*By Bridgette Webb*
Microsoft is trying to turn up the heat on Slack, announcing a free version of its workplace collaboration tool Microsoft Teams on Thursday.
The company hopes the platform's ability to integrate with other Microsoft programs will give it a leg up on the industry leader.
“We have power of the full collaboration suite in there,” said Lori Wright, general manager of Microsoft 365 in an interview with Cheddar on Thursday.
Previously Teams, which was launched in 2016, was only available to those with an Office 365 subscription. The free version will include support for up to 300 people, with unlimited chat messages and search as well as integration with 140 apps. It also has a new option to blur out the background during video calls, something Wright said will "take out all of the distractions." Users will get less storage than on the paid plan, though, and won't have access to features like scheduling and recording meetings.
Slack does has its own free version, but that only allows users to search the last 10,000 messages and integrates with just 10 apps.
As of March, 200,000 businesses globally were using the paid version of Teams, less than half of the half million organizations on Slack.
Microsoft's efforts in workplace communications demonstrates the opportunity big tech companies see.
Facebook launched its own collaborative platform, Workplace, in 2016 and has reportedly signed up about 30,000 organizations. Last month the tool was made free for nonprofits and education providers.
For the full segment, [click here.](https://cheddar.com/videos/microsoft-picks-up-the-slack)
The charismatic founder of a startup company that claimed to be revolutionizing the way college students apply for financial aid, was convicted on Friday.
A federal judge has ruled that The New York Times and other newspapers can proceed with a copyright lawsuit against OpenAI and Microsoft.
A magazine journalist’s account of being added to a group chat of U.S. national security officials has raised questions about the Signal app.
The next time you get a call about an upcoming medical appointment you may not be talking to a human. Hospitals are increasingly using AI assistants.
Schools are turning to AI-powered surveillance technology to monitor students on school-issued devices like laptops and tablets. But there are risks.
Hours after a series of outages that left X unavailable to thousands of users, Elon Musk is claiming that the social media platform is being targeted in a “massive cyberattack." Musk said on a post Monday that the attacker is either a large, coordinated group or a country. Complaints about outages spiked Monday at 6 a.m. Eastern and again at 10 a.m, with more than 40,000 users reporting no access to the platform, according to the tracking website Downdetector.com. A sustained outage appeared to begin just after noon Eastern.
The World Video Game Hall of Fame has revealed its 12 finalists for 2025. Members of the public have a week to vote for their favorites online.
An insider account being billed as an “explosive” memoir about “seven critical years” at Facebook/Meta will be published next week.
Extinction is still forever. But scientists at a biotech company are trying what they say is the next best thing to restoring ancient beasts.
The typically tight-lipped CIA is peeling back the curtain on some of its secrets with an upcoming presentation at South By Southwest festival.
