Microsoft Exec: M365, O365 Suites With Teams Buyable Until Aug. 1

Chanda Wong, a senior product marketing manager for Microsoft 365 for SMBs, told partners on a call last week that they have until Aug. 1 to sell the suites with Teams to a customer as long as the partner quoted the customer before Microsoft announced the end of Teams suites on April 1.

Microsoft solution providers have some wiggle room for selling customers application suites packaged with its popular Teams collaboration and communication tool.

Chanda Wong, a senior product marketing manager for Microsoft 365 for small and midsize businesses, told partners on a call last week that they have until Aug. 1 to sell the suites with Teams to a customer as long as the partner quoted the customer before Microsoft announced the end of Teams suites.

Microsoft said on April 1 that it is getting rid of those suites as part of an effort to quell European Commission anti-competition concerns.

Teams-Less M365, O365 Update

“We weren’t necessarily able to give partners a … heads-up on this,” Wong told partners on the call. “And so if there is an active quote or public tender that was in discussion between the partner and the customer as of April 1, the partner can sell suites with Teams to those new customers. And then once they have suites with Teams, they would be considered an existing customer.”

CRN has reached out to Microsoft for comment.

Wong told partners that Microsoft does not have an enforcement mechanism in place to verify that a partner is, in fact, selling a suite with Teams that was quoted to the customer before April 1.

Instead, Wong said, Microsoft will use an “honor code.”

“Within the partner ecosystem, we run on trust,” she said. “So there is no enforcement per se.”

Microsoft published an online post on April 1 saying that those suites will go away—the same date that Microsoft introduced the Teams-less suites.

The change marks the end of Office 365 E1, O365 E3, O365 E5, Microsoft 365 E3 and M365 E5 suites with Teams, the vendor previously said.

For customers that want Microsoft productivity application suites but don’t want Teams, they will save money. But for customers that want Microsoft productivity app suites and Teams, they end up paying more under the change.

Customers that don’t want Teams stand to save $2.25 per user, per month with every suite changing except for O365 E1.

Under the Teams-less version of O365 E1, they save $1.25 per user, per month. By percentage, however, this suite offers the most dramatic savings—about 14 percent lower than the old suite that was packaged with Teams.

Customers will save an average of 8 percent on the new suites if they want Microsoft productivity apps without Teams.

Microsoft has introduced a stand-alone Teams offering called Microsoft Teams Enterprise for $5.25 per user, per month and will continue to offer its SMB and Frontline suites focused on small and midsize businesses and workers who interact with customers and service delivery that include Teams.

For customers that buy the productivity app suites and decide to add Teams to their purchase, in the end they end up paying $3 more per user, per month with every suite except O365 E1, where they pay $4 more per user, per month.

O365 E1 also sees the most dramatic percent increase under the new prices at about 44 percent. Customers that want the suites plus Teams face an average of 16 percent higher prices.