I feel I must congratulate Cisco on the annoucement of their new partner and customer centric Enterprise Agreement.
Simple and Inclusive
This looks and feels like one of the simplest yet powerful subscription based licensing programmes in the channel… at a time when “other” major vendors seem to be struggling to get a model right that is fair and offers value to both customer and partners regardless of size.
Consistent across their solution portfolio
When fully available in early 2022, Cisco will make their full portfolio of services available through a single agreement rather than the current multiple EAs with different terms, rules and portals they have today. Instead the EA will cover all five of Cisco’s solution areas – application infrastructure, networking infrastructure, collaboration, security and services.
Helps make it easy for customer to buy solutions across the stack
This new EA will dramatically simplify purchasing and selling as it creates one program and one experience for everything Cisco do and aligned to their product portfolio.
For example, Cisco has been beating the drum hard with the concept of “full stack observability”, which is growing in importance in this multi-cloud centric, highly mobile and hybrid world.
To make this a reality, customers, need to buy products across multiple technology and solution stacks, including services like AppDynamnics, ThousandEyes, Intersight etc., but this new should make it much easier for partners to sell and for customers to buy.
Microsoft are releasing a huge overhaul and new look for the Office.com (and the office app) experience. This will make it even easier to find all the content associated with you and your teams, simplify and enhance the search experience and bring all your apps, tasks, templates and actions together in one place.
New Office.com experience
AI Overhaul
The main thing you notice first off is how much more simple and intuitive the Office.com pages now look.
Microsoft goal here has been to put you and your most important work at the forefront of the experience. The power of Microsoft 365 will anticipate which files (and people) are most important to your work at a given moment based on your habits and routines, the docs or projects you are working on, the activity happening within them and what you need to do to accomplish your work.
On the left pane, is a familiar navigation pane where users can quickly get to things like the new My Content page and Create Pages making it simple and easy to search for or create new content across Microsoft 365. As new fluid components like Loop (also annouced last week), these will also surface themselves here.
Home page updates includes new or overhauled sections around providing:
Recommended Actions
Quick Access
My Content
Creating content
Recommended Actions
Recommended actions analyse and bring together anything that needs (or may need) your attention or action. From here you can jump into your upcoming meeting, add (or complete) a To-Do or Planner task, reply to recent comments in documents, and see potential actions you have discussed in an email.
In addition to the Recommended Actions on the home page, you can also find content actions in line on any of the content lists within Office.com by clicking on the “triple dot” menu.
Quick Access
The Quick Access section let’s your easily collaborate on content by Sharing via Teams or booking time to review content with your team or manger. This section is all about helping you jump into and review content that’s important to you. This content can be viewed as either a list or adaptive cards for a more visual layout depending on your preference.
Microsoft have made it really easy to filter this content by recently opened content, content you have shared with others, content around a particular topic, or person and group and even your favourite content.
My Content
Here you can view all your content and again view it by recently opened, shared, and favourites or custom filters to find what you need. As with quick access, you can leverage the powerful filters to quickly find the content you need.
As above, you can easily filter by type of document, activity and time and unlike most searches there no need to set a number of results as it the results like just adapts as you scroll.
The power and depth of search filters is very extensive and even contains specific filters like document you are @mentioned in or where an action was assigned.
You also have the ability to browse by People and Meetings. When you click on People for example you can view an easy to digest card view of people and documents that have been shared. When you click on Meetings, you can find all meeting content like recordings, shared documents or adaptive components, notes, and chat from your previous meetings.
Microsoft have also added some cool quick access tools, for example you can convert docs to PDF, Share docs straight into Teams, Add things to your Calendar, and Add to To Do lists.
Creating content
This update makes it easier than ever to create new content across all the Office suite. As well as being able to create new blank documents, users can so create content using an extensive set of new tools and templates. Everything from surveys and brainstorming sessions, Power BI reporting dashboards, project plans and dynamic presentations. IT can also customise the templates to allow employees to have quick access to templates from your organisations branded content by having all corporate templates in one place central place.
Availability and Release
At Ignite last week, Microsoft said this new experience would start rolling out in the coming weeks to insiders and then targeted release channels before making its way to everyone BY January 2022.
You can watch a video from Ignite on the new experience here.
At Microsoft’s semi annual Ignite conference this week, they announced a new productivity tool designed to make it easier than ever for teams to think, plan and create together across each and every Microsoft 365 app and service.
Microsoft Loop
Loop is a new app that brings together a new extensible and flexible canvas with load of adaptive /fluid components that can be moved freely and stay in sync across all the Microsoft 365 apps and services. Loop has been born to help boost productivity across the hybrid workplace at a time most workspaces look set to be ever more distributed.
Microsoft Loop
Loop is actually made up of the following key components.
Loop components
Loop pages
Loop workspace
Loop App (coming later)
Loop components
These are essentially then version 2.0 of the “Fluid components” Microsoft have in apps like Teams and SharePoint today. These components will allow users to more easily collaborate and work together across chats, emails, meetings, files, documents or Loop pages. These components can be simple – like lists, tables, notes and tasks or more complex – like records from Microsoft Dynamics 365. There are a bunch of new components coming too including things like Live voting, status trackers and progress reports and developers will be able to build and sell their own.
Loop Pages
These are the flexible canvases that users use to bring together and organise all of their Loop components as well as the space in which they pull in or link other useful stuff such as files, Web links and other data relevant to their loop topic. These pages are the collaborative space (think Microsoft Whiteboard and OneNote on steroids). Microsoft say that the Loop Pages are optimised to help teams think and work together but can also start small grow as ideas, projects and teams grow and change.
Loop Workspace
These are shared spaces that allow teams to see and group everything that is important to project or team. Workspaces are there to make it quick and easy for teams to catch up and see what everyone else in the team is working on as well as to react/comment and contribute to others members ideas. These workspaces allow people to collaborate both synchronously and asynchronously so work can get done whenever inspiration requires it and with whomever they are working with (or alone).
Availability
Microsoft say that some Loop components will start to roll out across Microsoft 365 apps such as Teams, Outlook and OneNote later this year but have also said that they will share more information about the availability of the Microsoft Loop app by early 2022.
Want to know more?
I don’t have any personal hands on experience of Loop as yet so adding a link to a hands-on video by a tech friend of mine Darrel.
Cisco has annouced a new upcoming enhancement to their Webex Calling platform that extends phone numbers natively to a employees mobile phone allowing them to use the phones keypad rather than the Webex mobile app.
Our innovations released today enable enterprises to be closer to their customers than ever, helping them deliver the best possible customer experience across all channels in real-time.
Unlike traditional Single Number Reach service available in Cisco Call Manager and other Softphone services which essentially forward your call to a mobile, Webex Go, allows employees to connect over their mobile network (using their work number) while keeping their personal mobile number hidden.
A step forward for communication Compliance?
CSOs and CCOs will most likley be interested by this annoucement since, as well as the convenience factor for employees, will help businesses ensure employees adhere by thier compliance and regulatory rules since they can ensure calls go via Webex and are then recorded and monitored for example.
Coming in H1 2022
Cisco said in the annoucement that Webex Go is expected to launch in the US in the first half of 2022, with other geo regions coming at somepoint in the future.
What about similar services?
Vendors such as Avaya have had a similar function for a while and there are also a number of value added SIP and Mobile providers who offer value added service which provide a similar service.
One such provider (yes a bit of a call out here) is Teleware 365 and their Re:Call service.
Teleware 365 Re:Call Service
Re:Call enables employees to use their personal mobile phone to make and receive business calls, SMS, IM and group chat. This improves the employee experience as it removes the need for a business phone entirely, giving employees the ability to use their own device, the device they already know and love. Its also great in environments that need to adhere to strict communication compliance since it can ensure all calls are logged and recorded.
Hybrid Working in driving innovation
It’s good to see Cisco announcing that they will bringing native mobile extensibility directly (without the need for an app) right into Cisco Webex Calling next calendar year.
It’s pretty much accepted now that the future of work (for most) is hybrid and as such organisations are becoming increasingly focused on ensuring a seamless experience between remote working, the office and of course the experience, security and governance around using personal and work phones/numbers. The typical ask I see is.
• Removing the need for employees to carry two phones, one for personal use and one for business use. This is also good for Corporate Social Responsibility.
• Allowing employees to use their phone of choice without having to have IT control it.
• Allowing employees to separate business and personal use of the phone, providing confidentiality for business and personal data alike with full accountability and control.
• Allows employees to collaborate safely and securely with instant messaging and group chat.
I expect the other leading collaboration vendors like Zoom and Microsoft Teams to follow in the future and in the mean time, service providers like Teleware 365 can provide similar functionality regardless of what UC or voice solution you use.
Welcome your comments as always about this or anything in my blogs and thoughts…
At Enterprise Connect today, Nicole Herskowitz made a handful of announcements about further enhancements and improvements to a Teams including the announcement that Microsoft Teams Calling Plans is being expanding into 5 new markets
Croatia
Estonia
Latvia
Lithuania
Slobenia
Native calling plans now in 33 countries
Native Microsoft Teams Calling now in 33 countries
Enabling calling in Teams
As well as buying and enabling calling plans direct from Microsoft (where Microsoft essentially becomes your PSTN provider), there are two other ways to get a phone number and PSTN connectivity direct from within Microsoft Teams.
Direct Routing – which is essentially “bring your own SBC or Carrier) which allows you to keep your existing SIP provider and connect to it via a certified SBC
Carrier Connect – which went into General Availability today, allows organisations to enable PSTN in Teams direct via participating operators which connect direct into Teams via Azure.
Covered in detail here, carrier connect provides potential benefits to larger/global organisations (over Microsoft Calling plans) including:
Keeping preferred operator contracts, while enabling modern calling experience in Teams.
Rapid deployment of calling in Teams by connecting directly via Teams to your existing operator and assigning phone numbers to users.
Reduced hardware and management costs since PSTN services and SBCs are managed by the operator
Enhanced, global support since Carrier Connect operators are responsible for shared service level agreements.
Read more
Read more on the official annoucements from Enterprise Connect here.
Based on leaks, past years and media gossip we expect to see:-
Surface Book 4
Surface Pro 8
Surface Go 2
Surface Duo 2 (aka surface phone)
So as my friends, colleagues and followers know I’m a big fan of Windows and Surface so just a tad excited for the annual Surface hardware event on Wed Sept 22nd 2021.
There’s been loads of coverage by Windows Central for example as well as many other spotters and bloggers as well as what has been refreshed in previous years. As such ere’s what might be coming based on the rumours and leaks and update history of past events.
Surface Book 4?
One of the most rumoured design changes “may” be coming to the Power horse that is the Surface Book 4. This (if true) will be a major uplift to the current model and w is expected to feature a brand new design with non-detachable 2-in-1 design which will basically combining the best of Surface Laptop with the Surface Pro form factor to create the new Book 4.
Based on the renders and numerous leaks, the display on the Surface Book 4 will be able to be pulled forward and laid flat over the keyboard deck for drawing or taking notes which also resembles similaraires to the Surface Studio.
Leaked images of Surface Book 4 (maybe)
I’d expect the usual upgrades to the internals, USB A to be ditched in favour of USB C (or even thunderbolt) and upgraded graphics capability and a possible increase in screen refresh rate to match the new dynamic refresh which is part of #Windows11.
The big question is will this in fact be called a Surface Book 4 or something else… Time will tell.. But I think its fair to say that this is likley to be the biggest highlight of the event on Wednesday.
Surface Pro 8
The flagship Surface Pro device (which will most likely be called the Surface Pro 8) should also be unveiled.
Surface Pro Black
There is unlikely to be any major design changes but there are rumours we will see a more Surface Pro X feel to this years model with a bigger display and thinner bezels. There also be the usual spec upgrades to chipsets and processors to the latest and greatest.
There also been reports that Microsoft might be ready to up the screen to support a new dynamic refresh rate of up 120Hz for this years higher end Surface devices.
Surface Go 3
The ever popular Surface Go is likely see just a modest upgrade this year with better chipsets and battery and again will most likley keep the Intel Pentium Gold processor as well as an i3 (or maybe i5 option to match the Surface Laptop).
Surface Go
Other than, not expecting much else other than it would be nice to see an option of black… Everyone loves a black Surface.
Surface Duo 2
I loved the Duo v1 (price tag aside) but it lacked a lot of leasing features that would have earned more airtime…
There been lots of rumours and leaks in this one but we hope to see a much better phone that still builds on the amazing looks and quality of the original. We expect and hope to see it feature at least:
Latest Processor (Snapdragon 888)
5G and Bluetooth 5
Upgraded camera, as well as rear cluster
NFC
Upgraded battery and Screen
Surface Duo 2. Image (C) Windows Central
A new Surface Studio?
I’d love to see a new Studio but not heard any rumours on this one and suspect the new Surface Book 4 may create the hybrid graphics powerhouse in a mobile form… Who knows…we all will in a days time.
Where to watch the event?
The event is streamed live at 4pm UK time (11am ET) and can be watched (or register for a reminder) here.
Microsoft have announced that real-time co-authoring support for encrypted documents (which has been in preview for a while) is now generally available. Co-authoring is a feature that allows users to collaborate on documents across Word, Excel, and PowerPoint for example, but it only worked on files that weren’t protected with encrypted….. until now.
Image (C) Microsoft
“With Microsoft 365, when sensitivity labels are used to encrypt Word, Excel, or PowerPoint documents, multiple users can now edit these documents in real-time with AutoSave, empowering teams to do their best work while maintaining protection across the document lifecycle,” Paras Kapadia, Principal Program Manager for Office 365 explained.
Co-authoring support for protected files is supported now on the Web, Windows and Apple Mac clients and willbe coming to iOS and Android “soon“.
You must “enable it” to enable it!!
It’s worth noting that unlike many Microsoft 365 features which are “on by default”, organisations who want to use co-authoring on protected documents need to enable this in the Microsoft 365 Compliance Center.
Microsoft 365 Compliance Centre
Microsoft also provide full guidance for admins on how to do this here. Please note: once enabled, you need to contact Microsoft support should you want/need to turn this off for any reason.
Microsoft has annouced and launched (starting today) Microsoft Start, which is a new(ish)/revamped personalised news service which pulls together personalised and targeted news and information from the Microsoft anews Service (MSN) and from “more than a thousand” other publishers.
“Microsoft Start” (image (C) Microsoft)
Microsoft Start will be available via the web at MicrosoftStart.Com, from the Microsoft Edge “new tab” page, Windows PCs, tablets and mobile devices and will provide a consistent yet personalised feed with news feeds and stories coming from a over a thousand selected publishers, which will be fine tuned as users like or dislike content or content types that appear in their feeds as Microsoft Start learns more about the user.
“Microsoft Start brings new technology to content experiences, including Microsoft’s latest advancements in AI and machine learning, coupled with human moderation, to help people stay up to date with information that is personalized for their interests.”
Liat Ben-Zur | Microsoft CVP
You can read the official annoucement from the Microsoft blog here:
Get started with MicrosoftStart
The Start experience currently looks and feels familiar (I’d almost go as far as saying the same) as the existing MSN service. Users can customise Start by clicking on the “Personalize” button which will allows access to managing interests and tweaking the types of news recommendations the service provides.
Microsoft Start seems to be a combination of a number of different Microsoft services, including Cortana and MSN. For example the Cortana app (as it was) was able to use AI and Machine Learning to determine your interests and display the latest “useful” news and headlines in the feed, as well give you travel time estimates based to meetings based on your location.
Microsoft Start has adaptive “cards” similar in some ways to the old “live tiles” in Windows 8-10 and the widgits in Windows 11 today. These cards provide updates to things like local weather, breaking news, finance, traffic, and sports etc.
The experience on Edge is pretty much no different to the current MSN one and the http://microsoftstart.com url even redirects you to https://www.msn.com but I expect this will change over the next few days as the service rolls out.
Microsoft do say though that Microsoft Start doesn’t replace MSN.com, and the dedicated Microsoft News app for Windows 10 and Windows 11 will continue to exist for the time being.
Why the name change?
You’ve got me on this one….
Microsoft haven’t offically revealed why they have brought in a brand new name for the service. Microsoft News Service (MSN) worked for me (like Apple News, or Sky News or BBC news) it was it was and did…
I’m sure we will find out more at somepoint though… There’s always a reason after all..
Available now…..
Microsoft Start is live now at MicrosoftStart.com, and is live on the Microsoft Edge new tab page (try it), the News and interests taskbar thingy on Windows 10, and also in the Widgets app IN Windows 11.
In the coming days, the Microsoft News app on Android and Apple iOS will be updated and rebranded to Microsoft Start (so don’t confuse it with something else!) .
Here’s my summary of the top new capabilities and changes that were released in Microsoft Teams over the summer break.
As usual the official teams blog details all the changes in detail as usual. Here’s the high level summary however.
Meetings and webinars
Here’s the new and updated for meetings and webinars in August:
Reporter and Side-by-Side options in Presenter Mode when sharing / presenting content.
New assignment experience in separate window for Teams Breakout Rooms.
Live Captions and Live Transcript in 27 additional languages.
Ability to start recording and live transcript simultaneously.
Ability to set meetings to start recording automatically.
Image courtesy Microsoft
The new presentation modes, namely, reporter mode and side by side mode are the main new standout features for meetings and webinars this month. In this presentation mode, Teams places the presention / screen behind or next to the presenter and places content next to them in a similar way to how a presenter looks on TV.
Teams Room Devices
A fair number of new features and enhancements was released for Teams Room devices this month including the following…
Image from Microsoft
NativeSupport for screen sharing with HDMI ingest
Auto answer for Meet Now meetings
New remote provisioning and sign-in experience for admins
1080p resolution for outgoing video
Teams panels released and shipping
Ability to better customise the Teams panels experience with Teams Extensibility/LoB app support
Ability to hide / omit meeting names for sensitive spaces or meeting topics
New bunch of Teams Certified Devices
Teams Education updates
Teams for Education got a chunk of updates over the summer holiday, the biggest new feature being the Reading Progress feature, which lets students practice their reading. Teaching staff can review the recorded practice of students within the Assignments section of Teams.
Here’s key features and changes that rolled out for Teams for Education in August 2021:
Ability to create, edit, and join Microsoft Teams meetings in Canvas.
Ability to communicate and collaborate with class teams from Blackboard.
Reading Progress feature addition.
Updated and simplified navigation across class teams.
The full verbose version
The full list of features and enhancements can be found in the official Teams Blog here.
In addition to the recent price rises annouced last week to almost all Microsoft 365 plans (other than the highest E5 plans), Microsoft also annouced some good value news for users of Microsoft Teams.
And today, we are announcing that we will add unlimited dial-in capabilities for Microsoft Teams meetings across our enterprise, business, frontline, and government…
Jared Spataro, Corporate VP | Microsoft 365
What’s it currently cost?
At time of writing, Microsoft’s PSTN Audio Conferencing is included with Microsoft 365 E5 and Office 365 E5 (for free) but requires an add-on licence for all other licences such as E3 (the most common base licence across most organisations).
The PSTN audio conferencing licence (add on) is currently priced at circa £3pupm (about $4) and for enterprise customers on an Enterprise Agreement (EA), there is also an option to pay via Pay Per Minute billing.
What about dial-out conferencing?
In the official Microsoft blog, they refer to unlimited dial-in conferencing and do not specifically talk about any changes to dial-out conferencing where a meeting participant calls a user into a conference from a meeting rather than them dialing in.
Under the currently model, each licenced user gets a pooled 60 minutes per user per month that can be used to dial-out to non-premium numbers in any of the Zone A countries. More info on that here.
It’s not known (well I couldn’t find it) if this is also changing under the new plan.
Big value or not?
Microsoft has more than 300 million commercial paid seats, though less than 10% of these are E5 so adding this value to all Office/Microsoft 365 plans is of course welcomed value.
This, on the Surface is clearly good news and should potitivley impact a very large number of organisations (assuming they use Microsoft Teams for meetings of course) adding more value to the license they pay for (price rises aside of course).
The question remains of course, as in todays online world how many people still “dial in” to conferences and this of course limits the other mediums and media in a teams meetings such as video, content sharing/viewing and app Co authoring but is useful in situations where you are perhaps driving, travelling or in a area with no or poor Internet connectivity.
Announced this week on the Microsoft 365 Admin Center, the latest version of Whiteboard is now rolling out to Microsoft Teams and Web users but is also coming soon for Windows and iOS. The new features are coming in 2 waves with the first set of updates coming now.
Rolling out now
This 1st new update brings new collaboration capabilities including new sticky note colours, highlighter colours, new content types, improved inking support and a few other features. There’s also a “read-only mode” for education.
More on the way…
In addition to these features, Microsoft is also agressively working on additional features (due late September), including laser pointer, collaborative cursors, customizable templates, better object alignment, and a new lick of pain for the overall UI which also promise to bring performance enhancements to the Whiteboard app performance in Teams and web clients. These were annouced at ignite earlier this year.
Microsoft’s have annouced the first ‘substantive’ price increase for many of its commercial Office 365/Microsoft 365 subscription plans is coming in March 2022.
On March 1, 2022, Microsoft will be increasing prices for most of its commercial Office 365 and Microsoft 365 subscriptions with the exception of consumer, education and also Microsoft 365 E5, which will not be increased.
The increases will range from $12 per user per year more for Microsoft 365 Business Basic, to $48 per user per year more for Microsoft 365 E3. In some cases, Microsoft is increasing prices to match those of the competition (read, Google), officials said. In other cases, it is adjusting prices to reflect the considerable value added to the Office 365/Microsoft 365 suites over the past several years, they added.
Microsoft have said in a blog post that since the introduction of Microsoft 365 four years ago, they has added 24 apps to their Office 365/Microsoft 365 suites, including Teams, Power Apps, Power BI, Power Automate, Stream, Planner, Visio, OneDrive, Yammer and Whiteboard as well as over 1,400 new features to its the core products across Microsoft 365 subscriptions over the past decade.
How much are the increases?
I’ve only seen the US$ pricing so far, but price increases range from $12 pupm for Microsoft 365 Business Basic, to $48 pupm for Microsoft 365 E3. In many cases the reason for these increases is to reflect the considerable amount of value added services added to the Office 365/Microsoft 365 over the past few years.
Microsoft 365 Business Basic up $1 to $6pupm
Microsoft 365 Business Premium up $2 to $22 pupm
Office 365 E1 up $2 to $10 pupm
Office 365 E3 up $3to $23 pupm
Office 365 E5 up $3 to $38 pupm
Microsoft 365 E3 up $4 to $36 pupm
Microsoft 365 E5 No change at $57 pupm.
Microsoft 365 F SKUs – No change.
Jared Spataro, Microsoft Corporate VP for Microsoft 365 said “Microsoft believes the changes in prices may make the Microsoft 365 E5 SKU even more attractive” to customers”.
Take but give back..
Microsoft also said (more quietly) that that will be adding unlimited dial-in capabilities for Teams meetings across all its paid enterprise, business, frontline worker and government suites over the next few months (after offering free conferencing on a limited time for the last 12 months). This will help drive more people towards audio dial in (and presumably voice services) within Microsoft Teams and allows meeting participants to dial-in and join a Teams meeting from any device. Without needing the Teams client installed.
Read more….
For the official annoucement (US only at time of writing), read the official blog here.
Microsoft Teams is getting a new much needed feature that will allow users to swap between shared content and the Gallery view during meetings.
Now in Public Preview, this new feature is (though I’m sure it was there once before) rolling out to users enrolled in the public preview channel using Windows 10 and macOS clients.
What does this new feature provide?
The new swap experience (supported in both large gallery & dynamic mode as well as Together Mode) finally means that users can now simply swap between any content being shared and on their chosen participant video feeds, bringing participant videos to the center and content like shared desktop/window, PowerPoint presentation or Whiteboard etc to the side or top.
Clicking on the shared content again brings the shared content back to the center of the meeting window. Gallery view and Together mode. Previously, the app used to disable the 49-person Large Gallery view in screen sharing mode, but this release lets users enable Large Gallery while sharing content or screen.
This may sound like a little thing… It is, but it’s been a niggle of many of my customers (and me once I discovered you actually couldn’t do…. I’m convinced I used to be able to).
A few bugs…
I’ve only tried this a few times in meetings as it “lit up” for me today and there a few bits that don’t quite work yet (which Microsoft do state in their blog).
In the preview version, Whiteboard content and PowerPoint Live presentations cannot be viewed in the swap state though I expect this will get sorted before it’s officially live for everyone.
If you have this preview feature, test out and make sure to file feedback via the Teams Feedback section in the app.
Microsoft 365 now has “Safe Links” protections across Microsoft Teams for any organisation that uses Microsoft Defender for Office 365 (formally Office 365 ATP).
Defender for Office 365
What is Safe Links?
Safe Links is a feature of Defender for Office 365 that scans URLs clicked by end users to check for malware and malicious or phishing sites in real time.
Safe Links was first introduced in 2015 (for just Exchange Online at the time) and was originally used to “detonate” links in e-mails to detect malicious payloads. Safe Links was subsequently added to Microsoft 365 applications, as well, such as PowerPoint and Word.
With the latest update and expansion across Microsoft 365, Safe Links now provides transparent, integrative and native intelligent protections against malicious links in conversations, group chats and channels chat across Microsoft Teams.
Enabling the feature
This can be configured in the Microsoft 365 Defender portal. Detailed instructions can be found here
As with SafeLinks across the other Office services, admins can add exclusions and trusted sites if needed.
Coming to complement the newly released “Standout mode” that rolled out to Microsoft Teams last months, 2 new immersive presentation modes are about to start rolling out.
This update is referenced within Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 83371.
What do the new modes mean for presenters?
Thia update will enhance the presenter view to make desktop or app sharing more inclusive and better for hybrid meetings, ensuring the presenter can be seen at all times. Side by Side and Reporter Mode
Side by Side Mode
In this mode, meeting participants will see the presenter’s video feed and content overlaid on a background image (which can be customised).
Side by side presenter mode in Teams
Reporter Mode
In this mode, the meeting participants will see the presenter’s video feed superimposed over the background image while having the content over their shoulder, placed diagonally. Like. TV broadcast.
Reporter Mode in Teams
The modes are customisable….with different backgrounds (not custom ones yet though).
What can be customised?
Presenters are able to customise the background image before starting the presentation.
Presenters are able to enable or disable the video feed during the presentation from the sharing bar.
After experiencing huge growth like many Cloud UC vendors) during the COVID-19 pandemic, Zoom has made its first major acquisition by agreeing to buy cloud contact center Five9 for $14.7 billion.
In the past year, Zoom have been adding more enterprise and home collaboration tools to its services including new room systems partnerships and office collaboration products, their new cloud phone system, and an all-in-one home communications appliances in an aim to rule the home and enterprise market space.
This acquisition will allow Zoom to expand into call center space (a market said to be worth around $24 billion. In the official announcement, Zoom CEO, Eric Yuan said “We are continuously looking for ways to enhance our platform and the addition of Five9 is a natural fit that will deliver even more… value to our customers,”.
Zoom feed on twitter
Once the audition completes in early 2022,Five9 will become an operating unit of Zoom and its chief executive, Rowan Trollope (Ex Cisco), will become a president of the company.
How are Five9?
Five9 was founded in 2001 and has around 2,000 customers globally, including major brands like SalesForce and Under Armour. They processes in excess 7 billion minutes of calls annually.
Zoom, (like other leading UCaaS vendors) already partner and integrate their solutions Five9 to add integrated contact and customer experience solutions into its platform. The contact centre business has grown hugely since the start of COVID-19 and with customer habits now “the way of life”, the move to deliver a better online customer experience will now benefit zoom through these new integrated revenue streams.
It’s a 3 legged race in the UCaaS market…
According to Gartner, global spending on cloud-based video conferencing technology is forecast to reach $5.5 billion this year, up from $5.0 billion in 2020, a space where today, Zoom, Microsoft and Cisco as the clear front runners leaders. Cisco and Zoom will now own a slice of the contact centre market directly while Microsoft continue to leverage the partner eco system to drive options and choice to customers.
Thanks for reading and I welcome your thoughts and feedback on this acquisition and the UCaaS space generally…
The next big update to #MicrosoftTeams (dubbed Teams 2.0) will be faster, allow multiple accounts, provide seemless integration into #Windows11 and will look and behave much more like a native Windows app.. Yay.
Teams 2.0 on Windows 11 (image:Microsoft)
Inline with the release of Windows 11 later this year (though will likely be in preview way before then), Microsoft is finalising the work on a totally resigned version of Microsoft Teams. Designed specifically for Windows 11 but will also be realised and will work on Windows 10.
What’s different?
The main difference between the existing Teams client and Microsoft Teams 2.0 is that the new version is based on Edge WebView2 rather than Electron. Leveraging Edge WebView2 allows for embedded Web technology such embedded as HTML, CSS and JavaScript along with the full power of the Chromium rendering engine. Microsoft will also move away from Angular and will instead now use the open source front-end JavaScript library React.js.
Introducing Microsoft Teams 2.0
The new Teams client is built around Microsoft Teams for the web though it won’t actually look much different from the existing Teams. The main changes come in the form of performance, application size, integration and extensibility.
A version that leaked on the Internet last week (with missing features) confirms the claims Microsoft have already made around significantperformance increase whilst also runs better on lower-end devices due to reduction in both app size and memory usage. According to Microsoft..
“Teams 2.0 will consume half the memory of the current Teams 1.0 client”.
Teams and Windows 11
Teams 2.0 will launch instantly and users will no longer “get stuck” on the loading screen on older devices or when teams is loaded when lots of other apps are already open.
Unlike the old client, the Teams 2.0 app window can now be resized and the interface scales alongside it automatically. It will also support the new snap view and snap assist features in Windows 11. With Teams 2.0, Microsoft has also added integrations with native notifications and other features within both Windows 10 and of course Windows 11.
Teams 2.0 will also finally properly support multiple accounts without having to switch/log in and out of different Tennants.
Coming “soon”
Microsoft Teams 2.0 should be a welcome upgrade whe it arrives. I’ll update this one it enters an official public preview state or hear more official word from the Microsoft Teams Team!
The Outlook extension is in beta (due to be released in July) but is available to download now from the Microsoft Edge add-ons store.
New Outlook Edge add in
What does it do?
The Outlook Edge browser extension enables users to read, send, and manage emails and even receive outlook notifications without the need to open a new tab or flip to the app.
The extension is designed to keep users productive while browsing allowing them to:
Reading an important email
Checking your calendar
Adding a task based on what you’re reading on the web
Fast look up of a contact’s phone number
Referring to info on a webpage while writing an email.
How to get it and set it up
The Outlook extension is in beta but is available to download on the Microsoft Edge add-ons store. You can get it here.
Once downloaded and enabled, an Outlook icon will be added to the Edge address bar. Users will need to sign in with their work or personal account to see their emails, calendar, contacts, and tasks, and more in a pop-up menu while browsing the web.
To use the extension, you of course need to login within your Microsoft or a Microsoft 365 account
Microsoft has opened registrations for this years Inspire 2021 virtual conference, which will be held on July 14th and 15th.
Microsoft Inspire is Microsoft’s largest (and global) annual partner event and as usual features several high-profile global execs including CEO Satya Nadella and EVP of Worldwide Commercial Business Judson Althoff.
What might we hear about?
Last year, there was huge news and updates around Azure, Microsoft Teams, Microsoft Edge as you’d expect with also a focus on new services such as Microsoft Lists, and Power Automate Desktop.
This year we can expect to hear some new enhancements and updates and I expect to see a focus around the recently(ish) announced Microsoft Viva along with more updates around Windows (following the event on the 24th June) and probably some new things none of us are expecting… .
You can register for Microsoft Inspire 2021 on this page with your Microsoft account, Office 365, LinkedIn, or GitHub account.
June 2021,brings a host of new features to Teams phones, which translate and complement some of the newest and greatest features users get with Teams on their desktop or mobile phone today. These include.
Add or Transfer Call to Device
Custom Backgrounds on video phones
Improved boss/admin/PA features
Outlook Contacts available on phone
Live captions support
Simpler and refreshed UI making it easier to get to key functions.
Let’s dive into the top 3 which are the most noticable in my view. You can see the full blog post and all the new features from Microsoft here.
Add or Transfer Call to Device
One of the most requested features is now here with the ability to add or transfer calls and meeting across devices.
Call add or transfer in Teams Phone Edition (image c Microsoft)
With this latest update for Teams Phone, this functionality is now consistently available across all devices meaning your desk phone will recognise you are in a call on another device and prompt you to transfer or add it in, letting you start your call from elsewhere and transfer to your desk phone.
Custom Backgrounds
Custom Backgrounds on Teams Phone
Background replacement on Teams video phones is now also available meaning feature parity with other teams devices for consistent and familiar look and feel. This role doit a couple. Of months ago to Teams collaboration displays like the Lenovo.
Improved boss/admin/PA features
New boss/admin controls on Teams Phone
A collection of little updates to improve how users interact with their calls and contacts.
For example, when a PA/Boss/Admin is in a call users can press the purple button touch target to see new options with respect to their contacts. The boss or admin can easily see frequent contacts with instant options to see their call status or place an outgoing call to them.
