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Recent changes to Microsoft’s licensing offer new opportunities and challenges for organizations globally. This includes its Enterprise, Small and Medium Business (SMB), and Frontline suites. For organizations of all sizes worldwide, this is big news. 
As of April 1, 2024, Microsoft is separating Teams from its Microsoft 365 (M365) and Office 365 (O365) suites to maintain consistency across its licensing offers. Back on August 31, 2023, Microsoft rolled out this change in the European Economic Area (EEA) and Switzerland to comply with the European Commission.
While existing Microsoft customers will have the option to use Teams as a part of their suite as they always have, new customers must purchase Teams as a standalone SKU. That’s not an insignificant change, especially for enterprise customers.
We’re here to unbundle this licensing change from Microsoft and how it may affect your organization.
Microsoft used to bundle Teams in with Microsoft/Office 365. Back in the day, all you had to do was purchase the big license and you’d get access to Teams. Now that Teams has been unbundled, net new customers will have to make separate purchases to get both the productivity suite and Teams.
It sounds like a tough break for new customers, but there are more benefits to it than you might think. It provides lower upfront costs to net new customers and offers greater flexibility to organizations looking to leverage Teams as a standalone SKU.
Without Teams, Microsoft 365 and Office 365 come at slightly reduced prices. For example, the Office 365 E3 license has been reduced from $23.00 to $20.75 per user per month, and the Microsoft 365 E5 license from $57.00 to $54.75. Meanwhile, the standalone Teams Enterprise SKU is priced at $5.25 per user per month. Of course, these prices will vary based on region and currency.
The unbundling of Teams offers several strategic opportunities for organizations.
Now the options are open to select standalone collaboration platforms that may fit user needs more effectively. There’s no more compulsion to use software bundled with other applications, nor a need to pay for additional platforms.
Organizations can also scale their collaboration tools independently of core office suites, making it easier to adjust to their business needs.
These changes aren’t all sunshine and rainbows. There are concerns about management complexities that come from needing multiple licenses. On top of that, in more complex environments, there could be issues integrating different standalone platforms.
With the major changes to the licensing, you may be wondering how your organization can best adapt. Partnering with an experienced Microsoft provider, like Continuant, will make this process much easier.
Our experts can tailor-make solutions that will perfectly fit the standalone Teams SKU into your environment. We also provide services such as:
The unbundling of Teams from Microsoft’s licenses gives you a wide range of new options for your communications. We’re here to make sure you know what those options are, and which ones will be the most cost-effective for your organization.
