UCStatus Podcast Episode 45: New Room System licensing for Microsoft Teams Rooms

Hello Readers, I hope you’re well.

Welcome to Episode 45 of the UCStatus Podcast. This episode features me (@randychapman) & Shawn Harry (@shawnharry).

This week we chat about a new licenses Microsoft announced this week for Microsoft Teams Rooms.

There are two new licenses.

• Pro – which includes all of the existing and new upcoming features, Intune (for management) and Azure AD Premium Plan 1 (for Conditional Access), Defender for Endpoints and the old managed service portal, but without the managed service people
• Basic – which includes only basic features, none of the new upcoming features and no managed service portal and actually very little to no management capability since it doesn’t include Intune and no security since it doesn’t include AADP1 or Defender for Endpoints. It also doesn’t include Phone System, so you can’t even use a room with the basic license as a room phone.

These licences replace the existing Standard and Premium licenses with immediate effect. In essence, Pro is a combination of Standard and Premium, but without the managed service people.

In the UK, Pro costs £30.20 per room per month for an annual commitment, or £36.20 for month to month.

In USD the price is $40 for Pro. I’m guessing this is the annual commit price and its more for month to month.

Basic is free but you can only have up to 25 licenses in your tenant. My understanding is that you can add certain licenseable add-ons to basic to start to add things like AADP1 and possibly Intune. And maybe Phone System. But really, it isn’t worth it. You’re still getting such a cut down feature-set that it really isn’t useful even with the add-ons for some management and security.

Microsoft say basic is aimed at small businesses and possibly PoCs. But honestly, we think that if you’re planning to use Basic in production, you’re doing it wrong.

Here is a license comparison

And here is the official blog and docs article.

Here is a short comparison from the docs site

And here is the long list feature comparison. Some highlights of missing features in basic. Dual screen, content camera, a Teams panel, large gallery, and meeting across clouds.

Meeting join

	Microsoft Teams Rooms Basic	Microsoft Teams Rooms Pro
Join Teams meetings with 1-touch, proximity, and meeting ID	✔	✔
Start ad hoc meetings from the room	✔	✔
Direct Guest Join for Zoom and Webex meetings	✔	✔
Join meetings across Teams clouds		✔
Room checking with Teams Panel		✔

Share and collaborate

	Microsoft Teams Rooms Basic	Microsoft Teams Rooms Pro
Share and view all Teams content types	✔	✔
Share whiteboard with Content Capture Camera		✔

Meeting engagement

	Microsoft Teams Rooms Basic	Microsoft Teams Rooms Pro
Teams video gallery with multiple layout options	✔	✔
Front row		✔
Together mode		✔
Large gallery (up to 50 videos)		✔
Split gallery across two screen		✔

Calling

	Microsoft Teams Rooms Basic	Microsoft Teams Rooms Pro
Make and receive peer to peer and group calls	✔	✔
Microsoft 365 Phone System		✔

Intelligent audio and video

	Microsoft Teams Rooms Basic	Microsoft Teams Rooms Pro
Support for Intelligent Speaker live transcript with speaker identification		✔
Multi-camera support		✔
Panoramic room view		✔
AI noise suppression		✔
People counting		✔

Security and compliance

	Microsoft Teams Rooms Basic	Microsoft Teams Rooms Pro
Secure operating system	✔	✔
System level security (Secure boot, Assigned Access mode, etc.)	✔	✔
Azure AD condition access policies		✔

Device management

	Microsoft Teams Rooms Basic	Microsoft Teams Rooms Pro
Teams Admin Center enrollment and inventory	✔	✔
Automatic software updates	✔	✔
Detailed system and configuration information		✔
Peripheral health management		✔
Remote configuration		✔
Device history and activity		✔
ITSM integration		✔
Custom health alerts		✔
Device analytics		✔

Anyway, enough of the detail. You can read that yourself. Here’s what we think. Have a listen below.

As always, we’d love to hear your thoughts. Leave a comment below.

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