Steve Thomas - IT Consultant

Teams, Microsoft’s Slack rival, has always had a bit of a reputation for being slow and resource-hungry. Given that it always felt like Microsoft hurried the service’s launch to respond to the success of Slack, that’s maybe no surprise. Now, that’s changing, though, with the preview launch of the new Teams. Microsoft calls this a “reimagining of Teams from the ground up” and promises that the new application will feature twice the performance, all while only using half as much memory as before. With this, joining meetings should now be 2x faster, while switching between chats and channels will be 1.7x faster. In addition, the company also redesigned the overall user experience.

Microsoft also today announced that Teams now has 280 million monthly active users. That’s up from 250 million in July 2021 and 270 million in January 2022. That isn’t exactly staggeringly fast growth, though to be fair, the days of rapid collaboration software adoption during the early part of the pandemic are obviously over.

The company plans to make this new version of Teams available to all users later this year, but it is now rolling out to Windows users who opt into the company’s Public Preview program (though an admin may have to enable this for your organization first). Once enabled, users can easily toggle back and forth between the new and old version. Microsoft stresses that, at least for the time being, users will always be able to switch back to the old Teams experience. Mac support is coming later this year.

Image Credits: Microsoft

The company says it optimized the Teams data, network, chat and video architecture to achieve this. A significant part of this enhancement also results from the app’s transition from Electron to Microsoft’s Edge WebView 2 rendering engine. Microsoft also notes that it moved from using AngularJS as the web development framework for Teams to React for building the user interface and standardized on Microsoft’s Fluent UI UX controls.

“When the development of Teams began in 2015, these choices enabled the rapid delivery of cross- platform web and desktop clients,” the company’s corporate VP of engineering, Sumi Singh, explains in a blog post today. “However, as the capabilities and innovation of Teams expanded significantly over time, it placed strain on device resources. Recognizing this, the team began analyzing available technologies, benchmarking, building prototypes, and defining the new architecture known
internally as the ‘north star.'”

Image Credits: Microsoft

The company began this transition when it introduced a built-in Teams experience in Windows 11 and it seems those efforts are now bearing fruit with the new Teams launch.

Microsoft also noted that it aimed to make using the new Teams easier to use. “We are always looking for ways to provide a simpler yet feature-rich experience for our diverse and growing user base. That’s why we are excited to roll out enhancements to the core Teams experience that will make it easier for you to stay on top of your notifications, search for information, manage your messages, and organize your channels – all with fewer clicks,” writes Jeff Teper, Microsoft’s president of its Collaborative Apps and Platforms group.

Image Credits: Microsoft

Of course, Microsoft also plans to include more AI-enabled features into Teams. The company already unveiled Copilot for Microsoft Teams earlier this month — and it’s likely we’ll see a slew of additional AI-based features following suit. That is, after all, all Microsoft wants to talk about these days.

Microsoft rebuilt Teams from the ground up, promises 2x faster performance by Frederic Lardinois originally published on TechCrunch

GitHub is announcing its Copilot X initiative today, an extension of its work on its popular Copilot code completion tool, which originally launched into preview all the way back in 2021. With this, the Microsoft-owned company is launching a code-centric chat mode for Copilot that helps developers write and debug their code, as well as Copilot for pull requests, AI-generated answers about documentation and more. Unsurprisingly, these new features are powered by OpenAI’s GPT-4, though it’s worth noting that, mostly for latency reasons, the code completion tool remains on GitHub’s Codex model, which it derived from GPT-3.

“With the new model coming online, we asked ourselves: what’s the next step? What’s the next step for Copilot? We believe that for auto completion, we nailed that scenario,” GitHub CEO Thomas Dohmke told me.

Image Credits: GitHub

The natural next step for GitHub — and this doesn’t come as a huge surprise — is to add chat to the developer experience. Launching in preview today, Copilot Chat will be available in Visual Studio and VS Code, with support for other IDEs coming later.

As Dohmke noted, this doesn’t just bring ChatGPT into the IDE, but also brings the context of the IDE to ChatGPT. That means you can highlight code in the editor, for example, and then ask Copilot about those code snippets, use it to refactor this code and ask it to help you debug it, if necessary (because it also knows about the output in the terminal). GitHub achieves at least part of this through some clever prompt engineering that stuffs the prompt with as much context as possible.

Of course, you can also ask Chat to write code for you. In a demo, GitHub is showing off how you can ask it to build the classic Snake game, for example.

Image Credits: GitHub

“I’m a developer, but I’m also CEO. So the time I have for actually developing code is fairly limited. And I played with it the last couple of nights and it’s really fun. It brings the fun back to programming because you don’t have to find a tutorial and don’t have to figure out which one is the right tutorial, you just keep going,” Dohmke said. “I’m sure students and kids are going to be blown away when you give them access. It becomes this addictive thing, because you have something that you can constantly ask questions.”

Unsurprisingly, Copilot Chat will focus solely on programming questions. It will quickly shut down questions about anything else.

Dohmke argues that while autocomplete already allows developers to greatly improve their productivity, this new Copilot will 10x developer productivity.

Image Credits: GitHub

As part of the overall Copilot X initiative, GitHub is also bringing Copilot to the command line. Similar to what Warp is doing with its terminal, GitHub is now also helping developers use the command line by helping them compose commands and loops — and to find those obscure feature flags that are often buried deep in a manual (or at least a Stack Overflow search or two away).

And there’s more. Developers can also now sign up for a technical preview of a new Copilot feature that generates descriptions of pull requests and automatically tags them, too. “Nobody likes boilerplate,” Dohmke said. “This is boring and it’s menial work, whether it’s in the code layer, with Copilot, or in the pull request layer.” This, he noted, is just the beginning. Because the tool already scans the code, it can also automatically find missing tests and generate those, and Dohmke promised that we’ll see more along these lines in the future.

Image Credits: GitHub

Also new is Copilot for docs, which enriches ChatGPT’s existing database, which you can already query about framework and language docs, for example. But ChatGPT’s cutoff date in 2021 means this information isn’t always up to date, so GitHub is augmenting it with more recent data (similar to what Microsoft’s Bing is doing for search with its Prometheus model). GitHub is starting with documentation for React and from the Azure Docs and Mozilla’s MDN and developers will be able to query those docs in a ChatGPT-like interface. What’s maybe more interesting, though, is that GitHub plans to allow organizations to use this tool on top of their repositories and internal documentation. That’s not quite ready for public consumption, though.

“Once you have a Copilot in every single application — whether that’s in Outlook, Word or your code editor, you can leverage the things you wrote in those environments, but you can also leverage the information from other workers in your organization, whether that’s other developers or maybe the marketing person, who now has an easier time writing the announcement blog post, because they have seen — in their Copilot — the release notes that the developer has put into their git repo. […] It removes the silos in companies and I think that’s where we will unlock potentially even more than 10x in productivity.”

GitHub’s Copilot goes beyond code completion, adds a chat mode and more by Frederic Lardinois originally published on TechCrunch

Microsoft today announced that its new AI-enabled Bing will now allow users to generate images with Bing Chat. This new feature is powered by DALL-E, OpenAI’s generative image generator. The company didn’t say which version of DALL-E it is using here, except for saying that it is using the “very latest DALL-E models.”

Dubbed the “Bing Image Creator,” this new capability is now (slowly) rolling out to users in the Bing preview and will only be available through Bing’s Creative Mode. It’ll come to Bing’s Balanced and Precise modes in the future. The new image generator will also be available in the Edge sidebar.

Image Credits: Microsoft

The right prompts will generate the now-familiar square of four high-res DALL-E images. There’s one major difference, though: there will be a small Bing logo in the bottom left corner.

The early Bing AI release was missing a few guardrails, but Microsoft quickly fixed those. The company is clearly hoping to avoid these issues with this release.

“We have incorporated OpenAI’s safeguards and added additional protections to Image Creator,” Microsoft explains. “For example, we have put controls in place that aim to limit the generation of harmful or unsafe images. When our system detects that a potentially harmful image could be generated by a prompt, it blocks the prompt and warns the user.”

Image Credits: Microsoft

Microsoft says that it will continue to iterate on this new image generator. Specifically, the company stresses that it is working on optimizing how this new feature works in multi-turn chats. “We continue to believe the best way to bring these technologies to market is to test them carefully, in the open, where everyone can provide feedback,” the company blog post notes.

Image Credits: Microsoft

In addition to the new image generator, Bing is also getting two additional new search features: Visual Stories and Knowledge Cards 2.0. Bing’s previous version of these Knowledge Cards was akin to Google’s knowledge panels, but they now come with the added twist of including AI-generated infographics and more interactive elements like charts, graphs and timelines.

Visual Stories, meanwhile, are more akin to AI-generated Instagram stories. Best I can tell, Microsoft has been testing these quite a bit in recent weeks since they’ve been popping up in my searches with some frequency. These stories come with AI-generated audio narration and, depending on the topic, videos. Sometimes they will be the top search results, but they can also appear in the Knowledge Cards. When searching for ‘Portland, Oregon,’ for example, Bing will highlight stories like “How Portlander find fungus in the city” and “Portland: America’s quirkiest city.” Sadly, there doesn’t seem to be a way to directly link to these stories.

Microsoft brings OpenAI’s DALL-E image creator to the new Bing by Frederic Lardinois originally published on TechCrunch

Microsoft Workplace Analytics gathers data from Microsoft 365 to provide insights into how employees work and interact with one another. It shows how employees use technology to accomplish tasks, giving a better understanding of how every member of the team spends their time at work. This allows business leaders to identify and address process inefficiencies to increase productivity.

How does Workplace Analytics improve productivity?

Workplace Analytics extracts employee behavioral insights, such as communication patterns, collaboration habits, and workloads, from data gathered from emails, calendars, documents, and Microsoft 365 apps. It then uses this data to generate reports and recommendations for improving productivity.

Specifically, Workplace Analytics can:

  • Identify inefficiencies – Workplace Analytics can help pinpoint areas where employees are spending too much or not enough time, which can help managers optimize workloads and ensure that resources are being used effectively.
  • Improve collaboration – By analyzing communication patterns, Workplace Analytics can help identify communication bottlenecks and improve collaboration between employees or teams, which can lead to better productivity.
  • Reduce distractions – Workplace Analytics can identify distractions affecting productivity, such as excessive email notifications or social media use, and provide recommendations for reducing these.
  • Improve work-life balance – Workplace Analytics can help managers recognize employees who are overworked and provide recommendations for reducing their workload, which can improve work-life balance and prevent burnout.

Overall, Workplace Analytics can provide valuable insights into employee behavior and productivity, enabling organizations to optimize their resources and improve overall performance. However, it is important to note that businesses should use this data responsibly and ethically so that employee privacy is respected at all times.

What is Workplace Analytics for?

Workplace Analytics is designed to solve productivity and engagement problems a business may be experiencing.

Business leaders can leverage Workplace Analytics data to devise effective strategies for workplace productivity. For instance, if the data highlights that employees are spending most of their time in meetings, managers should look into ways to reduce the frequency or the length of meetings so that employees can spend more hours on other productive tasks. Human resources (HR) can also use this same data on working patterns and trends to identify burnout triggers. With these insights, HR personnel can recommend helpful solutions.

Businesses can also use Workplace Analytics to evaluate how their workers collaborate with internal and external contacts. For example, if you want to find out whether the weekly sales team meetings with particular vendors are aiding goal achievement or hindering success, simply draw up the relevant data in a few clicks. You can then assess whether these conversations could be more effectively directed elsewhere for greater collaboration potential and increased profits.

On top of these, Workplace Analytics can accurately measure employee engagement. With this data, managers can create a more motivated and productive workforce by ensuring that workloads are fairly distributed amongst employees or departments. And by being able to measure employee engagement, employers can identify areas of improvement in terms of working conditions and where additional training may be necessary.

Get the full benefits of Workplace Analytics by partnering with a trusted managed IT services provider like us. Our team of professionals specializes in the use and management of Microsoft programs and services, so you can trust that your business is in capable hands. Contact us today to get started!

Using data gathered from Microsoft 365, Workplace Analytics empowers organizations to track employee productivity with unprecedented clarity. This powerful software can track several employee behaviors, enabling business leaders to identify bottlenecks to develop powerful strategies that eliminate inefficiencies while increasing overall productivity. Read on to learn more about Workplace Analytics and how it can improve your team’s productivity.

How does Workplace Analytics improve productivity?

Workplace Analytics extracts employee behavioral insights, such as communication patterns, collaboration habits, and workloads, from data gathered from emails, calendars, documents, and Microsoft 365 apps. It then uses this data to generate reports and recommendations for improving productivity.

Specifically, Workplace Analytics can:

  • Identify inefficiencies – Workplace Analytics can help pinpoint areas where employees are spending too much or not enough time, which can help managers optimize workloads and ensure that resources are being used effectively.
  • Improve collaboration – By analyzing communication patterns, Workplace Analytics can help identify communication bottlenecks and improve collaboration between employees or teams, which can lead to better productivity.
  • Reduce distractions – Workplace Analytics can identify distractions affecting productivity, such as excessive email notifications or social media use, and provide recommendations for reducing these.
  • Improve work-life balance – Workplace Analytics can help managers recognize employees who are overworked and provide recommendations for reducing their workload, which can improve work-life balance and prevent burnout.

Overall, Workplace Analytics can provide valuable insights into employee behavior and productivity, enabling organizations to optimize their resources and improve overall performance. However, it is important to note that businesses should use this data responsibly and ethically so that employee privacy is respected at all times.

What is Workplace Analytics for?

Workplace Analytics is designed to solve productivity and engagement problems a business may be experiencing.

Business leaders can leverage Workplace Analytics data to devise effective strategies for workplace productivity. For instance, if the data highlights that employees are spending most of their time in meetings, managers should look into ways to reduce the frequency or the length of meetings so that employees can spend more hours on other productive tasks. Human resources (HR) can also use this same data on working patterns and trends to identify burnout triggers. With these insights, HR personnel can recommend helpful solutions.

Businesses can also use Workplace Analytics to evaluate how their workers collaborate with internal and external contacts. For example, if you want to find out whether the weekly sales team meetings with particular vendors are aiding goal achievement or hindering success, simply draw up the relevant data in a few clicks. You can then assess whether these conversations could be more effectively directed elsewhere for greater collaboration potential and increased profits.

On top of these, Workplace Analytics can accurately measure employee engagement. With this data, managers can create a more motivated and productive workforce by ensuring that workloads are fairly distributed amongst employees or departments. And by being able to measure employee engagement, employers can identify areas of improvement in terms of working conditions and where additional training may be necessary.

Get the full benefits of Workplace Analytics by partnering with a trusted managed IT services provider like us. Our team of professionals specializes in the use and management of Microsoft programs and services, so you can trust that your business is in capable hands. Contact us today to get started!

Imagine being able to monitor employee productivity, identify bottlenecks, and see where improvements could be made with a single business solution. Workplace Analytics is the tool that can do all that and more. In this article, you can learn more about this valuable tool from Microsoft and the wonders it can bring to the productivity levels of businesses across every size and industry.

How does Workplace Analytics improve productivity?

Workplace Analytics extracts employee behavioral insights, such as communication patterns, collaboration habits, and workloads, from data gathered from emails, calendars, documents, and Microsoft 365 apps. It then uses this data to generate reports and recommendations for improving productivity.

Specifically, Workplace Analytics can:

  • Identify inefficiencies – Workplace Analytics can help pinpoint areas where employees are spending too much or not enough time, which can help managers optimize workloads and ensure that resources are being used effectively.
  • Improve collaboration – By analyzing communication patterns, Workplace Analytics can help identify communication bottlenecks and improve collaboration between employees or teams, which can lead to better productivity.
  • Reduce distractions – Workplace Analytics can identify distractions affecting productivity, such as excessive email notifications or social media use, and provide recommendations for reducing these.
  • Improve work-life balance – Workplace Analytics can help managers recognize employees who are overworked and provide recommendations for reducing their workload, which can improve work-life balance and prevent burnout.

Overall, Workplace Analytics can provide valuable insights into employee behavior and productivity, enabling organizations to optimize their resources and improve overall performance. However, it is important to note that businesses should use this data responsibly and ethically so that employee privacy is respected at all times.

What is Workplace Analytics for?

Workplace Analytics is designed to solve productivity and engagement problems a business may be experiencing.

Business leaders can leverage Workplace Analytics data to devise effective strategies for workplace productivity. For instance, if the data highlights that employees are spending most of their time in meetings, managers should look into ways to reduce the frequency or the length of meetings so that employees can spend more hours on other productive tasks. Human resources (HR) can also use this same data on working patterns and trends to identify burnout triggers. With these insights, HR personnel can recommend helpful solutions.

Businesses can also use Workplace Analytics to evaluate how their workers collaborate with internal and external contacts. For example, if you want to find out whether the weekly sales team meetings with particular vendors are aiding goal achievement or hindering success, simply draw up the relevant data in a few clicks. You can then assess whether these conversations could be more effectively directed elsewhere for greater collaboration potential and increased profits.

On top of these, Workplace Analytics can accurately measure employee engagement. With this data, managers can create a more motivated and productive workforce by ensuring that workloads are fairly distributed amongst employees or departments. And by being able to measure employee engagement, employers can identify areas of improvement in terms of working conditions and where additional training may be necessary.

Get the full benefits of Workplace Analytics by partnering with a trusted managed IT services provider like us. Our team of professionals specializes in the use and management of Microsoft programs and services, so you can trust that your business is in capable hands. Contact us today to get started!

At its virtual “Future of Work” event, Microsoft today announced the launch of an AI copilot — and make no mistake, Microsoft is all-in on using this ‘copilot’ metaphor across all of its products — to Power Apps, Power Virtual Agents and Power Automate. The idea here is to use AI to make using these tools for building line-of-business apps, flows and bots even easier by letting users use natural language to describe what they want to build.

“With Copilot, Microsoft Power Platform is bringing AI-powered assistance into Power Apps, Power Virtual Agents, and Power Automate,” Charles Lamanna, Microsoft’s corporate VP for its low code application platform, writes in today’s announcement. “Makers now have a live in-studio copilot that helps them build solutions and provides suggestions for improvement. To build an app, flow, or bot, you can describe it using natural language and copilot can build it in seconds. It is that easy.”

At its core, this works a bit like using the new Bing or ChatGPT. You tell the Power Platform Copilot what you want and then refine these ideas through a back-and-forth with the bot in the chat sidebar.

In Power Apps, the main low-code tool of the Power Platform, users can now use sentences like “Create a time and expense application to enable my employees to submit their time and expense reports” and it will generate this app for them. But in addition to building these user interfaces and integrations with a company’s data sources, the Copilot can also help users analyze their data and visualize it (Microsoft’s example here is: “What are the most common reasons an inspection fails?”)

Given that Power Virtual Agents is part of the same platform and getting similar updates, it’s maybe no surprise that it’s now also more deeply integrated into Power Apps, allowing these developers to more easily add a chat bot to their apps.

Image Credits: Microsoft

Power Automate, Microsoft’s tool for automating workflows, the process is pretty much the same and the company argues that during its preview, customers saw a 50% reduction in the time it took to develop a Power Automate workflow.

One nifty feature worth calling out here is that since the service is integrated with a GPT model, users will now be able to use Power Automate to also automatically generate text or have the tool summarize existing documents.

For now, Microsoft describes these features as “experimental previews powered by Azure OpenAI Service with GPT” and warns that they are not meant for production use. That’s unlikely to stop most users from using them in production, but at least Microsoft can say that it warned people when their automated daily content update goes haywire.

 

Microsoft’s new Power Platform AI copilot will build your apps for you by Frederic Lardinois originally published on TechCrunch

In addition to today’s launch of OpenAI’s GPT-4, which is now confirmed to be the GPT model running in Bing, Microsoft also announced the stable version of its Edge web browser will now include the new Bing AI chatbot in a sidebar. The feature was first introduced at Microsoft’s AI press event in February but was previously only available as a developer preview, not a public release.

With today’s official unveiling of GPT-4, Microsoft is shipping the feature, which it calls the “Edge Copilot” in the stable version of its Microsoft Edge browser.

The update reimagines the concept of the sidebar, which previously hosted Edge’s “Discover” feature to provide users with context about the page they’re visiting. Now, the new sidebar will offer an AI chatbot instead.

When users want to interact with the sidebar and the AI features, they’ll just hover over the Bing icon in the toolbar to open up the sidebar. When not in use, the sidebar can be automatically hidden.

Image Credits: Screenshot of Edge browser

While open, users can take advantage of the Edge Copilot, the AI feature that’s capable of providing “intelligent suggestions and insights based on the context of the web page and the user’s goals,” Microsoft says.

As the company explained at its event, the AI chatbot had two main functionalities at launch, chat and compose. Together, these can help users do things like summarize lengthy web content, run comparisons or even create content, in some cases.

For example, one of Microsoft’s demos had shown the AI summarizing a company’s financial statements — but unfortunately, it got the numbers wrong, it was later revealed. In another, a developer asked the AI to write a snippet of code while researching tips on Stack Overflow. The AI was able to convert Python code to Rust. Microsoft even demonstrated the AI writing a LinkedIn post after a few prompts were given.

Today, the company suggests that the AI Copilot could also be used to help users write better emails, search the web faster and learn new skills.

The productivity angle to AI has not been lost on the competition. Today, Google unveiled how it’s incorporating AI into its own productivity solution, Workspace. Its plan involves incorporating generative AI within every part of Workspace, including helping users write emails in Gmail, write and edit documents in Docs, formula generation in Sheets, capture notes in Meet and create text, images, audio, and video in Slides. Microsoft is expected to detail its answer to Google’s move later this week.

While the sidebar is the most anticipated new Edge feature, it may be locked down by I.T. admins. Microsoft notes admins will be able to control whether or not users have access to the sidebar in Edge at all — an important consideration, given that some companies, including Walmart and Amazon, now have policies against sharing confidential company information with ChatGPT and other AI bots.

The AI sidebar isn’t the only new feature coming to Edge with this release, however.

The company also says it’s rolling out a new experience to the Microsoft 365 tab of the Edge Enterprise New Tab Page. This will now include a larger version of the Microsoft Feed, which includes more productivity content and moves cards with important emails, recent SharePoint sites, upcoming events, and to-do items over to the right-hand side of the tab.

Additionally, the browser will ship various security mode improvements and will support a new policy that controls whether or not the user’s browsing history is deleted when the browser app is exited.

Microsoft says the stable version of its Edge web browser will roll out progressively over one or more days. The browser is available for both Windows and Mac platforms.

Microsoft’s new Bing AI chatbot arrives in the stable version of its Edge web browser by Sarah Perez originally published on TechCrunch

Microsoft announced another ten-year agreement to bring its Xbox game lineup to cloud gaming service Boosteroid. This is Microsoft’s third deal with other gaming platforms as the company is trying to convince regulators that they should approve the acquisition of Activision Blizzard.

Last year, Microsoft announced its intention to buy Activision Blizzard for $68.7 billion. Activision Blizzard is one of the largest video game publishers in the world. The company and its internal studios are behind some very popular gaming franchises, such as ‘Call of Duty’, ‘Diablo’, ‘World of Warcraft’ and ‘Candy Crush Saga’.

But Microsoft has run into regulatory challenges in the U.K., the U.S. and the European Union. In particular, European regulators will take a decision on whether to clear or block the acquisition by April 11, 2023. In other words, it’s a matter of days before regulators say Microsoft can move forward.

That’s why Microsoft is announcing long-term commitments to bring ‘Call of Duty’ games and the rest of its catalog to other platforms — not just Xbox gaming consoles. Last month, Microsoft President Brad Smith announced a deal with Nintendo and another deal with Nvidia’s GeForce Now service.

Today, the company is adding a third partner and promises that Microsoft games will be available on Boosteroid for the next ten years. Boosteroid is a relatively small cloud gaming service that works more or less like Nvidia GeForce Now.

Instead of running games on your local device, games run on a gaming-optimized server in a data center near you. The video stream is then sent to your display. When you press a button on your controller, the action is relayed to the server.

Like on Nvidia’s cloud gaming service, the company isn’t a Netflix-like subscription. Instead, users have to buy individual games on online PC stores like Steam and the Epic Games Store. Boosteroid customers pay a monthly subscription fee to access the company’s servers. If they stop their subscription, users still own the games that they bought.

While Boosteroid doesn’t disclose the hardware specifications of its servers, the company promises a resolution of 1080p at 60 frames per second. The service costs €9.89 per month or €89.99 per year ($10.61 and $96.57 at today’s exchange rate respectively).

Originally from Ukraine, Boosteroid has servers in Europe (France, Italy, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden, Ukraine and the U.K.) and the U.S. (Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Texas, Illinois, Florida and Washington). As latency is key for cloud gaming, living near a data center is very important.

Boosteroid says that it has 4 million registered users. The service works in a web browser and the company also has dedicated applications for Windows, macOS, Android, Android TV and Linux. As for Sony, Microsoft hasn’t reached an agreement to make future ‘Call of Duty’ games available on PlayStation consoles.

Microsoft signs another ‘Call of Duty’ deal with cloud gaming company Boosteroid by Romain Dillet originally published on TechCrunch

Small businesses are often under the misconception that they must invest heavily in an on-premises IT system to get enterprise-level email capabilities. Fortunately, that’s not the case with Microsoft Exchange Online. This cloud-based email solution offers the same great features as an on-premises Exchange Server but without the cost and complexity of deployment. In this blog post, we’ll explore the many advantages of using Exchange Online for your small-business email needs.

What is Microsoft Exchange?

Before we dive into the benefits of Exchange Online, let’s quickly review what Microsoft Exchange is. Microsoft Exchange is an email, calendar, and contact management system designed to provide powerful collaboration and communication tools for organizations of all sizes. It can be used on premises, in the cloud, or as part of a hybrid environment.

Many large enterprises and academic organizations install Exchange on their own servers, as this provides them with complete control over their email systems. However, this can be overly complex and expensive for smaller businesses that don’t necessarily require the same degree of customization or control. This is where Exchange Online comes in.

What is Exchange Online?

Exchange Online is essentially the cloud-based version of Microsoft Exchange, and it’s available as a stand-alone service or as part of a Microsoft 365 subscription. Exchange Online is hosted by Microsoft, meaning you don’t have to worry about setting up and managing your own email servers. This makes it much simpler and more cost-effective to set up than an on-premises Exchange server. All you need is an internet connection and you’re good to go.

What are the benefits of Exchange Online?

Using Exchange Online for your business email comes with a number of advantages, including these key benefits:

  • Predictable and lower costs – Exchange Online eliminates the need for expensive hardware and software investments, as well as the ongoing maintenance costs associated with an on-premises installation. As with many other hosted services, you simply pay a fixed fee each month for the number of users you need, so you can easily predict and control your costs.
  • Easier implementation – Maintaining an on-premises Exchange server can be complex and time-consuming. You would need to find space in your office for the server, purchase and install hardware and software, set up and manage accounts and users, and keep it all updated and secure. In case the server runs into problems, you would then need to fix it yourself or call in an IT specialist. Exchange Online takes much of this burden away, as Microsoft takes care of everything.
  • Enhanced security – Microsoft’s cloud infrastructure provides a secure platform for storing and managing your data. Exchange Online also includes advanced security features such as multifactor authentication, data loss prevention, and encryption. These features help protect your business from cyberthreats and data breaches.
  • Scalability – As your business grows, Exchange Online can quickly and easily scale to meet the increased demand. Instead of needing to purchase new hardware or hire additional IT staff, you can simply increase your user count and the system will take care of the rest.

Are you ready to discover how Exchange Online can help your business succeed? Connect with one of our specialists today.

Microsoft Exchange Server has long been the gold standard in enterprise-level email solutions, but many small businesses have shied away from it due to the cost and complexity of setting up and managing an on-premises server. Fortunately, Microsoft now offers Exchange Online, a cloud-based version of its popular email solution. Let’s take a look at how Exchange Online can benefit your small business and why you should consider it for your email needs.

What is Microsoft Exchange?

Before we dive into the benefits of Exchange Online, let’s quickly review what Microsoft Exchange is. Microsoft Exchange is an email, calendar, and contact management system designed to provide powerful collaboration and communication tools for organizations of all sizes. It can be used on premises, in the cloud, or as part of a hybrid environment.

Many large enterprises and academic organizations install Exchange on their own servers, as this provides them with complete control over their email systems. However, this can be overly complex and expensive for smaller businesses that don’t necessarily require the same degree of customization or control. This is where Exchange Online comes in.

What is Exchange Online?

Exchange Online is essentially the cloud-based version of Microsoft Exchange, and it’s available as a stand-alone service or as part of a Microsoft 365 subscription. Exchange Online is hosted by Microsoft, meaning you don’t have to worry about setting up and managing your own email servers. This makes it much simpler and more cost-effective to set up than an on-premises Exchange server. All you need is an internet connection and you’re good to go.

What are the benefits of Exchange Online?

Using Exchange Online for your business email comes with a number of advantages, including these key benefits:

  • Predictable and lower costs – Exchange Online eliminates the need for expensive hardware and software investments, as well as the ongoing maintenance costs associated with an on-premises installation. As with many other hosted services, you simply pay a fixed fee each month for the number of users you need, so you can easily predict and control your costs.
  • Easier implementation – Maintaining an on-premises Exchange server can be complex and time-consuming. You would need to find space in your office for the server, purchase and install hardware and software, set up and manage accounts and users, and keep it all updated and secure. In case the server runs into problems, you would then need to fix it yourself or call in an IT specialist. Exchange Online takes much of this burden away, as Microsoft takes care of everything.
  • Enhanced security – Microsoft’s cloud infrastructure provides a secure platform for storing and managing your data. Exchange Online also includes advanced security features such as multifactor authentication, data loss prevention, and encryption. These features help protect your business from cyberthreats and data breaches.
  • Scalability – As your business grows, Exchange Online can quickly and easily scale to meet the increased demand. Instead of needing to purchase new hardware or hire additional IT staff, you can simply increase your user count and the system will take care of the rest.

Are you ready to discover how Exchange Online can help your business succeed? Connect with one of our specialists today.

For years, Microsoft Exchange Server has been the go-to choice for businesses looking to manage their emails, contacts, and calendars efficiently. However, small businesses often saw the complex setup and maintenance of an on-premises server as too daunting and costly. With the introduction of Exchange Online, Microsoft has created a powerful cloud solution that offers the same features and reliability as Exchange Server, but without all of the hassle. Here’s why your small business should consider Exchange Online for your email needs.

What is Microsoft Exchange?

Before we dive into the benefits of Exchange Online, let’s quickly review what Microsoft Exchange is. Microsoft Exchange is an email, calendar, and contact management system designed to provide powerful collaboration and communication tools for organizations of all sizes. It can be used on premises, in the cloud, or as part of a hybrid environment.

Many large enterprises and academic organizations install Exchange on their own servers, as this provides them with complete control over their email systems. However, this can be overly complex and expensive for smaller businesses that don’t necessarily require the same degree of customization or control. This is where Exchange Online comes in.

What is Exchange Online?

Exchange Online is essentially the cloud-based version of Microsoft Exchange, and it’s available as a stand-alone service or as part of a Microsoft 365 subscription. Exchange Online is hosted by Microsoft, meaning you don’t have to worry about setting up and managing your own email servers. This makes it much simpler and more cost-effective to set up than an on-premises Exchange server. All you need is an internet connection and you’re good to go.

What are the benefits of Exchange Online?

Using Exchange Online for your business email comes with a number of advantages, including these key benefits:

  • Predictable and lower costs – Exchange Online eliminates the need for expensive hardware and software investments, as well as the ongoing maintenance costs associated with an on-premises installation. As with many other hosted services, you simply pay a fixed fee each month for the number of users you need, so you can easily predict and control your costs.
  • Easier implementation – Maintaining an on-premises Exchange server can be complex and time-consuming. You would need to find space in your office for the server, purchase and install hardware and software, set up and manage accounts and users, and keep it all updated and secure. In case the server runs into problems, you would then need to fix it yourself or call in an IT specialist. Exchange Online takes much of this burden away, as Microsoft takes care of everything.
  • Enhanced security – Microsoft’s cloud infrastructure provides a secure platform for storing and managing your data. Exchange Online also includes advanced security features such as multifactor authentication, data loss prevention, and encryption. These features help protect your business from cyberthreats and data breaches.
  • Scalability – As your business grows, Exchange Online can quickly and easily scale to meet the increased demand. Instead of needing to purchase new hardware or hire additional IT staff, you can simply increase your user count and the system will take care of the rest.

Are you ready to discover how Exchange Online can help your business succeed? Connect with one of our specialists today.