Ivan Galea
Sep 27, 2023
Ivan Galea
Sep 27, 2023
Microsoft has announced important changes to some of the Microsoft 365 and Office 365 plans in the European Economic Area (EEA) and Switzerland, which will come into effect on 1st October 2023.
First change to the following products:
Beginning October 1, 2023, Microsoft will unbundle Teams from Microsoft 365 and Office 365 Enterprise suites. For the enterprise suite of products (M365 E3/E5 and O365 E1/E3/E5), customers buying a new subscription will not have Teams included, however, they will be purchasing it at a lower price and will still be able to purchase Teams as a standalone.
Due to the above changes Microsoft have introduced Teams as a standalone product. This will give customers the opportunity and flexibility to add Teams to specific users as needed.
Second change to the following products:
For our small business and frontline workers, Microsoft will continue to bundle Teams, keeping their current offering. However, Microsoft will also be introducing new adjacent plans “without-Teams” which will be offered at a lower price giving customers the flexibility to mix the plans to lower the cost and enable Teams to specific users only.
Earlier this year the European Commission announced that it had opened a formal investigation regarding Microsoft’s bundling of Microsoft Teams with Microsoft 365 and Office 365 suites for business customers. Microsoft stated that they will continue to cooperate with the Commission and remain committed to finding solutions that will address its concerns.
Existing customers who are already subscribed to any of the above products can choose to stay with their current plan which includes teams. Such customers can continue to renew and even add or decrease user seats upon renewal.
Yes, customers who are already enrolled in an enterprise plan with Teams included can change to a “No Teams” plan when they renew.
Starting October 1, new enterprise subscription orders or plan upgrades (example E3 to E5) will not contain Teams. Should a customer wish to have Teams included they have to purchase two subscriptions – one for Microsoft 365 enterprise product and one for Microsoft Teams.
New small and medium business customers will be able to choose between the existing Microsoft 365 Business with Teams or without Teams plans. This also applies for the Frontline plans.
Microsoft Teams is an enterprise offering available to customers in the EEA and Switzerland that provides meetings, chat, calling (VoIP), and collaboration without any limitation on seat numbers.
Microsoft Teams Essentials remains unchanged; it provides meetings, chat, calling (VoIP), and collaboration for customers with fewer than 300 users.
The new EEA suites and Teams standalone are intended for purchase by customers with enrolments in EEA countries and Switzerland, from EEA/Switzerland pricelists, for deployment on EEA/Switzerland tenants out of data centres in the EEA and Switzerland.
