Microsoft Boosts Security With Long-Requested Teams Phishing Alert, ‘Tests’ 45% Price Hike in Asia
Microsoft is introducing a long-anticipated phishing and spam alert feature to Teams.
Teams has been a long-lasting target for bad actors intending to gain access to organisations’ systems and data, primarily via phishing and spam attempts. IT admins have been lobbying for more robust capabilities within Teams that can protect users, particularly less tech and internet-savvy users, from standard phishing and scam attacks. Microsoft is finally answering such calls.
In other Microsoft news, the tech giant has announced significant price increases for its Microsoft 365 (M365) subscriptions in six Asia-Pacific countries: Australia, New Zealand, Malaysia, Singapore, Taiwan, and Thailand. The hikes range from 29 percent to 46 percent, largely attributed to the integration of advanced AI features, such as Copilot, into the suite.
For example, in Australia, the annual M365 Family subscription will rise from AU$139 to AU$179, a 29 percent increase, while the Personal subscription will increase from AU$109 to AU$159, marking a 46 percent surge.
A Microsoft spokesperson, as reported by The Register, explained that these price adjustments reflect the expanded benefits added over the past 12 years, including enhanced security with Microsoft Defender, creative tools like Clipchamp, and improvements to core applications such as Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, and Outlook. The company further justifies the price hikes with the addition of new features like Microsoft Copilot and Microsoft Designer.
Intermedia Unveils ‘Industry First’ Integrated UC, CX Solution For Microsoft Teams
Intermedia has added contact centre functionality to its Intermedia Unite for Teams Advanced solution, which it says makes it the first in the industry to embed UC and CX capabilities directly within the Microsoft Teams platform.
Expanding on Intermedia’s Unite for Teams Advanced, Intermedia says that adding advanced contact centre capabilities now turns Microsoft Teams into a unified platform for both UC and CX. This upgrade allows businesses to seamlessly manage voice, chat, SMS, and email interactions within Teams while maintaining its native collaboration features, including meetings, team chats, and group discussions.
Irina Shamkova, Chief Product Officer at Intermedia, commented:
Our fully embedded UC and CC solution for Microsoft Teams now empowers businesses with a powerful combination of advanced communication and customer experience capabilities – all within the familiar Teams environment they already use every day. With the addition of Contact Center functionality, we’re enabling businesses to elevate both employee productivity and customer engagement in a single, integrated platform.”
The Intermedia Unite for Teams Advanced CX update is available now.
DeepSeek: What The Chinese AI Challenger Could Mean for Microsoft Copilot 365
DeepSeek, a new Chinese AI system, has disrupted Silicon Valley’s dominance. Unveiled in mid-January 2025, its chatbot quickly surpassed ChatGPT as the most downloaded free app on the US iOS App Store by January 27, causing Nvidia’s stock to drop 18 percent.
What makes DeepSeek standout are its low training costs. The startup claims its V3 model cost just $5.58 million in computing power, and its DeepSeek-R1 model is 20 to 50 times cheaper than OpenAI’s o1 model. Despite these minimal costs, DeepSeek asserts that its models rival the performance of OpenAI and Meta’s top AI systems.
Bradford Levy, Assistant Professor of Accounting, University of Chicago Booth School of Business, said:
DeepSeek has sent shock waves through the tech industry – directly challenging tech giants like Meta, Microsoft and Open AI. With limited resources, they proved that scrappy, innovative teams can shake up the industry, even on a shoestring budget.”
While it’s still early, if the hype surrounding DeepSeek proves accurate and the platform is recognised as a legitimate AI provider, major companies like Microsoft may consider integrating it as one of their third-party AI models.
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