Education and enterprise customers who use Microsoft 365 can now enjoy the addition of new smart video conferencing features, as well as work-centric analytics services.
A leading US cloud portfolio management provider, SoftwareONE, has also launched Security for Microsoft 365 to help businesses better protect both their on-premises and cloud environments.
Microsoft 365, which bundles together Windows 10, Office 365 and Enterprise Mobility + Security, is a powerful enterprise social network collaboration platform and productivity tool. The newly added video conferencing feature allows users to create live or on-demand streams within an organisation’s Microsoft 365 cloud.
The tool offers smart facial recognition, which can automatically detect who is taking part in a video conference. Microsoft has recently been working to improve facial recognition to better discern gender and people with different skin tones, so this rollout will be an important test for the company, as many organisations around the world are actively working to increase diversity.
The video conferencing tool also offers autonomous speech-to-text transcription with added time codes. Meeting attendees who wish to review a particular agenda item will no longer have to rely on hastily transcribed minutes; instead, they can simply search for specific quotes or sections of a video conference.
Microsoft Corporate Vice President Ron Markezich explained:
“Events can be as simple or as sophisticated as you prefer. You can use webcams, content and screen sharing for information presentations or stream a studio quality production for more formal events.”
The company has also launched MyAnalytics, a workplace tool that analyses a worker’s activity in Microsoft 365 and then provides what it calls ‘nudges’. These nudges aim to prevent workers from taking on potentially conflicting commitments or otherwise promising to deliver more work than they can handle.
A similar tool called Workplace Analytics works alongside MyAnalytics to collect data from groups of workers and present it in Microsoft Graph. From there, it can be used to find ways to help teams work more effectively together. Information can also be aggregated across an organisation to find better ways for the teams within it to collaborate.
With Microsoft recently making its Teams collaboration service free, the company now has several entry points for businesses to opt into its cloud-based offerings, but as institutions often handle sensitive customer information and other important data there is a strong need to ensure security.
While Microsoft 365 has its own built-in network protections, companies may need additional security measures based on specific customer or compliance requirements. To that end, Wisconsin-based firm SoftwareONE has launched Security for Microsoft 365, which offers additional benefits such as the ability to evaluate exposures to potential cyberattacks.
Microsoft Security Marketing director Ryan McGee stated:
“SoftwareONE’s Security for Microsoft 365 provides customers additional security controls to prioritise and secure their expanding attack surface by leveraging the comprehensive capabilities of Microsoft Enterprise Mobility + Security.”
Find out more about how your business can use powerful collaboration tools to improve efficiency and security by getting in touch with our friendly customer service team at WM Reply .