Microsoft is introducing three new updates to Teams that will significantly improve mobile joining.
The updates specifically include a simplified process of meeting join on mobile, improved pre-join settings, and streamlined account settings. The update was revealed via the 365 Roadmap under “Simplifying Meeting Join Experiences on Mobile” and intends to make the “meeting join experience” more efficient and less time-intensive.
Firstly, Microsoft will reduce the number of steps required to join a meeting, which will be particularly useful for users joining from outside an organisation.
Second, users who join a meeting without signing in first can now preset and preview their audio and video settings before entering the call, empowering participants to prepare appropriately before joining a meeting.
Lastly, users with multiple accounts can access a more refined account-switching user experience, which Microsoft maintains will also improve the join experience.
The features will be fully integrated into the Teams platform and applicable across GCC, DoD, GCC High, and Worldwide (Standard Multi-Tenant).
The release will roll out in general availability in October and on Android and iOS devices.
UC Today’s Teams News August Update
This summer has been compelling for Teams, and UC Today’s panel of experts offered valuable insights into Teams’ biggest news stories.
First, the strange situation of Copilot’s ever-growing momentum ahead of its release — but with a concrete date for general availability still to be announced.
Such groundbreaking technology naturally excites Microsoft’s partners, who will be selling the solution, and it was clear that much of Microsoft Inspire’s content was speaking directly to these partners. However, it can be hard to sell a product without customers knowing when they might have it in their hands.
“This is the funny thing. The stock price bumped, everybody’s hyped, the whole Inspire conference was, ‘Partners get ready to sell this stuff,’ but there’s still no GA date,” Tom Arbuthnot, Microsoft Teams Expert and Co-founder of Empowering.Cloud, told UC Today.
“That was the big push, wasn’t it?” Arbuthnot said. “‘Get your customers ready; make sure the governance and compliance conversations are had.’ Also, Microsoft knows it takes enterprises a long while just to get their head around this kind of change, so having the partners warm up the customers so they’re ready to buy when it’s available is important for Microsoft.”
“On the other hand, the partners have got to make money, and there’s only so much preparation you can do. So, I think it’ll be interesting to see how the partners equip themselves to do big prep projects and how customers react to that as well.”
Among the other major Teams news discussed by UC Today’s panel was the EU Commission’s investigation into Microsoft’s bundling of Office with Teams being formally launched.
However, if the recommendations of the anti-trust probe seek to inhibit Microsoft’s dominance over the UC and collaboration space via Teams and Office, is it a case of too little, too late?
“I think it’s a little bit late now,” Arbuthnot argued. “We’re at 300 million MAU (Teams monthly active users), so stopping that momentum is going to be tough. Net, I think it’s good we have big commissions like the EU looking at this stuff, so the market is competitive. We need choices; we need competition to keep everybody at their A game.”
Teams’ August Round Table
This month’s Teams Round Table centred on Teams apps.
Executives and experts from RingCentral, Nuwave, NFON, Symity and Mio discussed the key trends and challenges behind Teams app development, why there are so many custom line-of-business apps being developed, and how Microsoft is helping partners and businesses build Teams apps.
For example, Markus Krammer, CPO at NFON, suggested that the new normal of working from anywhere was seen as a “nice to have” before the pandemic has now become a “full-on trend for knowledge-based businesses across Europe”, necessitating complex answers that Teams apps seek to provide.
“This trend is driving the digital transformation of organisations’ business communications so that they can best support their people and customers in this new way of working,” Krammer added.
