The way we have worked in professional sectors has remained the same for many years up until very recently.
In general, we think of office work being mostly physical – after all, communication is easiest when you’re speaking to someone in-person, performing a physical presentation, or perhaps working through a document with your colleagues.
In the last few years, the way we work in the office has become gradually more digitized, until around 18 months ago, where we were forced to take a huge leap forward into entirely digital working environments – the Covid-19 pandemic meant businesses had to adapt quickly to remote working, and for the most part we have adapted well. But it has still been an adjustment, and many tech companies have pivoted to helping their customers adapt to the new mode of working with new tools a solutions.
Microsoft and Remote Work
As one of the largest and most popular business technology producers in the world, it makes sense that Microsoft would have led the charge in many ways with remote working. Their products and services are also heavily based around the Cloud, which is a perfect technology for enabling businesses and users to work and communicate remotely.
Already Microsoft were working on developments that went hand-in-hand with remote and globally distributed working scenarios. For example, their well-known line of productivity apps, Microsoft Office, are all Cloud-powered; their unified communications platform, Microsoft Teams, also supports Cloud Telephony, and all Microsoft 365 licenses come with OneDrive and SharePoint, two highly versatile Cloud storage services. Top providers of London IT Support swear by Microsoft Office applications.
But Microsoft haven’t only been working to improve their existing products, they are branching into new ideas to support workers around the world. Take, for example, Microsoft Loop.
Microsoft Loop is a new app that offers Microsoft’s most flexible and powerful collaborative tools yet. With Loop, users can work on canvas with a diverse range of components that remain synced with incredibly low latency across all user endpoints. Microsoft Loop is a development on the Fluid components project; within the new app, there are a diverse range of items known as Loop Components that encompass everything from an image or shape, to an interactive voting table, or a status tracker. These components can be used in other apps as well, such as in a chat in Microsoft Teams. If you were to ask any IT Managed Services Provider what their choice would be, Microsoft Loop is the way to go.
The biggest takeaway with Microsoft Loop is its integration with other Microsoft apps that you used every day, and its ability to synchronize across all endpoints almost instantaneously.
Another major advancement in Microsoft 365’s collaborative capabilities is Context IQ – this is not a specific app, but rather a set of AI capabilities for Microsoft 365 (and Microsoft Dynamics 365) that enhance workflows and support better collaboration. There are so many businesses who need IT Support that can manage AI capabilities. Microsoft are currently working on embedding Content IQ’s
AI capabilities into Microsoft Editor. Editor is an extension for your web browser, email, and documents that helps you write better. With the enhancements from Content IQ, it will be able to make suggestion for your workflow, such as suggesting relevant file attachments when writing messages to colleagues, or suggesting meeting times when everyone is available.
All of Microsoft’s current developments and improvements to existing products are in favor of creating better collaboration for their customers. If you are a Microsoft customer, there are plenty of new features coming this year.