Welcome to our weekly catchup on the biggest news from the past week in the UC&C industry.

This week saw a comprehensive look at Microsoft Teams’ roadmap of 2021, comms VAR Maintel expanded its partnership with RingCentral via a massive public sector framework and Onecom bos Martin Flick sat down with our editor-in-chief David Dungay to chat about its recent acquisitions of 9 Group and Olive Communications.

Microsoft Teams’ Roadmap for 2021

Most of this month is dedicated to rolling out the features announced during Microsoft Ignite 2021, including View Switcher which will allow users to control how they see their meeting content and PowerPoint Live which allows users to deliver PowerPoint slides straight into Teams.

Features being unrolled in May include Real Time Events data, which provides users with access to real-time insights into how their events are going, Teams casting, which will allow users on mobile devices to cast their meeting from the device and Meeting Lock, which allows admins to lock their meetings to additional people joining.

June will see Microsoft introduce Teams Connect with Admin Controls, as well as live captions in additional languages, including French, German and Spanish.

How Accurate Are Gartner’s UC Observations?

Gartner’s Magic Quadrants are some of the most esteemed research reports in the industry, with many companies in the UC industry relying on these quadrants to understand which vendors are leading the way and who are the up-and-comers.

We assess the accuracy of these research tools, parse through the problems that have cropped up with the Quadrants over the years and discuss how much you should rely on the findings of these assessments when making decisions for your own business.

How To Get Your Team Together

Microsoft Teams Together mode aims to bring people together in a shared digital environment, unlike the grid format we’ve become accustomed to with other video conferencing tools.

Together mode plucks your image from your video stream to create an avatar of you, which then sits alongside your colleagues’ avatars in an auditorium-style setting.

We guide you through the process of setting up Together mode, as well as reviewing its limitations.

Maintel Expands UK Partnership with RingCentral

Maintel has expanded its partnership with RingCentral via a huge £5bn public sector framework in the UK.

The comms VAR was awarded spots in 10 Lots of Network Services 2, initially offering its own services. The partnership with RingCentral will see it now resell RingCentral Office via the framework.

“We’ve helped more than 300 public sector organisations to address the growing need for digital transformation and collaborative communications, covering hundreds of thousands of employees,” stated Ioan MacRae, CEO of Maintel.

“By extending our partnership with RingCentral, we can now deliver advanced communications solutions to the UK public sector.”

Onecom Boss Opens Up On M&A and the Channel

Martin Flick, CEO of Onecom, spoke with UC Today about its recent acquisitions of 9 Group and Olive Communications, the challenges of acquiring under lockdown and the long-term value of the channel.

“The key for us is to have customer experience at the heart of it all and deliver brilliant customer experiences. Partners do that by virtue of the fact that it’s one of their key points of differentiation,” he explained.

“When you work with a partner you get a more a personalised service, a better understanding of your specific needs and then you can supply customers with services that are considered off-the-shelf, delivered in a solution that is nuanced to their business. It’s a route to market we see as hugely important.”

What do you make of this week’s discussions? Come and get involved in the chat on our social media channels!

 



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