Tom Arbuthnot's Microsoft 365 Perspective

Many thanks to AudioCodes, this month's Empowering Cloud Benefactor. At Ignite, AudioCodes made a big announcement, Microsoft has added AudioCodes as a Microsoft Device Ecosystem Platform (MDEP) partner for their Teams devices.

Microsoft Teams news from Microsoft Ignite!

I was at Ignite and had a great week catching up with everyone. Thanks if you stopped me to say hello.

There was so much news, here is a 15-minute speed edit of all the Teams news and demos and the full 8 minute Microsoft Places demo, now GA.

The highlights:

Of course it was dominated by Copilot, and it seems everything is an Agent now. This means first-party experiences that do something proactively are "agents" as well as third-party "extensions". First party included: Agents in SharePoint, Employee Self-Service Agent (BizChat), Project Manager agent (Planner), 10+ Agents in Dynamics.

In Teams, we got two agents. The Facilitator agent works within Teams meetings and chats. In chats, the Facilitator shares a summary of important information as the conversation happens. In meetings, the Facilitator takes real-time notes, allowing everyone to co-author and collaborate seamlessly. The key here is these agents are multi-player - everyone in the chat or meeting, with an M365 Copilot licence, can see and engage with the content (Preview now).

Teams Interpreter agent was a star of the show for me, The Interpreter agent enables real-time voice translation in Teams meetings in up to nine languages, so each participant can speak and listen in the language of their choice. Interpreter can also simulate the speakers voice for a more inclusive experience (Preview early 2025).

Another standout feature was Copilot in Teams will be able to analyze content shared on-screen, be it PowerPoints or even physical whiteboard (Preview early 2025).

Microsoft Places is now GA, part of Teams Premium. We got an extensive demo of the features. Look out for a detailed Empowering.Cloud briefing on Places from two experts soon.

Other key feature announcements:

• Teams in CarPlay has the ability to use Siri to respond to notifications and send messages to your chats and channels (GA)
• Administrative units (AUs) in Teams Admin, delegate specific administrative roles to manage subsets of users or groups based on attributes such as department, location, or business unit (GA)
• New admin policy to prevent bots from joining Teams meetings - enable a CAPTCHA-based human verification test (GA)
• New calendar experience in Microsoft Teams (GA)

Roadmap:

• Copilot file summary in line in chat (Preview early 2025)
• Storyline (Viva Engage) integrated in Teams (Preview early 2025)
• The new chat & channels experience (Public Preview)
• Email verification for external participants to join Teams meetings (GA early 2025)
• Speaker recognition for Teams BYOD rooms (Early 2025, Teams Premium)
• Auto-association of peripherals in BYOD rooms (Preview early 2025)
• AI assistant in TAC and Teams Rooms Pro Management portal (Preview early 2025)

There were more too. Pete Daderko did a good blog with all the announcements. You can also check out the full Ignite "Book of News".

Also, for those in devices, the MDEP team announced some more OEMs and ODMs. OEMs included AudioCodes, Lenovo, MaxHub and Shure. ODMs are Original Design Manufacturers who sit behind some OEMs, doing design and manufacture.

Just before Ignite, Microsoft announced two less exciting changes:

Microsoft Teams Voice-enabled channels will retire in June 2025. The Calls tab will be deprecated, though you can still link a call queue to a channel within Teams Admin Center. Microsoft recommends moving to the Queues app, but that does require Teams Premium. Details in MC932491.

The first Teams Phone price increase since its launch in 2017. Price increases coming 1st April 2025. Teams Phone Standard: $10 per user, per month. Up from $8 PUPM. See the full details here.

Operator Connect News

Bell are the second operator covering Canada for Teams Phone mobile. The first market with 2 operators. We are still expecting AT&T for the US and Vodafone and VMO2 for UK. See a full breakdown in our interactive Power BI report.

Microsoft Ignite News and Videos

• Neat App Hub mode demo and sharing App Hub wirelessly into a Microsoft Teams Room with Lee Edgerton, Alliances Manager, APAC at Neat
• Logitech Team Workspace and Personal Workspace innovations with Craig Ishii, Head of Product Marketing, Software and Services at Logitech
• Pete Daderko, Senior Director Product Marketing, Teams and ACS, gives me his 4 biggest Microsoft Teams announcements from Microsoft Ignite
• Crestron enhancing boardroom experiences and optimising for Copilot with Brad Hintze, EVP of Marketing at Crestron
• AudioCodes Microsoft Device Ecosystem Platform (MDEP) partner announcement with Nati Davidi, VP, IPP Solution and Devices Business Line at AudioCodes and Chris Johnson, Senior Director of Partner Engineering at MDEP, Microsoft
• Numonix TRaaS enabling specialist AI tools with Evan Kahan, CTO at Numonix
• Discussion - Copilot is enhancing and streamlining meetings with Josh Blalock, Chief Video Evangelist at Jabra

Briefings

• All the Microsoft Ignite 2024 announcements in 36 minutes MVP Rolf Tröndle goes over the full book of news announcements
• Queues App in Microsoft Teams Explained with MVP Zach Bennett, Principal Architect at LoopUp

Teams Insider Podcast

• Key Considerations for Greenfield Workspaces - Pardeep Gill, Senior Enterprise Architect
• Microsoft Teams Impact on Telephony - Patrick Watson, Head of Research at Cavell
• The Future of Event Management with Microsoft Teams - Preethi Ramarathinam, Head of Product - Microsoft Teams Virtual Event at Microsoft
• Jabra Enhance Value with Device Updates - Josh Blalock, Chief Video Evangelist at Jabra

On Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music and YouTube

Events

Online:

• NEW Copilot Fireside Chat - November 27th
• Converged Communications Partner Sales Bootcamp - 2-4 / 3-5 December
• Teams Phone Summit - 3-5 December
• Expert Roundtable: How AI is Transforming Collaboration - December 5th
• Luware LinkedIn Live: What Organisations expect from their Teams Contact Center in 2025 - December 10th
• Teams Fireside Chat: Microsoft Teams Premium with Mansoor Malik, Principal Group Product Manager - Microsoft Teams - December 12th
• Microsoft Teams Devices Ask Me Anything - December 17/18th

In-Person:

• Microsoft UC User Group London - November 27th, London
• Call & Contact Centre Expo - 27/28 November, I am speaking on day 1, London
• ESPC - 2-5 December, Stockholm
• ISE - 4-7 February, Barcelona

In case you missed it:

• I hosted a webinar with Ron Wolfe, VP of Microsoft Practice at AVI-SPL, on Next Gen Collaboration, AI signature Microsoft Teams Rooms. Here's the recording in case you missed it.
• I chatted to Alev Tamer for a Pure IP Coffee Club about Copilot in Teams Phone. Check out that recording here too.

I read all email replies. What is useful? What is not? What would you like to hear more about? Let me know.

Thanks

Tom

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