With coronavirus continuing to spread worldwide, many companies and businesses around the world are requesting employees to work from home. The concerns over coronavirus have led to an increase in remote work in recent weeks, with analysts expecting demand for tools like Teams, Slack, Zoom, and Dropbox to increase.

And now, in response to the increased demand, Microsoft is now going to offer free six-months trials to the premium version of  Microsoft Teams. The free version of Teams limits users in terms of a lot of the calling and meeting features, and the company is now offering the paid version for much longer for free to support remote work and global health.

Microsoft will also update the free version of Teams to allow users to schedule meetings for video calling on March 10.

“At Microsoft, our top concern is the wellbeing of our employees and supporting our customers in dealing with business impact during this challenging time. For many individuals and organizations, Microsoft Teams video-conferencing, chat and collaboration are playing an important role in helping people continue to work and collaborate. By making Teams available to all for free for six months, we hope that we can support public health and safety by making remote work even easier,” a Microsoft spokesperson said.

At Microsoft, the health and safety of employees, customers, partners and communities is our top priority. By making Teams available to all for free for six months, we hope that we can support public health and safety by making remote work even easier. https://t.co/e8aaocLzYD

— JP Courtois (@JP_Courtois) March 3, 2020

The move comes following rumors of Microsoft employees being concerned over the company’s “insufficient” response to the outbreak. Two anonymous employees even said the company’s response was “disappointing” to Business Insider. With Washington state experiencing the largest surge of coronavirus cases in the US, it’s understandable that Microsoft employees are concerned.

Tagged with Coronavirus, Microsoft, Microsoft Teams