Microsoft is making Teams available to consumers

Microsoft is officially releasing its Teams communication tool to consumers. The service is free to use by consumers. The company previously released a preview version of a Teams for private use.

The consumer version of Teams is very similar to Teams for business, and will be available for desktops and smartphones. Microsoft is also releasing a web version of the service. The service includes text chats and video calls, and allows consumers to share calendars and files with each other.

Consumers can also hold video calls of up to 24 hours with up to 300 people. In the future, this will be reduced to one-hour video chats with a maximum of 100 participants, but due to the outbreak of the new coronavirus, Microsoft is dropping these restrictions until further notice. One-on-one conversations may also last up to 24 hours after the pandemic.

Consumer feature users also get access to various video chat options, such as a togethermode, which puts users’ video streams into a single virtual space. Furthermore, users can respond with emojis or gifs during video calls. Users can also share to-doCreate group chat lists and assign tasks to individual users. Polls are also supported in group conversations.

Microsoft reports that the business version and the consumer version of Teams will remain completely separate. Business users can add a personal account to the app and then switch between the two versions of Teams.