Microsoft Ignite Announcements 2021- Collaboration & Productivity

Microsoft Mesh Announced

The Mesh platform brings mixed reality presence and shared experiences across devices and locations with eye contact, facial expressions, gestures, and shared content. Mesh builds on Mixed Reality work from HoloLens while offering connected experiences across mobile phones, tablets, and desktop devices. Mesh is based on several Azure technologies. Mesh will soon be integrated into Microsoft Teams and Dynamics 365 experiences as well.

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Numerous Enhancements to Teams and Connected Services Announced

Microsoft continues to expand the Teams platform and the services available. Some of the announcements from Ignite include interactive webinars for up to 1,000 participants, integration with Dynamics 365 Marketing, and the new Teams Connect allowing multiple organizations to more easily collaborate, share content, and co-author documents. The updates also include the new PowerPoint Live in Teams with richer presentation options, a new speaker view overlaying the speaker’s camera with the presentation, Gallery Mode support for Surface Hub devices, and the new Teams Intelligent Speakers that identify individuals in a physical room and then assist in meeting transcriptions and helping remote individuals know who is speaking. The new Universal Print service is now live allowing devices to discover printers or have printers automatically configured by policy without the need to install any print drivers or IT maintaining a print server.

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Azure Communication Service Enhancements Announce

Voice, video, chat, and SMS capabilities are extending to any application and integrating directly with Microsoft Teams. The Azure Communication Service provides simplified experience in building applications that need to support voice, video, chat, and SMS experiences requiring minimal coding. The service now offers the ability to connect custom apps directly into Teams. For example, this service would allow a custom app on a mobile phone to connect to a service agent in a single tap with the service agent answering in Teams and no additional downloads or apps required on the mobile phone.

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