Enterprise News Round Up #22
We’ve seen some interesting updates this week in the collaboration market. Microsoft Teams has declared they are ready to replace Skype for Business, and Google Hangouts and Cisco are both simultaneously making updates to emoji-related features.
Let’s dive right in to this week’s updates from 8/23–8/30!
Microsoft Completes Roadmap to Replace Skype for Business with MS Teams
In 2017, Microsoft announced their plan to make Microsoft Teams their primary enterprise chat client — replacing Skype for Business online. On the 24th of August 2018, the Microsoft Tech Community released a blog announcing that their roadmap for bringing Skype for Business features onto Microsoft Teams was complete.
In the last week, Microsoft announced a handful of upgrades to the Teams client, particularly to do with meetings capabilities on the app. The new “Meet Now” service for business meetings includes services to record sessions, take notes, share conferences over mobile and connect with digital whiteboards. Other new features include:
- Call Queues
- Auto attendant
- Do not disturb breakthrough
- Consultative transfer
- Call forwarding
- Out-of-office support
Google Hangouts Chat Gets Its Own Emoji Reactions
Slack, Microsoft Teams and Cisco WebEx Teams competitor, Google Hangouts Chat have added a new selection of emoji reactions to their service. As well as being really fun, these help teams communicate on a more emotional level. The feature is something that we’ve seen on services like Slack and MS Teams for a while now, and it’s a sign that Google Hangouts is paying more attention to its competition in the collaboration and enterprise chat space.
The emojis update allows team members to quickly add thumbs-up, smiley faces and other emoji reactions to messages from your colleagues in enterprise chat.
New Emojis and Whiteboards Available in Cisco WebEx Teams
Not to be outdone by Google Hangouts and Microsoft Teams this week, Cisco has also announced a handful of updates to Webex Teams. Windows users can expect to see an extra 30 emojis in their chat application, alongside a smoother emoji service, including easy access to your favorites.
Cisco is also rolling out a stronger whiteboard experience for their WebEx Teams users. Windows users can now create a whiteboard in their chat app, draw ion it to share ideas and highlight comments in a range of different colors.
On top of all that, the process of signing up for a Cisco WebEx Teams account is now much easier. This is largley due to a condensed form and fewer account steps. Cisco also updated their developer platform to make it easier for creators to get involved with the WebEx platform.
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Slack Invests in API Technologies with “Nylas”
Speaking of APIs and SDKs, Slack has participated in the latest round of funding for a company called “Nylas” this week. Nylas creates high-performance APIs for calendar, contact data and email transfer. This new investment may be a sign that Slack wants to offer more in-depth integration options to its users.
Slack only recently completed their latest round of funding, which took them to a valuation of over $7 billion this month. Now, we’re starting to get an insight into how Slack plans on spending the new capital it has in the bank. Slack seems to be taking a platform investment approach that’s similar to the strategy used by Salesforce, by investing large amounts into fewer firms. Slack provided $16.2 million in funding for Nylas.
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