KARACHI: Microsoft Teams announced stand-alone “Teams Essentials” for small and medium businesses, a statement said on Friday.

It is the first ever stand-alone offering of Microsoft Teams, specifically designed for small-midsize businesses (SMBs) called Teams Essentials.

Teams Essentials will enable SMBs to serve their customers to grow business and gain competitive advantages in an effective manner.

The platform will enable businesses to easily host longer, professional meetings with colleagues, customers, and partners and take productivity to the next level with tools like calendar integration, group chat, and extended meeting limits up to 30 hours and 300 attendees at once.

Microsoft Teams is a proprietary business communication platform developed by Microsoft, as part of the Microsoft 365 family of products. Teams primarily competes with the similar service Slack, offering workspace chat and videoconferencing, file storage, and application integration.