From a sentence to a shortlist.

We spoke to the admins and buyers of 18 workspaces that ran the free Teams pilot between July and September. Eleven did not convert. This is what they said, in their words where we could.

1. 1Large workspaces stalled on price at rollout, not on the product.
2. 2Admin controls and SSO were asked for more often than any feature.
3. 3Teams that won expanded fastest when one admin owned the account.

Usage concentrated in a few large workspaces. They rolled Fernly out beyond the pilot team, then stopped at the point where per-seat pricing would have applied to the whole company. Smaller teams converted at a steady rate and rarely asked about price.

The workspaces worth most to us are not price sensitive per person. They need control over a company-wide rollout, and the seat count is what stops them reaching it.