Microsoft is sunsetting the older “traditional” free model of Groups, and customers / small companies might want to begin paying to maintain their chats and information intact, as Windows Central reports (via Engadget).
Microsoft Groups Free (traditional) will probably be retired on April twelfth, 2023, and won’t embrace a direct migration path to the newer Microsoft Groups (free) model. The modifications come after the current addition of an OpenAI-touting Premium tier of Teams that features options like auto-generated assembly notes.
Many corporations and establishments could also be reviewing and reducing again on paid providers primarily based on the altering financial scenario. For companies which are deeply entrenched in Groups, it would make sense to begin paying for it.
Others may see this as a chance to change to free choices from competing providers or lean extra closely on options constructed into different packages they’re already paying for, like Slack, Zoom with Team Chat and Mail & Calendar, or Google’s ever-expanding Workspace platform.
Microsoft is recommending traditional free-tier customers improve to no less than the most affordable Groups Necessities subscription that prices $4 per consumer monthly. Upgrading to a paid account will retain conferences, recordsdata, chats, and channels. As well as, the paid accounts add help for longer conferences with extra folks, extra space for storing, and even Microsoft 365 (Workplace) apps if chosen. Alternatively, organizations might go for a brand new free Groups setup however would mainly be beginning the whole lot from scratch.
Customers and organizations can decide if their account is traditional by checking to see if their Groups desktop app has a visual “Microsoft Groups Free (traditional)” badge after clicking on the profile photograph icon on the window. In keeping with the Teams classic retirement page FAQs, those that made free accounts earlier than Decenter thirty first, 2021, could be on the affected tier and subsequently have to take motion.
For organizations working on free Groups traditional, it could be a good suggestion to back up all files, no matter whether or not the corporate decides to begin paying Microsoft or not earlier than the April twelfth date. In the event that they do determine to improve, it’s necessary to notice that it may’t be merged with an current account, can’t be transformed again to Groups traditional, and every consumer account within the group would need to switch to paid.