Microsoft Office Message Center notes that Teams Pro will be available to all users "with M365/O365 E3, E5, A3, A5, Business Standard, and Business Basic licenses," but other than that, there's not much going on. Teams Pro will also come with the integration of Meeting Insights, the solution that business users of Microsoft 365 and Office 365 in Outlook are already familiar with. It will provide meeting participants with content before the meetings start and allow them to review the content afterwards, such as meeting notes. Although Teams has seen its user numbers increase due to the coronavirus pandemic, it is likely to be overlooked for larger presentations in favor of bespoke webinar software. The addition of the Teams Pro service plan hopes to change that. Via ZDNet