|
Tom's Microsoft 365 Perspective
Microsoft Teams and Microsoft 365 news and views
Many thanks to Ribbon, this month's Empowering.Cloud benefactor. I will be speaking at their upcoming Ribbon Insights partner conference in Prague Sept 10-12. Ribbon always put on a great and valuable event. Hope to see some of you there!
My August monthly update video briefing can be found here: everything you need to know in 17 minutes (grab the PowerPoint deck, too, if you want to skim through fast and get the links).
Microsoft Earnings FY24 Q4 - Modern Work Insights
Copilot was the topic, mentioned 42 times in the earnings call. Teams Premium and Dynamics 365 Contact Center did get mentions too.
⬆️ Revenue up 17% to $61.9 billion
⬆️ Operating income up 23% to $27.6 billion
⬆️ Earnings: $2.94 per share, up by 20%
More than 77,000 organisations have adopted Copilot, up 180% year-over-year. The number of customers with >10,000 Copilot seats more than doubled (no absolute number of customers given).
Office 365 revenue grew 14% in constant currency, reflecting E5 and Copilot for Microsoft 365 growth. Teams Premium has surpassed 3M seats, up nearly 400% YoY.
Copilot is driving GitHub growth. GitHub’s annual revenue run rate is now $2 billion. Copilot accounted for over 40% of GitHub’s revenue growth this year. Microsoft is hoping to see a similar revenue increase in other product lines by adding Copilot/AI as an upsell.
We got some insight on the ambitions with Dynamics 365 Contact Center, Satya said: "Our new Dynamics 365 Contact Center is a Copilot-first solution that infuses generative AI throughout the contact center workflow."..."We, ourselves, are on course to save hundreds of millions of dollars in our own Customer Support and Contact Center Operations. I think we can drive that value to our customers."
Look out for a Teams Insider Podcast soon with Alan Ross, Microsoft Partner Group PM Manager, Dynamics 365 Contact Center diving into how it works and where it fits.
Microsoft Teams News:
-
Multiple Teams Client Improvements
- Enhanced search experience with message suggestions - As you type in the search bar, you'll see recent chat message suggestions pop up along with other types of search results
- Enhanced sound notification controls – set a specific sound for urgent messages and priority contacts
- Turn on/off notifications for a specific channel post
-
Upload your own custom emojis or reactions to personalise the conversation - On by default, and any users can create them. IT admins can decide who has permission to create custom emojis, delete custom emojis, or turn off the capability
-
New meeting gallery in Teams meetings
- The new gallery places everyone in tiles of equal size whether their camera is turned on or off.
- You can choose to prioritise participants who are on camera
- Default gallery size is 16 participants; you can customise the number of participants visible on your screen (up to 49)
- Automatically optimises the visibility of certain participants to improve meeting engagement, like those with a raised hand and active speakers
- Hide yourself from the main gallery or remove yourself from the main gallery (only visible to you).
- When a Teams Room joins a Teams meeting, the video tile of the room automatically enlarges
- AI-powered Speaker recognition now works for all Teams Rooms on Windows, regardless of the microphone type. Great for Intelligent Meeting Recap and Copilot.
-
Microsoft Teams Rooms on Windows 5.1.24.0 update rolling out - Support for Windows 11 23H2 and other minor bug fixes
-
Microsoft Teams desk phone - Teams app version -1449/1.0.94.2024071104
- Explicit Consent for Recording: Users will receive a notification asking for consent when recording or transcription starts on Teams phone devices. This feature is off by default but can be enabled by admins through the "Require participant agreement for recording, transcription and Copilot" setting.
- Private Line: The Private Line feature allows users, particularly bosses, to have a second private phone number on their Teams device, ensuring the privacy of important calls. These calls are separately listed in the call history.
- Lightweight People App: The updated People app offers a faster and simplified experience for managing contacts, enabling users to switch between different contact lists and create contact groups.
- Rich Call History: Call history updates now include better logging for ignored, missed, and forwarded calls, with clear labelling for different call types.
- Call Transfer Improvements: Improvements to call transfer include viewing a list of speed dials during transfer and better handling of keyboard overlap on touch phones. Non-touch phones also see enhanced transfer capabilities using call transfer hard keys.
- The date Microsoft stop supporting the legacy chat messaging service (CNS) moved from July 31st to September 30, 2024 (MC804766) - remember this will stop old non-supported Teams Phones working. Check out the monthly update briefing for more details.
-
Teams Displays, all-in-one dedicated Teams devices, going Microsoft end of support September 3, 2025.Microsoft will make commercially reasonable best efforts to maintain compatibility with the most recent version of the Teams app provided to manufacturers for two years from this date, September 3, 2027.
- General Availability for Queues app is now targeted for mid-October 2024 (previously mid-August) - MC814579
- Operator Connect still sits at 97 countries covered and 97 providers. LoopUp recently added Repulic of Korea taking them up to 66 countries. Momentum now up to 70 countries on DRaaS with plans to add them to OC.
Copilot and AI News
-
The Microsoft Copilot Dashboard (usage and ROI information) is now availableas part of Copilot for Microsoft 365 license. Customers with over 100 assigned Copilot for Microsoft 365 licenses or 10 assigned premium Viva Insights licenses will begin to see the Copilot Dashboard now. Customers with less than 100 assigned Copilot for Microsoft 365 licenses will receive the dashboard in the coming months. Target next 3 months.
Industry News
-
Jabra PanaCast 50 - Newly certified for Intelligent camera Multi-stream IntelliFrame & people recognition - offers a close-up view of meeting room participants by multiple video streams. The PanaCast 50 sends three separate video streams: the current speaker, the most recent, and a panoramic view of the entire meeting room. Currently, only desktop clients can receive the multi-stream.
- Crestron now offering TAA compliant Crestron Flex Teams Rooms kits. For those unfamiliar, TAA refers to the Trade Agreements Act of 1979, which has country of origin requirements certain products must meet to be eligible for procurement by the United States government. Offering TAA compliant products is a must for government specifiers.
-
LeapXpert won “Best UC Platform < $250M” at the UC Awards which assessed their platform and native Teams app
Expert Briefing
Product Briefings
Teams Insider Podcast - Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon, YouTube
- DERTOUR Tour Operator and Travel Agency on Microsoft Teams and Enhancing Customer Experience, with Gunna Meyer, Head of IT Service Delivery at DERTOUR Suisse
- Lessons from BT's Large Scale Microsoft Teams Rooms Deployment, with James Robinson, Director and Principal AV Consultant at AVenture Audio Visual
- Microsoft Devices Ecosystem Platform (MDEP) Explained, with Yoav Barzilay, Microsoft Senior Product Manager
- AV and UC Converging, with John Bailey, Senior Vice President at AVI-SPL
- Microsoft Mesh, Real-world Use Cases and AI Futures, with Jeremy Dalton, Head of Immersive Technologies at PWC and Cathy Moya, Senior Customer Success Program Manager - Mesh Team at Microsoft
Online Events
In-Person Events
I read all email replies. Let me know if you have questions, comments, or feedback.
Thanks
Tom
|