Shares of both Zoom Video Communications and RingCentral were trading lower Wednesday after Microsoft announced a new version of its Teams corporate communications suite targeted specifically at small businesses.
The service includes video calls, group chat, file sharing, and calendaring.
Teams Essentials is the first version of the software offered as a stand-alone service separate from Microsoft’s Office 365 software suite. Priced at $4 a month for each user, the service includes up to 30 hours of group meetings for up to 300 people and 10 GB of cloud storage for each user.
Microsoft (ticker: MSFT) has positioned the new version of the software to be easy to use: There’s no need to install Teams to attend a meeting, the software integrates with Google Calendar as well as Microsoft Outlook, and it includes the company’s Slack-like chat software.
“We know how difficult the past 20 months have been for small businesses,” Jared Spataro, who now has the title of corporate VP of Modern Work at Microsoft. (His LinkedIn page still calls him the corporate VP for Windows 365.) “Teams Essentials is built specifically to meet the unique needs of small businesses, enabling them to thrive in this new era of work.”
Zoom (ZM) charges $14.99 a month for each user for its entry level service for up to nine licenses, with the same 30-hour limit on meetings but with a cap of 100 participants. Zoom offers 1 GB of cloud storage for each license, a tenth of what Microsoft is including in Teams. The company’s small business offering is priced at $19.99 a month for each licensee.
RingCentral’s “Essentials” plan is priced at $19.99 a month for up to 20 users for messaging and phone service, or $27.99 a month with video conferencing. (Voice calls are not included in Teams Essentials.) Ring (RNG) charges $11.99 a month for its standalone Video Pro service.
RingCentral chief marketing officer Jaya Kumar said in response that the new version of Teams will be competing with the free version of RingCentral’s software. “Small business is the heartbeat of America, and we have been providing these businesses with a completely free service for video and messaging since last year,” he said. “Our free solution, RingCentral Video Pro, also offers more features such as live transcription, recording, presentation modes, and all the capabilities that small businesses need to effectively connect with their customers and scale their businesses.”
Zoom did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Microsoft shares slipped 0.2% on Wednesday to $330.08. Zoom fell 6.4% to $197.71, while RingCentral dropped 7.7%, to $199.40. The S&P 500 fell 1.2%, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 1.3%.
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