We don’t talk the talk, we walk the walk!
This month our learning inspiration has been Nelson Mandela who wisely said: “Education is the most powerful weapon, which you can use to change the world.” We couldn’t agree more. Without educating your people you can’t expect technology change to happen within your organisation; or expect your organisation to adapt and evolve in this changing world.
Microsoft has been at the centre of so much of our education – helping us to learn and grow. That’s why we’re dedicated to being master ninjas in the art of Microsoft ninjutsu! As committed practitioners, we browsed the web this month to find out what’s new with Microsoft and this is what we discovered:
- You can do some additional stuff in the Microsoft Teams mobile app, such as, start and stop meeting recordings, schedule channel meetings and join a team with a code.
- Office 365 has released a new feature called ‘Project Roadmap for Project Online Organisations’. In short, it gives your organisation a cross-function, big picture view of in-progress projects along with a timeline view to keep on top of project key dates and milestones. Now, that’s what we call collaborative working!
- Support will stop for operating system Windows 7 on 14th January 2020. Launched in October 2009, Microsoft will have honoured its ten-year commitment to this version by then. Not only does it mean you won’t be able to get technical support for the system, but you’ll no longer receive security updates. Goodbye Windows 7, hello Windows 10!
- Just occasionally, the old way may be the better way. Microsoft has just released its original Windows File Manager as the Universal Windows Platform app and is available to devices running Windows 10.
- It’s Authenticator mobile app, which helps to keep your Microsoft account secure, got an upgrade. You’ll receive alerts if the app detects unusual actions, like changing your password, adding a new phone number/ email address, and if you’re in an unusual location. Plus, you can view your account activity and act if something seems a little off kilter.
- There’s talk on what’s going to be included in the updated version of Windows 10, which is expected to be released in April 2019. Current rumours are there’ll be: a ‘light’ theme with softer colours appearing in the start menu, task bar and touch keyboard; a simplified default start layout; reserve disk space for updates, apps, temporary files and system cache; a ‘sandbox’ so you can run apps safely in isolation; and, a new clipboard history design.
- Finally, just like in Microsoft Teams, you can now blur your background in Skype for Business.
This month celebrates Satya Nadella being at the Microsoft helm for five years. He’s catapulted the company back to the number one spot and ZDNet neatly sums up how he did it: “Nadella, right from the start, was all about focusing on Microsoft’s strengths, which weren’t devices and services, but instead productivity and platforms.” Spot on…
Want to keep learning about Microsoft Office 365? There’s this great O365 & Power BI webinar you can listen to and Jim Naroski covers what’s new every month in his YouTube Microsoft update. Also, Regarding365 gives an independent view on all things Microsoft.
And, that’s a wrap for February. Get in touch if you’d like us to feature specific Microsoft news in our monthly Microsoft blog posts.
