Microsoft has revamped its Teams Rooms pricing tiers with some fan fair, but is all as it seems?
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The new Microsoft Teams Rooms Pro offers users a comparable set of features to the existing Teams Rooms Premium for $10 cheaper per device. However, the new lower tier is stripping away advanced features, such as Front Row. to create Microsoft Teams Rooms Basic.
Previously, the lower tier contained all of the same features as the upper tier; it just did not have Teams Rooms Managed Services.
If Standard package customers wish to retain many of the features they have been using, they will be forced to pay more than triple the price for them by upgrading to a Microsoft Teams Rooms Pro account.
Smoke and Mirrors
In a side-by-side comparison between Teams Rooms Premium and Teams Rooms Pro, there is not a lot of difference, besides a downgrade to the managed service platform and the promise of more features to come to the Pro package. With the new features positioned alongside reduced subscription costs, all seems well. The bells and whistles come off for Microsoft’s comparatively short introduction to its Basic plan, however. The new Basic plan replaces Microsoft Teams Rooms Standard, but it is not nearly as closely aligned as the Pro and Premium. The unsung differences between the Basic and the Standard are where the real story lies for many in the Microsoft community. The key features of Microsoft Teams Rooms Basic are Microsoft Teams, whiteboarding, and audio conferencing with a maximum of 25 licenses per tenant. Microsoft Teams Rooms Standard, by comparison, offers features spanning supported experiences, meeting scheduling, meeting join, meeting engagement and collaboration, meeting and device controls, security, management and administration, and managed operations with no unlimited licenses. As a result of the reduced features, which many companies have become dependent upon over time, they will need to fork out a further $25 per month to retain the features already available to them. The change in licensing from unlimited to 25 per tenant is another potential roadblock, as many large and medium-sized companies will no longer qualify. The only redeeming feature for Basic is that it comes free with certified Teams Rooms devices, whereas Teams Rooms Standard incurs a cost of $15 per device.
Microsoft Teams Rooms Pro
Nicole Herskowitz, Vice President of Microsoft Teams, introduced the changes to Teams Rooms: "At Microsoft, we are committed to bridging the gap between physical and digital workspaces.
