It seems to come around quicker every year, bright lights and shiny new things, a buzz in the air – no we don’t mean Christmas! we’re talking about Microsoft Ignite of course!
Last week saw the 2022 Microsoft Ignite conference take place and there was no shortage of updates, improvements and new stuff for the techies amongst us.
Here’s just 3 really cool bits for the end user
1. Avatars
We don’t always want cameras on and Microsoft has clearly heard that loud and clear with the introduction of avatars which allow you to choose a customised animated version of yourself rather than a photo or blank space when you choose have the camera off. The avatar can also be used in Teams with a range of gestures to react to conversations.
2. Microsoft Teams Premium is a new add-on available from February 2023 with the promise of making meetings more personalized, intelligent and secure. Other features include custom logos and backgrounds, teams meeting recaps, automatically generating tasks after meetings and meeting recordings which highlight important sections of the meeting – sounds like a great option for the time-poor amongst us, we’re interested to see how this one works when it’s released!
3. Collaborative Apps for Teams
There are now some useful and pretty cool new apps available in the App store and for use within teams. 3M the post-it note app allows users to digitize handwritten notes with your phone or laptop camera it’s easy to translate handwritten or drawn post-it notes onto your digital whiteboard. iHeart Radio allows users to listen to music whilst working and share radio stations with teams members whilst this isn’t groundbreaking as technology goes it is the first time it’s been available in Teams.
And for the more technical amongst us here’s our top 3 need to know’s
1. Integration with Azure Active Directory Domain Services enables multi-factor authentication and conditional access
Azure Active Directory currently does not have multi-factor authentication or conditional access native to the platform, meaning they must be set up separately. Microsoft is integrating both capabilities into the platform. This means that both solutions can be easily enabled without having to go through another setup and integration process.
2. No inbound connections to Session Hosts
Where public IP addresses and open ports need to exist on your session hosts Microsoft is introducing new RDMI infrastructure which means there is longer a need to open inbound ports on the sessions hosts. This prevents someone on the internet from accessing sessions hosts without going through the defined log in process.
3. Multi-Tenancy
This will allow customers to build multiple deployments in a single tenant without compromising security. Microsoft does not support true multi-tenancy but with this update, they will be able to whilst also enhancing security.
Want to catch up with Microsoft Ignite? You can right here