Microsoft Ignite was a tremendous event for Microsoft and our partners and customers. We introduced a new vision for intelligent communication and had some exciting announcements regarding Microsoft Teams. Comprehensive meeting capabilities are critical to this vision and we are excited about the expanded ecosystem that is growing in this space.
Last year we announced Skype Room Systems (SRS), a way to transform meeting rooms, with various partners: Logitech, Crestron, and Polycom. And we’re pleased to share the Crestron SR is now generally available! Learn more about Crestron solutions that enable organizations to control and automate any space, integrating room scheduling, lighting and more, to drive productivity within Skype for Business environments.
At Ignite we also introduced Lenovo as another partner expanding our meeting room portfolio with the Smart Hub 500. The Smart Hub 500 is an all-in-one design with compute, display, and audio built into the system. With these partners, we are realizing our vision to light up every room for customers whether they are using Skype for Business on-premise or in the cloud.
The Logitech SmartDock for SRS has been in market for nearly a year and the response has been extremely positive and rapid as customers move from running proof of concepts to full-on deployments across their organizations. Customers are realizing the value of having an easy to deploy, simple to use Skype for Business center of room control that integrates with a range of fully certified, plug and play audio and video peripherals from partners such as Jabra, Sennheiser, Logitech, Polycom, and Yamaha.
The IT department of King County is one customer experiencing the value of increased productivity. They are discovering what can happen when team collaboration is as easy as touching a screen to join a meeting and then share preloaded content all prior to the meeting start. See the King County Technology (KCIT) customer video.
"We wanted technology that didn't require a half hour setup before they had their meeting.
The SmartDock and Skype Room Systems have really improved the collaboration and communication.”
Bill Kehoe, CIO & IT Department Director, King County
Cloud video interoperability capabilities are also being added to Teams so customers can use their existing VTC infrastructure to join Skype for Business meetings. We currently have two solutions in this space: the Polycom RealConnect service for Office 365 for online customers, introduced in April, and most recently, the availability of an on-premises solution: created by Pexip: Infinity Fusion. Both solutions offer customers the ability to easily connect their legacy, standards based video teleconferencing room systems to Skype for Business meetings through their gateway based solutions.
We also announced that BlueJeans will be expanding our partner offerings with the introduction of a cloud video interoperability solution for Microsoft Teams. BlueJeans expects to launch this solution in H1 2018.
Looking forward, the new enhancements to Teams will seamlessly integrate with Skype Room Systems. Skype Room Systems will be automatically updated to support meetings scheduled by either a Teams user or a Skype for Business user. We look forward to showing off new Teams meeting capabilities in each and every meeting space.
