Earlier this month, the Arkadin team attended Microsoft Inspire in Las Vegas, Nevada. Microsoft Inspire is Microsoft’s flagship partner event, which sees Microsoft employees and partners from all around the world come together to learn, collaborate and connect on all things digital.
Having recently been recognised by Microsoft as their Intelligent Communications Partner of the Year Award 2019 for our proven expertise in delivering transformative teamwork, calling and meetings solutions with Microsoft Teams, we were excited to take part in five days filled with networking and discussion about the future of communication.
We’ve collated our most thought-provoking takeaways from the event:
Artificial Intelligence (AI)
AI is leading the way in communications innovations, with live AI translations during Teams chats now enabling people to speak fluently in a number of languages in real-time. Through the continued investment in AI and development by forward-thinking companies like Microsoft, our tools will only become smarter and more sophisticated. We can’t wait to see how this technology will transform both Teams and the industry as a whole in years to come!
Virtual Reality (VR)
The event also gave attendees a glimpse into the fascinating future of ‘reality’ across the communication sector. Mixed Reality is becoming increasingly prevalent and with the assistance of VR, it could make communicating face-to-face with others anywhere in the world easier and more interactive for users than ever before. This would be a huge digital phenomenon, with the ability for people to attend events or even make keynote speeches from the comfort of their own home.
Partner Support
The event demonstrated a huge acceleration in Partner Support in Teams. Workshops and pre-built packages have been introduced to make deployment of the solutions both easier and more efficient. Extra support is also available for requirements, such as adding apps post-integration, as well as guidance for partners who want to build their own applications within Teams.
The Evolution of Teams
If one thing was clear at the event, it was that Microsoft is continuing to invest heavily in the functionality, integration and possibilities within the Teams platform. Teams is growing rapidly, having now overtaken Slack in numbers of users and is only set to grow further as Microsoft continue to add more functionality. The new features unveiled at the show, including contact centre solutions, call recordings for compliance, workforce management and partner-led Teams trials, were truly inspiring and the partner opportunities are continuously evolving.
The event certainly served up some of the most exciting developments in Microsoft Teams to date and we’re excited to see how they not only enhance the lives of users, but help to take us into the next generation of communication tools.
A huge thanks to Microsoft for a great event!
