Happy Birthday to Teams – we speak to GM Lori Wright at Enterprise Connect

Today it's been exactly a year since the launch of Teams and at EC18 this week Microsoft took the opportunity to announce a number of new features

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Collaboration

Published: March 14, 2018

Ian Taylor Editor

Ian Taylor

Editor

Since the launch of Microsoft Teams on 14th March 2017 the growth numbers have been pretty impressive. Lori Wright has been General Manager for Microsoft Teams for nearly the entire time, she took over two weeks after its initial launch. Lori was on hand at Enterprise Connect 2018 to give us the numbers and tell us about some of the new features that have been added.

Microsoft have announced that Teams is now in operation in over 200,000 organisations in 181 markets and 39 languages. That’s grown from 125,000 as recently as September.

“We are all just thrilled with the growth and the success. It’s proving that we are going through this change in the workplace, how people want to work and how teams interconnect and these numbers are just proof of that”

GM Teams Lori Wright
Lori Wright, General Manager, Microsoft Teams and Skype

As well as the growth in numbers, Microsoft have also announced that some of their biggest enterprise customers are now using Teams. General Motors, NASCAR, Technicolor, RLH Corporation and A.P. Moller – Maersk are all now among the ‘Teamsters’. Lori was able to talk us through some of the case studies that Microsoft will be releasing over the coming weeks to eulogise about the platform.

In addition to the news on growth in users Microsoft have also taken the opportunity to premier a number of new software features as well as new compatible hardware devices that are being added to Teams.

“You can think about it in three chunks. Here are all the features that we are adding to make the core chat and meetings experience better, then you can think about how we are building a global phone system and what that looks like. Then you can think of it in terms of devices”

The main additions include:

  • Cloud recording and automated transcription which will enable users to fully reference and search through voice conversations after the event to find relevant content. In the future this content will translatable, enabling cross barrier and language collaboration. Also identification using facial recognition is also in the pipeline.
  • Background blur on video conversations will also be enabled within Teams, designed to keep the focus on the meeting attendee not the background, however interesting that may be.
  • Cortana Voice recognition and interaction will also be released for Teams enabled devices. This will allow users to use voice commands to direct tasks and actions, such as making calls or joining meetings.
  • Mobile sharing in meetings, enabling attendees to share a live video stream, photos, or the screen from their mobile devices.

“One of the most exciting, is that we announced direct routing. What we wanted was for Teams to have full phone system capabilities. Direct routing allows you to either buy a calling plan from Microsoft or use your existing telco and connect it up into Teams”


Lori also confirmed that by the end of June this year, Teams will have all of the features of Skype for Business and all of the additional collaboration tools that already exist and have been added above.

On the hardware side Microsoft is also announcing the expansion of its meeting room systems and the services ecosystem that supports Teams. These include:

  • Microsoft collaboration devices – Microsoft Teams will be natively supported on Surface Hub enhancing the capabilities of Teams in huddle spaces and meeting rooms equipped with Surface Hub
  • New meeting room systems – Lenovo and HP join existing partners Logitech, Crestron, and Polycom to transform the conference room experience with audio and HD video, centre-of-room control and one-touch join
  • All Skype Room Systems (SRS) will support Teams meetings
  • New ways to connect to existing equipment – Teams will certify new solutions from BlueJeans, Pexip, and Polycom to support interoperability for meetings in Teams with existing hardware investments
  • New desk phones from AudioCodes and Yealink, and new conference room phones from Crestron, Polycom, and Yealink – all of which run a native Teams application for consistent and streamlined calling experiences.
  • New mobile phone stations from Plantronics, combine the Teams experience with desk phone capabilities for the mobile user.

“These are partners that are highly skilled have great channels of their own and can innovate really quickly”

The success and growth of Teams so far has been undeniable. Microsoft have been rewarded for that at the event this week winning the “Best of Enterprise Connect Award” for exhibitors with products and services that best advance enterprise communications and collaboration.

“There were 40 nominations and we won it, and one of the big reasons was because of us working with this eco-system of partners”

Microsoft Teams
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