New M365 Copilot Chat, first AOSP firmware GA and 2024 review

Many thanks to Landis, this month's Empowering Cloud Benefactor. Shannon Martin at Landis recently walked me through installing their Microsoft Teams Attendant Console in only 103 seconds.

In case you missed it, here is my December Update Briefing - Everything you need to know, including the key Ignite announcements in 12 minutes. Deck here.

This last newsletter of the year is mostly a look back at 2024, but right up to the end of the year, there continues to be big news and changes:

• The first AOSP management Phone and MTR firmware just made it to GA in 2024 from AudioCodes. Check out this blog for the latest release dates and how to MUST prepare.
• The last (and very significant) Microsoft product rename of 2024 - Everyone gets Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat, coming in January (MC958903). This change impacts all users; details here
• This month, I published a whitepaper Choosing a Microsoft Teams Contact Center (ungated) and AudioCodes Voca Conversational Interaction Center Features and Use Cases
• Microsoft Teams Voice-enabled channels will now NOT be retired (MC932491)
• Some nice end of year updates for captions and transcripts on Microsoft Teams Rooms on Windows
• A big one for the Microsoft Teams on Citrix VDI users, new VDI optimization solution GA

Last newsletter of 2024!

First off, I want to say a huge thanks to everyone in the community. All the SMEs who have kindly done briefings and been guests at events, Teams Insider Podcast and Teams Fireside Chat this year. It's been another record year of engagement.

As always, I particularly appreciate you subscribing to the newsletter and all the replies and feedback I get. I wish you Happy Holidays and a great 2025.

And a massive thanks to our Benefactors, AudioCodes, Landis, Logitech, Neat, Pure IP and Ribbon and Patrons AVI-SPL, Crestron Jabra, Luware and Numonix. Their partnership and support enable the great team we have that makes all the community events and content happen.

I'm also excited that we are up to 18 tenants on our Microsoft 365 change management service, ChangePilot. Thanks to many people who have given input and tested ChangePilot. I'm really excited about what we are doing with ChangePilot in 2025. If you want trial access or to find out more reply and let me know.

A look back at the key features and changes of 2024

It's undoubtedly been the year of AI/Copilot for Microsoft. We have seen all sorts of changes in "Copilot". A product name applied to everything it seems. Even as we end the year, another name change has just been announced. I'm excited for the value that Facilitator Agent and Translator Agent will bring to Teams in 2025.

The Secure Future Initiative (SFI), launched in November 2023 and expanded in May 2024, continued to have an impact. A great deal of the Secure Future Initiative (SFI) work is unseen on the feature/customer side. Still, I gather there has been significant work, effort and engineering cycles dedicated to it.

We also got ARM Windows laptops! I've been really impressed with my Lenovo Slim 7X and am excited that it looks like AMD, Nvidia, and MediaTek look to be getting into the ARM PC CPU race. Finally, we have power, battery life and fan noise options that rival Apple laptops.

Despite AI taking a lot of the air out of the room, we did get some significant features and news in Microsoft Teams:

• In April (Microsoft Earnings FY24 Q3) we got the news that there are 20 Million Teams Phone users and over 1 Million Teams Rooms
• Teams Premium has surpassed 3M seats, up nearly 400% YoY
• Teams was unbundled from Office 365 for enterprises globally
• The cutover to the new Teams client (Teams 2.1) was a success
• Queues app and Places went GA
• Teams Phone went to 99.999% SLA, we got a dedicated FLW SKU, Operator Connect went from 87 providers and 85 countries to 103 Operators and 104 countries covered and Shared Calling was launched
• Teams Rooms got center and mulit-cameras, improved cloud interframe, Speaker recognition on all MTRoW, Pro Portal remote access, custom background on MTRoW, Enhanced cross-platform SIP connection with Pexip and Autopilot
• MDEP was released to manufacturers, and a number of OEMs have committed to use MDEP
• There was lots of work done to optimise BYOD scenarios with Teams

Did I miss your favourite feature or news? Let me know.

Latest Briefings

• Microsoft Places Deep Dive - Real-World Deployment, Features and Licensing with Nathan Chapman, Chief Technology Officer at Generation-e and Chris Fitzsimmons, Senior Solutions Architect at AVI-SPL
• Deploying Landis Microsoft Teams Attendant Console in 103 seconds with Shannon Martin, Account Executive at Landis
• 5 most common contact center asks from customers in their presales calls with Oli Lifely at Luware

Teams Insider Podcast

• From Microsoft to SOFTEL: Aaron Steele's Teams Journey with Aaron Steele, Practice Lead at SOFTEL
• Truly Cloud Native SBCs and voice services with Mark Cobbold, Vice President of Product Management at Ribbon
• Deploying Teams Rooms and Teams Phone in Finance with Charles Mason, Head of Digital Workplace at TP ICAP
• Multicam and Multistream video - Henry Levak, Vice President of Product at Logitech for Business

On Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music and YouTube

Events

Online:

• Teams Fireside Chat with Jimmy Vaughan - the best way to start 2025 - 9th January
• Ribbon SBC as a Service, the efficient and flexible way to deploy cloud voice globally - 14th January
• Microsoft Teams Devices Ask Me Anything - January 21/22
• Copilot Fireside Chat with Dona Sarkar - 29th January

In-Person:

• ISE - 4-7 February, Barcelona
• Microsoft UC User Group London - February 26th, London
• Enterprise Connect - 17-20 March, Florida

Thanks for all the support and engagement this year.

I wish you all Happy Holidays and a great 2025!

Thanks

Tom

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