**Apologies for the video and audio being slightly out of sync, Microsoft Teams reduced the frame rate for some reason which resulted in a glitchy session recording - best enjoyed as a podcast this time 🙂**
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In this session we discuss:
- Teams consumer version preview
- 49 video participants
- Teams on windows VDI Public Preview
Cisco Tie-up, a Consumer Edition, and 7X7 Grids: What’s New with MS Teams for July
In June, Microsoft released a slew of new features and updates – so we were expecting a slightly slower month this time around.
After all, Microsoft Teams has just launched its new compliance recording features that lets you ensure compliance in several different ways. We also saw Microsoft Lists make initial headlines as a cross between a daily planner and your to-do lists. What’s more, Microsoft acquired the SBC company, Metaswitch to power its foray into 5G readiness.
As Microsoft MVP Tom Arbuthnot put it, “Microsoft doesn’t seem to have taken any time out recently!”
So, we were doubly impressed when we looked at Microsoft ’s laundry list of new announcements for Teams in July. In this podcast, we sat down with Tom, for a detailed session on what’s new with Microsoft Teams, how the user experience might be changing, and which events we look forward to this quarter.
Check out the full video to hear it straight from the man himself. You could also head to tomtalks.blog for more exclusive insights from a Teams veteran and behind-the-scenes expert.
Today, we discuss the top highlights and notable moments from the conversation.
Citrix Video Desktop Infrastructure Comes to Teams
There has been a lot of chatter around Citrix Video Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) getting certified for Microsoft Teams. We have been following the buzz for many months now, and we were delighted to see that Microsoft ’s native VDI service – called Windows Virtual Desktop from Azure – is getting an update, apart from its partner-powered media optimisation from Citrix.
“A quick reminder: VDI streams your desktop experience from the cloud or from a data centre. You have a fairly low compute footprint because you’re operating a basic terminal that receives the video,” Tom explained.
And this has several benefits:
- It’s great for data security, as there is no confidential/sensitive information on a physical endpoint. “My laptop becomes a dumb terminal when everything is in the cloud,” Tom said.
- There is a strong use case for customers who can’t afford any downtime. Tom shared an example: “If the PC on the desk pops, a trader would need to pick up exactly where they left off, with absolutely no downtime.” cloud-hosted desktop can be up and running on a different terminal almost immediately.
However, this poses a severe challenge for collaboration. There is frequently a quality dip as audio/video isn’t routed directly to your end terminal. “VDI is excellent for some scenarios, but pretty horrible for unified communication because we want audio and video to go from person to person on the shortest path – not via the data centre,” Tom explained.
That’s why Microsoft has developed Teams Media Optimisation to decouple UC audio and video from the desktop image on Teams. It allows the audio and video paths to stay on the local terminal, while data centre hosting is applied only to the desktop. Hopefully, users will be able to get a little closer to a native Teams experience on Azure, which is something a lot of people are waiting for, says Tom.
What’s interesting is Microsoft ’s pragmatic approach to this.
“Microsoft has got an internal solution, but they have also got Citrix. Whoever does the work, comes to market first. They don't put their own team in front of third parties,” Tom pointed out.
Here the full podcast to learn why the Citrix + Microsoft Teams VDI partnership makes perfect sense and read more on Tom’s blog on the subject.
Video Conferencing Grids Blow up to 7X7
This is a small one, but a feature that makes a massive difference to users around the world – particularly in education, which seems to be Microsoft’s primary use case. “In education, teachers want to see all of their students at once, just to see if they're paying attention and if they are engaged at the computer,” Tom said.
Now, you’ll be able to view up to 49 participants side-by-side in a Teams video call.
At UC Today, we were trying out Teams conferencing grids and noticed something interesting: the layout is more dynamic and participant thumbnails move around for a while before settling down. We asked Tom why this was happening.
“Microsoft is trying to be clever with the layout. If you've got nine people on a call but only four using video, why would you put the active speaker in a great big black square and take up all the real estate? They're trying to think through like optimal layouts for different configurations of people. It's very dynamic because the client makes decisions around the optimal layout, who's speaking, and bandwidth,” said Tom.
We expect this to make a massive difference during all-hands meetings and in classrooms, where participant visualisation makes a big difference to the UX.
Microsoft and Cisco Agree to Play Nice
It would make sense for Microsoft and Cisco to arrive at some level of interoperability, given that most large enterprises use both vendors.
“For Microsoft, the upside is if someone has gone for Cisco gear, they can still get Teams in the mix. And for Cisco, if a customer is going in for Microsoft 365, they're probably interested in Teams. You don't want to force them to go to another vendor for supportability,” Tom mentioned.
From July, Microsoft Teams users will be able to deploy Cisco Session Border Controllers (SBCs) to connect your SIP network with Teams.
