Big News You May Have Missed

Popular stories from the last week that you may have missed

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UC Today News Round Up
Unified Communications

Published: June 15, 2020

Rebekah Carter - Writer

Rebekah Carter

We’re more than halfway through one of the most unpredictable years that many of us have ever faced. In the last few months, the marketplace has seen more change than many industry veterans have encountered throughout their careers.

That makes it a pretty exciting time to be an industry as fast-moving as UC.

Now that many companies have discovered the benefits of remote and mobile work for themselves, the way we communicate is understandably changing.

Here are some of the biggest announcements that we’ve reported in the last 7 days.

Microsoft Will Soon Enable 49 On-Screen Attendees

Tired of only being able to see a handful of people in your video call? That issue might be coming to an end. Microsoft recently announced that it’s going to be expanding its current video grid layout, which only features 9 people. According to Microsoft, the roadmap for Teams includes a plan to increase the number of people viewable in a call at the same time to 49.

This will be a massive enhancement to Microsoft’s video conferencing experience. The upgrade will put Microsoft in line with Zoom, which has always stayed one step ahead of Microsoft when it came to multi-window video experiences. Check out the full report on the upcoming changes to Microsoft Teams here.

Poly Introduces New Room Solutions

Poly, one of the market leaders in communication and collaboration hardware, recently introduced some new tools for its portfolio. The Poly Microsoft Teams solutions aim to provide businesses with more meaningful collaborative experiences. The Poly G10-T, G40-T and G-80T promise a different level of conversation, complete with video and audio tools.

Now that Microsoft Teams has more than 75 million daily active users, it’s clear to see why Poly might want to roll out some custom-made experiences for Teams users. Poly’s room solutions come with everything you need for video and audio collaboration. You can check out the new lineup in our latest report here.

Workplace from Facebook Rooms

Workplace from Facebook is one of the leading solutions in the collaboration marketplace today. The service gives companies access to a familiar and comfortable environment where team members can share content and ideas in real-time. Recently, Workplace from Facebook updated its offering to include “Rooms”. The Rooms experience reinvents collaboration with organic video experiences.

You can create links to rooms in Workplace Chat and share videos with your entire team instantly. There’s also access to unique features, like auto-generated captions, live producer streaming, and real-time translations too. Read our full review of Workplace from Facebook Rooms here.

Should Slack Purchase Fuze?

Slack is one of the most popular ways for team members to collaborate in the digital landscape. However, this tool also lacks some of the most crucial tools that come with other leading services. For instance, there’s no service for native video conferencing or calling. You can’t have a complete unified communication and collaboration experience with Slack alone.

That’s why the Founder and Principal Analyst of ZK Research, Zeus Kerravala, believes that it might be time for Slack to buy themselves a UC solution. In particular, Zeus thinks that Slack could benefit from buying leading cloud communication company, Fuze. What would it mean for Slack to have its own communication tools? See whether you agree with Kerravala’s assessment here.

The Outcome of Facebook Buying GIPHY

Facebook is the world’s largest social networking site, reaching people all around the globe. Over the years, Facebook has developed its stack by purchasing other market leaders, like Instagram, WhatsApp, and now, the GIF company, GIPHY. The GIPHY website and app is one of the most popular ways for team members and individuals to send each other animated images online.

GIPHY is available on Twitter, WhatsApp, Microsoft Teams, and Slack. It’s no wonder that the company has a user base of around 300 million people. The question is, now that Facebook holds the keys to the GIPHY kingdom, what will this mean to other collaboration tools, like Microsoft Teams? Will it be possible for people to continue sending GIFs to their colleagues through the Microsoft app? We spoke to Microsoft MVP and Principal Solutions Architect for Modality Systems, Tom Arbuthnot, to find out.

 

What were your favourite reports from the past week? Let us know in the comments below. Don’t forget to join the conversation on social media too!

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