News and Press

Microsoft Viva could make Teams more “sticky” but disruptive to some ecosystem partners. Microsoft has created an employee experience platform (EXP) that extends Teams into a unified workforce engagement and information access tool. The new Microsoft Viva addresses the rise in remote employees and distributed workplaces, accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Scott Gode, chief product marketing officer of managed service provider Unify Square, said Viva is poised to boost Teams’ appeal.

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Partners give their thoughts on the Viva announcement. Microsoft is set to “dominate” the workplace analytics and productivity market with the launch of Insights. That is the view of Scott Gode, chief marketing officer at Unify Square, a Microsoft partner, who said that the Insights module, launched as part of Microsoft Viva, will cement the Seattle giant’s place as a top workplace analytics provider.

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A recent Unify Square survey reveals enterprise employees’ feelings on workplace collaboration during the coronavirus pandemic. In some cases, perhaps technology workers are feeling the pinch from working at home more than others. That was just one of the findings from a recent Unify Square survey. The study was designed to determine how enterprise employees feel about workplace collaboration and communication in the midst of the global coronavirus pandemic.

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Thinking that people will behave according to plan could be a mistake. As enterprises prepare to reopen offices later this year, the return-to-office process has the potential to be just as disruptive as last year’s abrupt shift to WFH. That’s the perspective shared in a recent post on No Jitter by IT expert Alan Shen of Unify Square, a software and services firm. Though Alan directs his cautions and advice toward IT teams, the situation he’s describing — and the impacts he’s warning against — will affect any enterprise organization charged with implementing the new work experience as the pandemic recedes.

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The looming threats of a hybrid remote, in-office approach should have IT on high alert. 2020 was a transformative year for UC and collaboration. Remote work configurations became status quo and are now well-integrated, both socially and technically, into the daily operations of most organizations. However, a disruption to this work-from-home (WFH) model is looming. Once companies are able to lift COVID restrictions, IT will face the need to support employees working from home, in the office, and on the go. This scattered distribution of knowledge workers will give rise to a new set of challenges in the UCaaS and collaboration space.

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Users will soon be able to place and receive Teams calls with Apple CarPlay. Customers have sought more robust Teams calling capabilities, according to Scott Gode, chief product marketing officer of Unify Square, a managed service provider and Microsoft Teams partner. “The announcements have generated a lot of questions and enthusiasm from our customers,” Gode said.While Gartner gave Teams Calling high marks in its 2020 UCaaS “Magic Quadrant” ranking, it included notable caveats. “Microsoft’s telephony capabilities are good enough for many organizations, but not for those that require advanced telephony features,” the report noted.

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