Over the past few months, I’ve been inspired to work alongside our customers as they’ve found new ways to stay connected and productive with Microsoft Teams. With more than 75 million daily active users, Teams have proven mission-critical to enabling remote and hybrid models of work, school, and life across different meeting rooms and meeting spaces. Today, I’m excited to share new device management options designed to help organizations continue to connect in a rapidly changing world.
As we begin emerging from the era of “remote everything,” it’s clear that the ways we stay in touch and collaborate are evolving. The workplace of the future will accommodate hybrid scenarios in which some people may work from the office while others may work remotely or some fluid combination of the two. And they’ll need connected and secure conference rooms that serve as hubs for hybrid work in which everyone feels engaged –
Effective meeting room experiences enable users to start or join a meeting quickly for maximum productivity, proactive management, monitoring, and remediation to keep rooms functional, up-to-date, and secure.
Today, we’re announcing new device management and monitoring options for Microsoft Teams Rooms to deliver high-quality calling and meeting experiences.
Microsoft Teams Rooms: Introducing Standard and Premium
As a part of Microsoft Teams Rooms Standard (an offering formerly known as Meeting Room), we’re announcing several new capabilities within the Teams Admin Center that make it easier to deploy and manage a fleet of devices, with improvements across device set-up, bulk management tasks, and health monitoring. With these enhancements, managing Teams devices has never been easier. And because you can now manage your Microsoft Teams Room devices in the Teams Admin Center, you can manage all your Teams devices –
In addition, we’re launching the new Microsoft Teams Rooms Premium offering. Microsoft Teams Rooms Premium includes a remote management service that enables customers to shift the operational responsibility of managing and monitoring Microsoft Teams Rooms to Microsoft. With Microsoft Teams Rooms Premium, our customers have access to intelligent software, dedicated experts, and enhanced insights. This proactive and real-time management service relies on Microsoft technology experts to handle room system operations remotely, enabling you to free up IT and enhance meeting productivity. Microsoft provides 24/7 management and monitoring of your room operating system and software, surfacing insights and alerts around any action needed on-site and taking remote action on your behalf as permitted. Today’s offering is just the beginning, and we look forward to expanding with additional premium experiences in the future.
Microsoft Teams Rooms Standard is available today for US $15 per device per month. You can read more in the blog on Tech Community to get started. Microsoft Teams Rooms Premium is available in select countries* today for US $50 per device per month. You can learn more in the Tech Community blog and https://rooms.microsoft.com.
Opportunity for partners to grow their business with Microsoft Teams Rooms
Our partner ecosystem plays a critical role in helping to bring these end-to-end meeting experiences to life. The rapid adoption of Microsoft Teams and the expected increase in demand for conference rooms represent a significant opportunity for partners to grow their business with value-added services such as infrastructure assessment, device deployment, end-user training, change management, ongoing management of the complete meeting environment, on-site support, and more. And by adding their value-added services to the capabilities included in Microsoft Teams Rooms Standard and Premium, partners can provide customers with complete meeting room solutions that address the full spectrum of their needs. Today, as a part of Microsoft Inspire, we are making a Microsoft Teams Partner guide for Calling, Meeting, and Devices available that helps partners understand the business opportunity, build a meeting room practice and develop the skills needed. Partners can find more information on the Microsoft 365 Partner site.
As we all adapt to a more hybrid mode of work, school, and life, Microsoft is committed to providing secure and seamless device management experiences that organizations can customize to their unique needs. It’s all part of our commitment to helping our customers remain connected and productive today and in the days to come.
* Microsoft Teams Rooms Premium is currently available in Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada (excluding Quebec), Denmark, Finland, Greece, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Monaco, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom, United States.