Microsoft launches Microsoft Teams, a chat-based workspace for Office 365 users

Image Credit: Microsoft

  31 Jan 2017 , 15:21

With am aim to bring together people, conversations, content and the tools that teams need to collaborate in offices, Microsoft on Tuesday demostrated a new chat-based workspace called “Microsoft Teams”. “Microsoft Teams” provides persistent, threaded chat to keep everyone engaged and informed and packs a library of emojis, GIFs, custom stickers and memes that gives people a fun way to express personality within their digital workspace.

Image Credit: Microsoft

“People can start voice and video meeting as well as work with Microsoft Office documents directly within the ‘Microsoft Teams’ experience,” Alok B Lall, Director, Office Business Group, Microsoft India, told reporters here. “Microsoft Teams” is also built on Office 365 Groups, the cross-application membership service that makes it easy for people to move naturally from one collaboration tool to another.

The workspace offers the ability for teams to customise the experience to meet their specific needs and team members can create channels to organise conversations by topic. As part of Office 365, “Microsoft Teams” offers the global scale and advanced security and compliance capabilities provided by the Microsoft Cloud.

Data is encrypted at all times and covered by a transparent operational model with no standing access to customer data, the company said. “Microsoft Teams” is available to all Office 365 commercial customers and will run on Windows, Mac, Android, iOS and web platforms.

IANS

Microsoft Office Lens is coming soon to Word and PowerPoint; digitising documents to be made easier

By tech2 News Staff /  25 Jan 2017 , 08:58

Microsoft will soon update its mobile apps to better support the ability to digitise documents and improve image capture.

The software giant currently uses Microsoft Office Lens, originally a stand-alone app, for this purpose. Microsoft has announced that this app is now going to be integrated into the Word and PowerPoint apps for mobile.

Digitising documents will happen via OCR (Optical Character Recognition). You will be able to take a photo of your presentation or notes and the app on your device should be able to convert into searchable/editable text and images. This will also apply to handwritten text as well.

Better image capture will help Office clean up images that you capture. Whiteboards and paper will feature enhanced contrast, for example.

Alongside this, the company has also announced an Office Insider program for iPhone and iPad. Microsoft’s Insider programs allow users to beta test software for Microsoft and give feedback on bugs, usability, etc.

These are beta programs so if you sign up, be aware that the software will be buggy and that data loss is a remote, but distinct possibility.

PCWorld points out that Office Lens for Android already supports OCR features, but that it’s limited to scanning business cards. Strangely enough, scanned business card data is not synced with Outlook.

Microsoft Azure Government DoD Regions Preview Now Available

 

By Luke Jones -
October 28, 2016 4:37 pm CET 

After recently announcing significant growth in Azure Government, Microsoft has launched a preview for Department of Defense regions.

Microsoft has announced the Preview for Azure Government Department of Defense (DoD) regions. The release is an Impact Level 5-ready cloud infrastructure and platform. In its announcement, Microsoft points out that it is the only hyperscale cloud provider to offer such a high level support to the DoD. The company adds it expands its commitment to the Azure Government platform.

The company has doubled down on its Azure Government strategy this week during the 5th annual Government Cloud Forum. Microsoft announced the platform has grown three times in 2016. Operations Management Suite (OMS) and Government Marketplace were also made widely available.


Through this preview, Microsoft is giving customers early access to DoD regions. With the ability to explore the infrastructure, the company is hoping for customer feedback to improve the platform before full launch. In the blog post, Microsoft confirmed general availability will come early 2017.
Capabilities

Microsoft has previously detailed the capabilities of Azure Government DoD regions in a previous post:

Department of Defense-specific Office 365 and Azure. By the end of 2016, physically isolated versions of Azure Government and Office 365 US Government Defense specifically for the Department of Defense (DoD) will be available in two new dedicated regions. These regions will also connect to Department of Defense (DoD) networks via Microsoft Express Route.


DoD Information Impact Level 5. These versions of Office 365 and Azure are built from the ground up to meet DoD Impact Level 5 controls. DoD agencies and companies managing controlled information will be able to use this platform for Department of Defense National Security System data. Microsoft is on track to achieve a DoD Impact Level 5 Provisional Authorization for both Office 365 and Azure.

Two additional Azure Government regions in the South West and South Central United States. Today we’re announcing our intent to expand Azure Government from new regions in Arizona and Texas. Slated to be generally available in 2017, the new regions will add to our existing regions in Virginia and Iowa and are new additions beyond the Department of Defense regions mentioned above. Now, Microsoft has a total of six dedicated regions for government customers – significantly more than any other cloud provider. Combined with dedicated Government ExpressRoute options, Microsoft offers government agencies broad choice of where they host their data and where they connect directly to Microsoft’s infrastructure.

To access DoD regions, customers need to pass a pre-qualification process. Microsoft says this is to verify that the organization is secure and to check its intended use of the platform.

Microsoft adds intelligent cloud collaboration features to Office 365

At the 2016 Ignite Conference, Microsoft announced several new features made possible by intelligent cloud technology. Should you be excited?

By Mark Kaelin | October 10, 2016, 11:49 AM PST

When information technology companies like Microsoft talk on and on about the merits of artificial intelligence and the power of an intelligent cloud, what are they really talking about? Certainly, there must be more to the intelligent cloud than merely another place to store data. Well, after several news stories released at the 2016 Microsoft Ignite Conference, it turns out there actually is more to it for Office 365 subscribers after all.

The Microsoft Office 365 Team announced several new features for its flagship productivity suite that rely on the company's intelligent cloud technology. The new tools are included in the latest update and are designed to help IT professionals drive digital transformation within their organizations. Digital transformation is a major tenet of Microsoft's mobile-first, cloud-first vision for enterprise businesses.
Tap for Word and Outlook

Finding pertinent published information within an enterprise can often be a bit of a time sink. You know that table of important statistics—the very thing you need for your report—was in a presentation. But which presentation was it? Searching for the information you need to complete your project can waste precious time and sap your productivity, neither of which is conducive to a well-run enterprise.

Microsoft's latest update to Word and Outlook may help solve this

Microsoft makes the Office 365 App Launcher look like the Windows 10 start menu

#OFFICE 365

By tech2 News Staff /  29 Sep 2016 , 15:33

Microsoft has upgraded the user interface on the Office 365 App Launcher to make it look more like the Windows 10 start menu. The experience is designed to be consistent across desktops and Microsoft Surface devices. There is now a tabbed layout with three sections, home, new and all. The home screen where users can organise and pin their most used applications.

The tabbed layout with the “New” Section.

There are tiles available for the applications, and these can be positioned or resized as per requirement. The ellipses menu on the top right of application tiles contains three size options, small, medium and wide. The New section is an easy way to access the most recently installed apps. When new apps are installed, a badge with a notification appears. The All section lists the entire catalogue of applications that are subscribed to, and has a handy search field to search anywhere within Office 365.

Resizing the tiles.

At the right end of the navigation bar, three applications can be pinned. There is now a support for Office 365 themes. The settings menu now has options to select themes, and organisations can create custom themes for use by their employees. A feature to display recent documents on clicking or tapping of the ellipses menu is being planned. Apps from Office 365, the Office store, Azure, SharePoint and Line of Business will be displayed by the launcher.

Themes in office 365.

System administrators also have the option of including custom tiles for the employees of their organisations. Only customers with the Exchange service can pin, resize or customise apps, and access the tabbed layout. Those who have opted in for the First Release program will see the updates by the end of September. The First Release program allows an organisation to recieve new updates first, and the ability to control which employees receive the updates. Those who have not signed up for the First Release program will see the new update rolling out in October.