Microsoft FY20Q2 results exceed Wall Street estimates.

Highlight; Revenues of $36.9 billion for the quarter, with profit at $11.6 billion, up 38% year-over-year.

FY20 Q2 results summary

As always theres lots to read into these and some of the number lows and highs are always due to time of year and aligned with commercial, public sector and consumer buying cycles. Here are the main highlights as I’ve digested them.

  • Commercial cloud business (Azure, Microsoft 365, Dynamics) and other cloud services reached $12.5 billion in Q2, up 39% year over year.
  • Azure revenue itself grew 62%, but Microsoft doesn’t report revenue figures specific to Azure.
  • Productivity and Business Processes” which includes Office products for businesses and customers, LinkedIn revenue and Dynamics products and cloud services, increased 17% to $11.8 billion with Dynamics 365 up 43%
  • 9.5% increase in the number of Office 365 consumer subscribers, which is now at 35.6 million customers
  • Enterprise Mobility and Security was up to 120 million seats, a 36% increase year-over-year.
  • More Personal Computing,” including Windows, search, Xbox and Surface, was $13.2 billion, up 2% from this time last year with Xbox dragging these numbers down 11% percent compared to the same quarter last year.

Microsoft’s new Teams tv advert showcases how to do “modern meetings”

Microsoft has unveiled its first official TV advert for #MicrosoftTeams which aired this weekend. The slick 30-second ad aired during Sunday’s NFL playoff in the US, and will also be shown here in the UK as well as France, and Germany next month.

Called “The Power of Teams,” the advert opens with old skool boring business meetings, flip charts, aging spider speaker phones, and slidedecks printed on paper. The advert then quickly progresses to show how modern meeting experiences within Teams can transform the workplace.

Microsoft defines Teams as “the hub for Teamwork and #Microsoft365“ and claims to define the way forward for the Modern Workplace and to support the needs of today’s modern and agile workforce which now spans across 5 generations.

Watch the future of modern meetings

What is “Chromium” Edge? Microsoft’s new modern browser built on Chrome

After what is almost a year-long journey of testing and feedback from the #edgeinsider community, Microsoft’s new Chromium Edge browser has taken off its’ beta badge and you can now download and use the final release version which is available from today!

MICROSOFT Edge

How do I get it?

  1. Browse to Microsoft’s Website from your current browser
  2. Click the blue Download for Windows 10 button and download the new Edge web browser as a .exe file
  3. Run the installer and let it install the new Chromium powered Edge… It will take few minutes to install.
  4. Once done, set up the browser to your liking and take it for a test spin..
  5. Remove your old Google Chrome!! Once your concinved of course!

If you’ve been using the old version of Edge, you will hopefully notice that it has been removed from your Windows 10 PC. New Edge replaces and “hides” the old Edge but you can still get to it should you wish too… You won’t want to!

What is new with Chromium Edge?

Errm.. EVERYTHING.

There is so much new in this version of Edge and its a total rewrite built based on the open platform that is Chromium of which Microsoft and Google are of course major contributors…. (feel like I should queue the “everything is awesome” music from Lego Movie!

What is immediately noticeable (in my view) is the speed and performance increase over old Edge and infact Google Chrome.. Support for a huge number of extensions also sets this apart…

Since Edge is jot standalone, it’s updated regularly… At least every 6 weeks. There are also beta, dev and canary builds you can try which update more frequently if you want to try and feedback on new things as part of the #edgeinsider community. I’ve been running the canary build for about a year since it was first announced..

In a way, I do wish they had changed the name as I don’t think Edge has a good rep as a name and people will immediately think its rubbish…

FactIt isn’t.. It is really great IMO anyway!

Love to hear your feedback as would #edgeinsider if you are twitter.

New Scheduling Experience coming to Microsoft Teams

Microsoft are about to roll out (early Feb 2020) changes that replace the existing scheduling form with a new form that retains all existing scheduling functionality but makes it more aligned to the Outlook experience. The core changes include:

  • Improved view of available time
  • Allows changing event information from the scheduling assistant tab
  • Includes an option for required and optional attendees.
  • Includes search within the location picker field.

New Teams scheduling form can be seen below.

New MicrosoftTeams Scheduling Form




As well as the changes above, there’s a number of additional features including:

  • All day events option – a new toggle like in outlook that converts meetings to an all-day event.Availability status – provides simple people and location search which provides a visual (red) indicator to indicate non-availability on people or resources.
  • Cancellation with message – provides ability to provide and edit a message when cancelling an event if desired (again similar to what Outlook offers today).
  • Tabs in edit/view mode – these tabs provide easy access to things like chat, meeting notes, files, scheduling assistant, and of course the meeting whiteboard.
  • Time zone picker – which now finally allows meeting organisers to select the time zone they wish to use for the meeting.

That’s it… The new update is rolling out in the next few weeks so look out for it.

Microsoft Teams and Outlook get tighter integration to ease adoption to Teams

#MicrosoftTeams and #Outlook integration was announced and Ignite last month and is getting ready to start rolling out this January.

This will include three features designed to help users more easily shift conversations in email (that are really better suited to chat) move / shift the conversation to #MicrosoftTeams.

This will include.

1. Sharing an email message directly to Teams (without having to get the Team email address from the Team site first) which allows the  sharing of a copy of an email and any attachments from Outlook to a channel or chat within Team


2. Share a conversation via email allowing a copy of a Teams channel or chat conversation via email directly from the Teams client.


3. Reply to Teams missed activity email directly within Outlook clients, as well as seeing the latest missed messages.

#modernworkplace #microsoft365 #office365 #adoption

Need a New Year Resolution? How about improving your Productivity Score?

Happy new year everyone…

Like many, we are thinking about what things to give up, things to start doing and things we want to do better in 2020. When it comes to our work and the things we do how about thinking about how we can work more efficiently when we return to work this week or next…

You see, people are seen to be as collaborating if one person edits and shares a document (or presentation, spreadsheet, onenote etc), and then at least one other person accesses it or collaborates on the same version of that document.

So what – why are you telling me this?

The more people collaborate, the more they’ll invest in each other’s ideas, which in turn leads to efficient authoring, easier interaction, faster response and more agile decision making. It can also be more secure since access to these documents is controlled, the files don’t end up being shared all over the place (un trackable) via email and everyone is “on the same page”.

Since we are all part of multiple teams within our roles at work, taking these simple steps will help you to save time ever day while increasing your content collaboration, improving security and compliance within the organisation and making it more efficient and effective to work on or update files together rather than emailing multiple versions backwards and forward via email like we did in the 90s (and many still do today).

Here’s some tips to get you more productive

1. Encourage yourself and others to collaborate better

It’s a proven fact that we work more effectively when we collaborate better. Many of is though, still save our files locally or use VPNs (yes they are still a thing apparently for remote access) and then share files (which we expect people to comment and collaborate on via email attachments).

Let’s be honest, no one likes trying to merge all the changes from the many reply to all emails you get back with multiple versions of the same file (especially when everyone has different ideas or responds to an out of date version).

Improve your collaboration posture, your security ying and yang and be more productive… Heres a short little video to introduce (ok hopefully remind you) of the benefits of saving and sharing files in the cloud, co-authoring in real time, and collaborating with comments and @ mentions.

2. Learn about and adopt the benefits of cloud storage

Hopefully your not still storing stuff on your un protected (not backed up) desktop or using old school file shares.

Using OneDrive (thereby storing files in the cloud) means they’re always backed up, available from other devices, and set up for real-time collaboration and secure file sharing. Watch this quick video to understand the benefits using OneDrive has for you.

3. Replace those email attachments with “shared links”

Rather than sending files via attachments, it far more effective to share a link to your file (assuming you’ve saved it in OneDrive, Teams or SharePoint) within your email message. This way everyone (you decide) can view and update (if you give them permission) the file and see changes and collaborate in real time. This is also far more secure as you prevent recipients downloading or editing the file plus you can always revoke permissions if you wish.

For a quick video on how to do watch this short video clip..

You mentioned the word score? How is productivity measured?

That’s right. It’s now (well it’s in Public Preview right now) to measure how productive your organisation is through a new service within Office 365 called “Productivity Score”.

Productivity Score provides insights that help transform how work gets done.  It aims to provide your organisation visibility into how your organisation works, insights that identify where you can enable improved experiences so people can reach their goals, and actions to update skills and systems so everyone can do their best work. 

Productivity Score Summary

There are two categories that your (organisation) score is built from, the employee experience and the technology experience and both include a benchmark that helps you compare how you are doing compared to organisation similar to yours (based on size, geography and sector). 

The employee experience shows how Microsoft 365 is helping to create a productive and engaged workforce by quantifying how people collaborate on content, work from anywhere, understanding communication styles, and developing a meeting culture.

The technology experience helps you ensure the technology isn’t getting in the way by assisting you optimise your device experiences such as proactively remediating common helpdesk issues and improving PC startup times, and your network to ensure your apps work well.

Available today (registration/sign up request required until it releases formally in early 2020) in the Office 365 Admin Centre.

For more information from Microsoft on this as it develops read the following blog.

That’s it from me. Welcome any feedback and comments and in the mean time Happy Xmas and all the best for 2020!