Time is up for email?
A big thank you toCisco for a very informative session on 'Teams' yesterday in the Mi-Idea Centre at Manchester University, a great venue. Will 'Teams'(Microsoft or Cisco's version) replace our beloved email as a preferred means of communication? Judging by the size and nature of the technology resellers at yesterday's event, very probably, given time.
As users we're already familiar with many aspects of the 'Teams' application. Most of us will have used social media platforms to video, message, share content, archive and search for content in the social environment, so why not use it the commercial world? Both Cisco and Microsoft will have gone to great lengths to ensure its secure and auditable. From the presentation yesterday, Cisco have certainly made sure it's manageable too.
API's, which allow easy integration into all sorts of current applications , mail, calendar, crm etc and 'bots' that can help with translation, workflow and more will all helps peed up adoption and facilitate 'Teams' to become the preferred user interface for all sorts of activity.
What is really interesting about 'Teams' is the awareness within the industry that this way of collaboration will only succeed with user and commercial acceptance. It really has to 'do something' for the business in a manner that users accept and benefit from at the get-go.
After yesterday,Mason Infotech are going to give it a try! There is a connection (API) to our support desk software that should allow us to offer our clients a free improvement to the way we handle our support cases. If we can achieve what we think is possible we will be more proactive, solve problems quicker and provide our clients with more information on the solution we are supporting.
For ourselves, this is pretty much business as normal. Reviewing a client's business processes and recommending solutions to real problems is something we really enjoy and excel at. For many in the tech reseller community the change from 'box shifting' and 'fixing' to that of 'business' analyst may prove a little more challenging!
If we are successful at improving our service offering, we'll push out another post to let everyone know. In the meantime, you can find about more about Teams here.