Welcome back to another chilly February week of updates from the UC&C landscape.
While you’ve hopefully had an enjoyable Valentine’s Day, the team at UC Today have been working on collecting the best collection of hot news from across the industry.
Over the last 7 days, we’ve brought you insights into the latest features for Microsoft Teams, as well as information about new gesture features for your video meetings from Cisco and BlueJeans. We’ve even dished out some handy advice on how to migrate from Skype for Business to Microsoft Teams.
Microsoft Teams Updates for February 2021
Microsoft has been rolling out the Teams updates at a record pace over the last year or so, helping more people to embrace the world of digital collaboration. For February 2021, we saw the arrival of various new features, including a new offline auto-send function and a selection of newly certified Microsoft Teams devices.
There are a new Teams UI Design Kit and UI library to help developers build their own Microsoft Teams app. Plus, users can now create organisation-wide teams with up to 10,000 users. With updates to support the Education, Frontline, and Government sectors, as well as a host of changes to things like security and compliance, Microsoft has checked plenty of boxes with its February upgrade. We’re excited to see what comes next.
Nuvias and ScanSource Deal Falls Through
A possible deal that would have allowed Nuvias to acquire components of ScanSource Europe fell through recently, according to some of our trusted sources. Nuvias was among a selection of potential competitors considering ScanSource Europe as an investment opportunity. However, a source told us that a deal with Nuvias simply couldn’t be processed quickly enough.
A driving factor behind the deal may have been the ScanSource employee base. However, with the entire UK workforce now going through a redundancy process, there may be some concerns that a significant number of staff members would no longer be accessible. For now, the ScanSource Europe brand has disappeared.
New Gesture Features for Cisco and BlueJeans
A great meeting these days requires a lot more than just a solid audio connection. Today’s interactions require a lot of non-verbal communication too. Cisco and BlueJeans, two leaders in collaboration technology, are now offering companies access to another way of sharing information via meeting interactions. Non-verbal cues in the form of gesture functionality allow employees to share their feelings through thumbs-up, a round of applause, and other gesture-based icons.
Cisco Webex’s gesture support can even detect the gesture you’re making on your video and convey it into an icon that the rest of your team can easily see. This could be a great way for everyone to feel more involved in meetings.
UCaaS Most Widely Adopted Comms Platform
Unified Communications as a Service is now emerging as the most widely used communication infrastructure available, according to research from Metrigy. According to the report, UCaaS is now present in around 47.3% of businesses globally – the highest amount since the company began tracking the market in 2016. Principal Analyst at Metrigy, Irwin Lazar, spoke to UC Today about the increasing adoption, saying that around 29% of companies are still using on-premises infrastructure – but a quarter of those appear to be planning a move to the cloud this year. With so many changes happening in the workforce, it’s little surprise that companies are making the shift to a more flexible cloud-based environment for remote and hybrid work.
Migrating from Skype for Business to Teams
Have you made the migration from Skype for Business to Microsoft Teams? If not, now could be the time to make a move. For years, Microsoft fans have been relying on its Skype for Business product for effective internal communication and collaboration. However, Teams, with all of its exceptional features for bringing remote Teams together, promises to be a worthy replacement for Skype.
The decision to switch from Skype for Business to Teams can be a tough one and making the right steps in your migration may be a little tricky at first. Fortunately, we’ve got a handful of tips to help you make the shift as smoothly as possible. You’ll be on your way to an incredible Teams experience in no time with our help.
What are your favourite stories from this week? Is there anything we’ve missed? Chat with us on social media too!
