Big UC News from Microsoft, Meta, Avaya and UC Expo 2022

From UC Expo and GITEX to billion-dollar stock negotiations, here are extracts from popular news stories this week.   

Microsoft Lays Off Around 1,000 Staff 

Microsoft has announced around 1,000 staff layoffs following a period of slow growth at the company.  

• Microsoft 365 and OREO THINS Cook Up Work Break Initiative  
• Microsoft CEO Reveals Cloud Innovations at Ignite 2022  
• Enabling Compliance Recording in Microsoft Teams  

While Microsoft declined to give an exact figure, a source confirmed the number to Axios earlier this week. The cuts took place across a number of departments, teams, and regions.  

Revenue is expected to slow in the coming months due to reduced sales of its Windows licenses for PCs and the cuts are a safeguarding measure against the expectation of continued slow growth.  

A spokesperson for Microsoft told Axios: “Like all companies, we evaluate our business priorities on a regular basis, and make structural adjustments accordingly.  

“We will continue to invest in our business and hire in key growth areas in the year ahead.”  

In July, Microsoft also made cuts, amounting to less than 1% of its staff. With approximately 221,000 employees worldwide, according to Statistica, this is still a considerable number.  

The company’s share price had declined around 22% by this point, it had missed its Q4 earnings targets and called for roughly 10% revenue growth in Q1, which is its lowest in over five years. 

Key Highlights from UC Expo 2022 

Here are some of the key product releases, partnerships and insights that were on stage at UC Expo this year. 

UC Today was out in force to speak to as many companies as possible and get the inside story from some exciting developments in unified communications.  

Big news stories from UC Expo 2022 include DTEN’s partnership with Microsoft, the release of the Poly Edge E Series, Callroute’s partnership with Coolwave, Avocor’s CollabTouch launch, and more.  

DTEN Announces Partnership with Microsoft

DTEN announced its partnership with Microsoft, which Andrew Bisset, Country Manager, UK&I, Nordics & Africa at DTEN, said is “a huge milestone, probably the biggest news we have been able to announce for quite some time”.  

At the same time, DTEN is also pursuing Microsoft Teams certifications for its most popular devices. Bisset told UC Today, “we are already quite far through the process of product certification”.  

UC Today spoke to Bisset about the new partnership at UC Expo 2022. 

The Best of Avaya at GITEX 2022 

Avaya made several key announcements at the five-day GITEX 2022 conference in Dubai.  

With Metaverse Vision, a collaboration with Honeywell, a partnership with Wavenet, and a new roadmap coming soon, Avaya appears to be going full steam ahead under its new leadership.  

GITEX stands for ‘Gulf Information Technology Exhibition’ and it is the biggest annual technology conference held in Dubai. Avaya’s strength in the region has made the event a consistent feature on the technology giant’s schedule. 

Avaya’s ‘Metaverse Experience’  

Avaya announced it is “executing on Dubai’s metaverse vision” through its ‘Metaverse Experience’, which enables businesses to connect their contact centres into the metaverse.  

Although Avaya is not shifting its contact centres into the metaverse yet, it is getting them ready for customers who would prefer to communicate in the metaverse.   

The metaverse solution was developed by Avaya in Dubai in collaboration with Avanza.  

UC Today’s David Dungay spoke to Nidal Abou-Ltaif, President, Avaya International, about its plans for the metaverse. 

What’s New at Workplace? October 2022 Update 

Workplace from Meta has announced new products and feature releases for October.  

• Teams and Zoom to Integrate With Meta VR Workrooms  
• Meta Adapts to Hybrid Work by Reducing Office Sizes  
• What is Workplace from Meta?  

This month’s releases include knowledge library and support ticket updates, email customisations, files and media tab, login settings access, and focussed content notifications.  

The online collaboration software tool, Workplace from Meta, provides monthly updates of its latest innovations.  

Knowledge Library Updates  

Workspace has introduced the option to customise the colours of your Knowledge Library. By adding brand colours, employees can be assured they are accessing the Knowledge Library’s trusted source of company information. Categories and collections can both be given colour customisations by admins, using a hex code or colour picker. Colour choices can be saved to make it easy for other admins to reuse them.  

Automatic translations of content in Knowledge Library categories are also being added. Following automatic translation, further changes can be made to the text, but the capability should save time for businesses that would have previously had to translate all content manually before uploading it. This feature is only available on the desktop web version of Workplace.  

Based on feedback from customers, Workplace has added the capability to invite people to view knowledge library subcategories. Crucially, the admin can choose how much access to provide: specific people, groups, subcategories, or the whole Workplace.