Microsoft has been hinting that its Teams collaboration service will be coming to Linux for some time, but it finally confirmed it back in September. Today, the company announced that Teams for Linux is now available in public preview, so you can try it out right now.
"2019 has been another incredible year in open source, and Linux continues to be at the heart of all the growth and innovation," said Jim Zemline, Executive Director at The Linux Foundation. "I"m really excited about the availability of Microsoft Teams for Linux. With this announcement, Microsoft is bringing its hub for teamwork to Linux. I’m thrilled to see Microsoft’s recognition of how companies and educational institutions alike are using Linux to transform their work culture."
Microsoft says that Teams is the first Microsoft 365 app to come to desktop Linux, since apparently it doesn"t consider Skype a Microsoft 365 app. The firm will support all core functionality on the open-source platform.
Bringing Teams to Linux is a key element in compating with Slack, the chief competitor to Teams. Many businesses run a hybrid environment with different operating systems, so not having Teams on Linux was a major roadblock to migrating to Microsoft"s service, even if they were getting it as part of a Microsoft 365 subscription. Now, that roadblock is gone.
Teams for Linux is in public preview now, you you can download it here in .deb and .rpm formats.