It is a strange kind of legacy that we don’t talk about the pandemic anymore, but continue to develop the technologies that got us through it. It’s five years later and we are still trying to make video calls more immersive, lifelike, and engaging. Why?

We have, of course, held on tightly to remote work for its benefits; better work-life balance, access to global talent, more flexible work practices, and more simplified onboarding. While we can go outside and into the office now, we also have more reasons not to do so. What is more confusing, however, is that most of the larger tech companies are demanding their workers return to the office, while simultaneously working on improvements to video conferencing software.

This leads us to Project Starline, which has finally made it out into the world, albeit with a more Star Trek-friendly name: ‘Google Beam’. The change seems frankly pointless as it's not directly being launched by Google. Instead, hardware partners will incorporate the technology into their own products and, you guessed it, use a different name. So ‘Beam’, ‘Starline’, whatever, it’s largely a waste of marketing.

HP is the first company to preview new hardware that incorporates Beam and has gone its own way on the naming with the rather forgettable moniker, ‘HP Dimension’. HP’s model will cost enterprise businesses (or extravagant startups) a whopping $24,000 and that price does not include the software you need to actually hold any calls. Businesses will have to fork out for a separate Google Beam license to use Google Meet or Zoom on the device and there aren’t any details on how much that costs, as yet.

What you get, for $24,999, is a 65in light field display with six high-speed cameras inside a thin frame, which work to create a lifelike 3D video of the person you’re video calling. Not your standard video call, not digital tiles of your work colleagues and bosses, but a “truly immersive” experience, according to HP.

It is a phenomenal piece of science and engineering and whole teams of technicians and programmers should be pleased with themselves. But like the guys that brought dinosaurs back to life in Jurassic Park, they were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, that they didn’t stop to think if they should.

Why are we spending so much time on this? There is nothing in the business world worth meeting over that will be made more enjoyable or more inclusive with super high-definition visuals and crystal-clear audio.

I mean, how detailed do I need my boss’ face to be when all the meeting is for is to tell me about the monthly strategy? A weekly catch-up with my line manager is not made more enjoyable by seeing her in 3D. She’s not a summer blockbuster. I don’t come prepared with popcorn. I don’t need the guilt of turning my camera off when the company installs a $25k monitor.

And this is the problem with Google Beam, or whatever it eventually gets known as: it’s not a serious way to conduct business. Similar to Facebook/Meta and its Metaverse nonsense that made everything look like Wii Sports – thank god that never caught on.

We don’t need more immersive meetings or more reasons to have virtual ones. No amount of visual clarity will improve productivity – sometimes it literally can be an email.

Collaboration has become something we take for granted in our world of hybrid work. The ability to share ideas and workloads or work together makes teams and businesses stronger. Today, those crucial relationships are largely being fostered over video conferencing.

According to Gu Xuejun, the president of Huawei's intelligent collaboration product line, Huawei has been the number one video conferencing provider in China for 12 consecutive years. The tech giant is also becoming hugely popular across the Middle East and Europe thanks to its elegant hardware and innovative software solutions.

"My business in Huawei has a long history," Gu tells ITPro. "Over 30 years, it's quite a long time and we're always investing in this industry. Today, we have over 2,000 employees and 12 research and development centers."

Huawei's deep well of knowledge and its thorough research and development in video conferencing and collaboration technologies were on display at Mobile World Congress (MWC) 2025. With its innovative meeting room hardware, the IdeaHub, and its intuitive CloudLink platform.

Video conferencing's AI revolution

Surprisingly, we've been using video conferencing for over 30 years, and there are even examples of projects starting in the 1970s. But the sharp uptake in use over the last five years makes it feel extremely modern.

Here we've seen advancements in audio quality, cloud-based video streaming, noise cancellation, and live text translation. That last one is based on AI technology, which is currently taking video conferencing to new heights.

"We had a lot of cloud meetings, everybody wanted to connect anytime anywhere, and recently, I noticed that around four or five years ago, the industry evolved," Gu says. "AI came in very hot and I think AI will change this industry very deeply. Huawei is already doing work here; we have different layers, for the system, and the software application, where we already have AI technology inside."

For Gu, there is a clear definition of what AI is and how it should be added to products. There is "AI plus" which he says is the native form of AI technology, baked into the design, usually at the processor level. And there is "plus AI" which has many meanings, according to Gu, such as an installed AI app or a generative AI extra. But Huawei, he adds, has real AI deeply incorporated into its products.

"Our solutions can connect everything," Gu says. "Just like your phone, just like your car, just like your smart home and your office, your laptop -- everything. You can connect. We have a full series of AI functionality. For the user experience, we use AI to make it very smooth."

Huawei's solutions include the CloudLink platform and the IdeaHub range; the newest version of the latter, the IdeaHub ES3, was launched at MWC 2025. At face value, it is a large meeting room display for virtual calls, but look closer and you'll find an elegant solution that takes business calls to the next level.

The Huawei IdeaHub ES3

When Huawei talks about 'intelligent collaboration' it refers to the company's internal beliefs that its devices and cloud services should be synchronized, seamless, and suitable for all scenarios. It wants to popularize 4K and AI functionality, but more than that, it wants to enable everyone, from the top of a business to its entry-level employees, to work 'intelligently'.

The Huawei IdeaHub has been built with that methodology in mind. Its large screen has been designed for offices so that teams can collaborate on multiple scenarios. It is mainly deployed in conference rooms, executive boardrooms, and open offices to support enterprise collaboration and productivity, though it has also been successfully used as a solution for digital transformation in areas of poverty.

Huawei unveiled its flagship conference whiteboard at MWC in Barcelona. The IdeaHub ES3 and S3 are both innovative and powerful, and more collaborative than ever. With outstanding audio and video quality and Huawei's own AI image engine enabling HD cloud conferences.

Up to nine pieces of content can be displayed on the IdeaHub's screen simultaneously, with a comfortable layout. The content can also be annotated or controlled remotely, making it easier for reviewers, like teachers. What's more, an electronically controlled camera privacy shield strengthens security, while its 24-mic array with 15-meter sound pickup and AI-powered noise reduction ensures exceptional audio clarity.

Writing on the IdeaHub's whiteboard feels true to pen on paper, or even chalk on a chalkboard, with its 16ms ultra-low latency. What's more, its intelligent writing recognition system identifies words and figures with ease. And whiteboard content can be lifted and shared with a simple scan of the OR code via a browser.

"Use of our IdeaHub, or our end-to-end solutions, can help children in poor areas, can connect them to classrooms, get them access to high-quality lessons and good teachers," Gu explains. "Last year we had a big project in Africa that helped African people, children, to access education resources. I'm very proud that we could do this project."

"We have a vision slogan 'IdeaHub everywhere'... that means we want our solution to be very widely used in lots of different industries. And I think our unique and innovative products can help – not every industry is filled with IT guys, so we want them to be able to use our product very simply, or easily, to digitize.

The IdeaHub, and its many features, are a testament to Huawei's relentless pursuit of innovation through Research and development. And with around 30% of Gu's employees still looking into future-thinking research, the company will continue to push the boundaries of video conferencing and intelligent collaboration.

For more information about Huawei's Intelligent Collaboration products and solutions, visit: https://e.huawei.com/en/solutions/enterprise-collaboration

Google Meet is one of the cheapest and simplest video conferencing systems around. In fact, you can use it without paying a penny, or even installing any software at all – meeting participants simply need access to a web browser, or the free Google Meet app for their phone or tablet.

That makes it a tempting choice for small businesses on tight budgets. Free use does come with some limitations – notably, meetings with more than two people are limited to an hour in length. Then again, you might already have premium access to Google Meet, as it's included in every Google Workspace package (as well as the consumer-oriented Google One service). 

Even if you're not currently signed up with Google, a subscription isn't expensive. The entry-level Business Starter plan lets 100 people meet for up to 24 hours, for just £60 per user per year. That's a lot cheaper than videoconferencing rivals such as Cisco Webex or Zoom, and it also includes hosted email and 30GB of cloud storage per user. If you need more headroom, the pricier Workspace Standard and Plus tiers offer more storage and support 150 and 500 participants respectively.

Google Meet review: Setup and features

Getting started with Google Meet could hardly be easier. Android and iOS users just need to download the app from the appropriate store, while for desktop users there's nothing to install: once you're logged into your Google account you can set up or join a call directly from the Google Meet website, or add Meet to Gmail to keep all your communications in one place. Meet also integrates with Google Calendar, so you can send scheduled meeting invitations directly to colleagues' calendars – who can then join, when the time comes, with a single click. If your invitees don't have Google accounts, you can generate a one-time web link that'll let them in.

The in-call interface is quite clear. A row of buttons along the bottom of the screen lets you adjust your microphone and camera settings, enable live subtitles – which are impressively accurate – and send reaction emojis floating up the side of the screen. You can also share your screen (or an individual window, or a selected Chrome tab), or raise a virtual hand to let the speaker know you'd like to interrupt. 

There's a range of visual enhancements available too. As a free user, you can apply backlight compensation to reduce silhouetting, blur your background so colleagues aren't distracted by your surroundings, or paste in a selection of professional and playful backdrops. Paying customers can also enable video framing, which automatically crops and pans the image to keep you in the center of the screen, and apply vanity filtering to airbrush over wrinkles and lighten eye-bags. If you're feeling frivolous, a range of just-for-fun filters can kit you out with a virtual hat or glasses, or entirely transform you into an animal, a foodstuff or even a flying heart. 

Tucked away in the lower right-hand corner of the Meet interface, the last few icons let you open a text chat alongside the main conversation; bring up a virtual whiteboard for collaborative sketching; or connect to third-party collaboration tools such as Figma and Confluence. If you initiated the meeting, you'll also find the host controls here, where you can globally mute participants and limit their ability to send chat messages or reactions. 

In all, Google Meet is a straightforward conferencing platform, with all the features you need to be productive. The automatic subtitles are a particular boon, with transcripts automatically saved to the host's Google Drive; there's no automatic summarising, but you can apply that after the fact using the AI tool of your choice. Workspace subscribers can also download complete recordings of meetings, or stream them live on YouTube.

Google Meet review: Video and audio quality

Google Meet sessions are streamed at 720p by default, and in our lab tests the video looked crisp and clean, with no discernible glitches or lags. For paying customers, the software will detect whether your camera and screen are capable of 1080p streaming, and give you the option of moving up to Full HD. If the network can't handle the increased bandwidth then the resolution will automatically drop back down.

It's a similar situation with audio. Everyone gets the same basic sound quality, but Workspace users can additionally enable automatic noise-cancellation. How much this matters will depend on your hardware, and where your callers are located: if someone's joining from a public space such as a café or airport, the background noise can be seriously distracting. If you plan to rely on the free service, it's worth asking participants to find a quiet place to connect from.

Google Meet review: Is it worth it?

For anyone focused on value, Google Meet is an excellent choice of videoconferencing platform. If your business is already paying for Google Workspace it's a no-brainer, and even if you're not the free features might well meet your needs. The 60-minute restriction is 20 minutes longer than you'll get from Cisco or Zoom, and after an hour of staring at the screen you should probably be scheduling a break anyway. Background noise can be a frustration for free users, but for the price you can live with it.

The obvious alternative is Microsoft Teams Essential, which offers a similar free service, and costs a lower £39.60 per user for a basic annual subscription. However, Google Meet includes a bigger chunk of cloud storage – 30GB versus Microsoft's 10GB – and if you're already using Google's email and calendar services it'll slot seamlessly into your life.

Logitech has said its range of video collaboration devices running on the CollabOS operating system will now be built using 'next-life' recycled plastics.

Existing products, the Rally Bar, Rally Bar Mini, Tap IP, Tap Scheduler, and Scribe, are being redesigned with materials that lower the carbon impact of each product, the company confirmed.

The company said it had a desire to become a more attractive partner for those customers hoping to hit sustainability goals, according to chief operating officer Prakash Arunkundrum.

"We’re not only designing and manufacturing new products with recycled plastic and other lower carbon materials, but refreshing existing products to provide IT leaders with a new way to evaluate their workplace technology investment in conference room systems – one that includes people and planet," he says.

"We do this without increasing prices or compromising the highest quality and performance companies expect from Logitech."

The move means that Logitech customers can now kit out entire conference rooms, including Microsoft Teams Rooms and Zoom Rooms, with technology based on the company's Design for Sustainability (DfS) principles.

The company's newer conference room products, such as Logitech Sight, use a minimum of 50% certified recycled plastic. This means a 21% reduction in carbon footprint, and a cut of 1,400 tonnes in CO2 equivalent, per 100,000 units, according to Logitech.

Meanwhile, the company's video conferencing products are based on low carbon aluminium made with renewable energy rather than fossil fuels, packaging derived from FSC-certified forests and other controlled sources, and 100% recycled fabrics for the Rally Bar family.

Power saving modes can potentially reduce Rally Bar and Rally Bar Mini’s carbon impact by 1.65 tons of carbon dioxide equivalent, and there's the option to collect and recycle old video conferencing equipment via Logitech Select.

Availability of the newer product designs will depend on the supply of existing products in each geography, Logitech has confirmed.

The company says it's on track to achieve its 2025 target of having clear carbon footprint messaging for every product in its portfolio. The company has also committed to sharing its DfS principles, tools, and knowledge of how to incorporate more sustainable materials in the manufacturing process with its wider customer base.

Logitech decreased its Scope 3 emissions by 21% in 2022, it says, with the goal of removing more carbon than it creates by 2030.

Research by a team from Purdue University, Yale University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology found that just one hour of videoconferencing or streaming emits 150-1,000 grams of carbon dioxide.

Leaving the camera off during a web call can cut this footprint by 96%, while streaming content in standard definition rather than in high definition can drop it by 86%.

"Banking systems tell you the positive environmental impact of going paperless, but no one tells you the benefit of turning off your camera or reducing your streaming quality," says Kaveh Madani of the Yale MacMillan Center.

The move to hybrid work as default in businesses across the world has had a dramatic impact on the video conferencing market. The global market climbed to $8.1 billion in 2021 – just as COVID-19’s grip on society began to wane – and this is expected to surge to $19.2 billion by 2028, according to BlueWeave Consulting research published in 2023. 

There’s a very simple explanation for this boom: Many teams no longer meet regularly in person and in some cases not at all. Even if most attendants are office-based, at least one is likely to dial in remotely. Similarly, face-to-face client meetings are increasingly being replaced with virtual ones to save time and cost of travel. All this has generated demand for video conferencing and audio-visual (AV) systems for workplace meeting rooms, which has, in turn, led all kinds of tech brands to launch a slew of collaboration products and peripherals to work with the leading UC platforms from Microsoft, Zoom, Cisco Webex, Google Meet, etc. 

No single company dominates the market. There are a variety of technologies on offer, ranging from all-in-one videobars and speakerphones from established IT brands that are more suited to smaller spaces, to bespoke, professional systems from experts in audio and video that can be tailored to any kind of environment. Options at both ends of the spectrum certainly have their place, but it’s often the case that IT service providers, inadvertently, recommend products that are not wholly suited to clients’ particular needs.

Why all-in-one systems aren’t all-purpose solutions

Although IT channel partners aim to meet the hardware and software requirements of their clients, the key factors considered when selecting video conferencing solutions often boil down to price, ease of setup, and the reassurance that comes with purchasing from well-known IT brands. More often than not, these criteria result in the proposal of an all-in-one videobar.

But these devices rarely deliver the best possible audio quality and may prove limiting when used in rooms that exceed the realistic performance of such all-in-one systems. In the hybrid work era, almost everyone will have experienced meetings with irritating and distracting audio that sounds like it's coming out of a tin can, or people’s voices being so faint that they may as well not be there. This is because the typical videobar is not designed nor intended for use in larger rooms, but is still being installed in such spaces.

Consequently, organisations often end up needing to invest in costly upgrades down the line once they realise that their cheap and cheerful conferencing system doesn’t meet the needs and expectations of everyday users. Such performance issues and additional financial burden ultimately also affect satisfaction with the sourcing partner, i.e., their IT service provider. The channel should be well wary of the potentially serious impact on account relationships and future revenues as businesses may begin to look elsewhere for more appropriate products and services. 

Capitalising on the AV market opportunity

Driven by the increased reliance on cloud computing services, the video conferencing market is booming and there’s a real opportunity for the IT channel to step into the void and begin offering more advanced AV solutions. Channel partners have long been there to help their customers navigate complex and emerging markets, and video conferencing is no different. But this means exploring all the options on the table, not just those provided by the biggest names in the IT industry. 

IT resellers may reap serious rewards by plugging gaps in the portfolio of solutions they can offer customers – particularly for those large collaboration spaces in which all-in-one systems don’t quite cut it. Opting to take on more powerful and sophisticated systems from an audio specialist to augment the unified communications (UC) offering will go a long way to giving clients the best available option depending on their specific needs and budgets. 

This is where vendors like Shure can step in to provide IT service providers and their clients a full range of certified audio solutions that deliver a high-quality conferencing experience from the start, in every size and kind of meeting space.  

Shure is an industry leader with almost 100 years of expertise in acoustics, wireless systems, networked audio systems, and digital signal processing. Its Microflex Ecosystem of conferencing audio solutions efficiently addresses the need for high quality, ease of use, and scalability in modern collaboration systems. IT teams benefit from a familiar, networked set-up process and certified, smooth integration with the leading UC platforms, while day-to-day users will quickly notice a significant uplift in meeting experience and productivity. 

The ecosystem comprises solutions to deliver an end-to-end audio system, all from a single, category-leading brand, and all designed to work together seamlessly. This includes a variety of microphone options that can be placed on a table, walls, or ceiling; advanced hardware and software digital signal processors to ensure natural-sounding, noise-free conversations; powerful loudspeakers and flexible interfaces to complete the setup.

Through technology partnerships with IT industry giants, the Shure Microflex Ecosystem solutions are certified for Microsoft Teams Rooms, Zoom Rooms, Google Meet, and Cisco Webex. They can also be easily integrated with video and UC systems from the likes of Cisco, Logitech, Poly and others to augment the performance of these systems in larger spaces.

As many clients are reviewing their workplace strategies, flexibility is also paramount. Shure’s audio solutions can be configured in so many different ways and can scale up or down in size depending on the size of the meeting room or the context in which they are used. For customers who want the fullest freedom to customise their collaboration spaces and future-proof their investments, the Microflex Ecosystem presents a comprehensive platform that can be tailored room-by-room to deliver the best results.

To learn more about Shure and its products, or to start a conversation, get in touch here

Ask anyone in Britain and they’ll tell you the National Health Service (NHS) is in an unprecedented crisis. Leaving aside any political debate over what got us here, the raw data paints an unquestionably bleak picture for the centrally-funded single-payer system. 

More than seven million people are now on waiting lists for treatment, up from 4.5 million at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic and from 2.5 million in 2010. The percentage of potential cancer patients seeing a consultant within a fortnight of referral has fallen to 80%, well below the 93% target. This is just a flavor of the predicament the health service is in, despite the phenomenal efforts of doctors, nurses and others.

Can technology help pull it out of freefall? Not by itself, as the NHS’s problems are too severe; they’re too complicated for silver-bullet solutions. Previous efforts to digitally transform the NHS, too, have fallen flat.

But a combination of new technologies might alleviate some of the strain. Drones delivering blood, virtual wards, and video appointments with GPs are examples of innovations that might lift Britain’s healthcare system out of crisis. 

We’ve spoken to professionals, who’ve been implementing technological solutions to some of the NHS’s biggest problems, to find out why there’s still hope of resuscitating the ailing single-payer health service.

• Part one: Making blood deliveries by drone
• Part two: Hybrid healthcare and virtual wards
• Part three: Doctors on-demand

Using videoconferencing to lighten the load

The NHS crisis isn’t only restricted to hospitals. General practitioners (GPs) have also come under intense demand in recent years, as patient numbers have swelled, while the number of GPs has declined. 

According to the British Medical Association (BMA), there are now the equivalent of 2,078 fewer fully qualified full-time GPs compared to September 2015. Fewer GPs are choosing to work full-time. And yet each practice has on average 2,224 more patients than it did in 2015.

To help prevent GP surgeries from being overwhelmed, remote GP services such as Livi have emerged, allowing patients to get access to a doctor that they might otherwise have to wait weeks to see. Livi can be commissioned by integrated care boards (ICBs) that cover an entire area or by individual practices that are short on GPs. 

Patients are urged to book appointments with the Livi app, where they are asked to choose from a list of symptoms they might be experiencing. If it’s a condition that can be dealt with remotely, the patient is booked in for a video consultation with a GP, all of whom are fully qualified GMC-registered clinicians who still work in general practice. 

“85% of patients are seen within two hours,” says Karl Stocks, who was commercial director at Livi at the time of writing. Stocks is, at the time of publication, the public sector lead at HelloSelf.

Embracing digital doctors

The Livi GPs have full access to patients’ medical records and they can book blood tests and make referrals just like a practice GP can. Stocks said that around a third of the cases dealt with by Livi GPs are managing long-term conditions, suggesting it’s not just minor ailments that Livi takes off a GP practice’s caseload.

“We’ve got some examples where a number of practices would have closed down if we hadn’t been able to provide that remote service,” says Stocks.

“Some of the remote services that we’ve done have also enabled practices to stay open whilst they find a more long-term solution to fit their population and the requirement there.

"It’s definitely about making sure that we can provide that resilience to general practice, which it probably doesn’t have at the moment.”

Stocks admits there’s some resistance to virtual appointments, especially among the older demographics. However, it seems almost inevitable that remote access to healthcare professionals will become the norm.

In the past year alone, Livi has seen growth of 90%, now handling in excess of 300,000 appointments every month. “There are a number of instances where that where we’re starting to see digital-first primary care centers start to pop up,” says Stocks.

“I think GPs are probably only the first step. I think what we will probably start to see – and we’re exploring this more as well – is what can other healthcare professionals also start to put on the platform?”

Videoconferencing continues to enjoy unprecedented growth levels since the pandemic, and Biamp now wants a piece of the action. It makes its play for the small to medium-sized meeting room market with the imposing Parlé VBC 2500. 

Measuring nearly one meter in length, this all-in-one conferencing bar takes a lot of the technology Biamp has developed over its 46 years in the professional audio-visual space and hands it to SMBs. Whereas most competing VC bars offer a beam-forming array made up of five or six microphones, the VBC 2500 boasts a highly accurate beam-tracking array comprising 27 microphone elements.

It sports a 4K UHD camera capable of delivering up to a 2160p resolution at 30fps and teams this with a wide 120° field of view (FoV) plus digital pan, tilt, zoom (PTZ) functions with 5x zoom capabilities. The camera incorporates a mechanical shutter that automatically obscures the view when a meeting has finished or a user disables video from their UC app.

Sound output is a cut above the rest, too, as Biamp has designed the speaker array to accurately reproduce human speech. The array comprises a pair of 20W speakers in sealed enclosures plus passive radiators to improve bass, and it uses active distortion compensation to ensure a flat response.

Placement options are plentiful: the VBC 2500 has an integral hinged desk stand and the kit includes a metal wall-mount bracket. Behind the rear removable panel is an external power supply socket plus a USB-C host connection port – for BYOD operations you can connect the VBC 2500 to Biamp's optional Devio SCR-10 desktop unit.

A standout feature is Biamp's automated room configuration: simply plug the bar in, press the Launch button underneath, and stand back. The bar measures the room's acoustics by emitting a series of sounds that wouldn't be out of place in a 1950s sci-fi movie.

It uses the audio feedback to optimize the mic array, speakers, and integral digital sound processor (DSP) specifically to its environment. The upshot is that anyone can set up the VBC 2500, and the same process is used if it's moved to another room.

Biamp Parlé VBC 2500 review: Installation 

Installation took seconds. We plugged the VBC 2500 into a USB port on a Windows 10 Pro host and all necessary drivers were automatically loaded. As to which VC software platform to use, the choice is yours – the VBC 2500 is UVC (USB video class) compliant and we had no problems using it with Skype, Microsoft Teams, and Zoom.

Video settings can be tweaked to suit using Biamp's free Camera Controller app. Auto-framing and backlight compensation can be disabled, PTZ functions manually operated, the image mirrored or flipped, UC profiles for Microsoft Teams, Google Meet, and Zoom applied and three presets saved for further use.

Video quality at 1080p is impressive, and we found the image was sharp and clear with great contrast and color balance. Backlight compensation works well, as does auto-framing, with the camera snapping to the active speaker in a couple of seconds and tracking them if they moved around the meeting room.

Audio quality is even better – this is easily the best-sounding VC bar we've yet tested. Biamp's speaker technology delivers a superb sound, with a warm, deep bass, natural-sounding voices, and none of the shrillness you'll find with smaller VC bars. 

It's loud, too, as we had to drop volume levels to 40% for our 24-square-meter meeting room. Crank it up to maximum and it'll go with you as the sound doesn't break up at all.

The Parlé VBC 2500 isn't as versatile as Logitech's Rally Bar, which offers BYOD and standalone modes courtesy of its Android OS, but Biamp can't be beaten for presentation quality. Video and audio are exceptionally good, digital auto-framing is fast and the smart launch mode makes meeting room setup a piece of cake.

Microsoft has launched a new feature for Teams allowing small and medium businesses (SMBs) to collect payments from within meetings.

The capability comes in the form of a Microsoft Teams app that can be downloaded and installed from within the Teams platform.

Microsoft partnered with payment firms PayPal and Stripe, as well as GoDaddy, to bring the application to the platform. 

Currently in public preview, available only to US and Canada customers at present, Microsoft envisions the Teams Payments app to be used by a range of SMBs to make collecting work-related payments easier. 

“Our partnership brings Stripe into one of the world's most popular collaboration platforms and will help millions of companies accelerate their online revenue growth,” said Mike Clayville, chief revenue officer at Stripe. 

“With Stripe, more businesses can now accept payments as easily as launching a video conference, chat, or virtual presentation within Microsoft Teams.” 

Teams can be used for workplace meetings, but also for running virtual appointments, classes, and webinars, for example, and these can now be paid for inside Teams itself, potentially allowing for a smoother transaction experience.

“For example, a lawyer or financial advisor can collect payments for consultative appointments, a real estate instructor can do the same for license-renewal sessions, or a teacher for tutoring classes – all while the customer is engaging with them,” said Microsoft in a blog post.

SMBs looking to take advantage of the new feature will have to connect their Microsoft Teams instance to their respective PayPal, Stripe, and GoDaddy accounts.

From there, they can send payment requests to customers from within the meeting itself. Customers are able to send money via credit and debit cards, digital wallets, and more.

The Payments app also allows SMBs to track payments that have been made and those that remain outstanding from a dedicated pane inside the Teams application.

Microsoft has made the Payments app free to all users including both Teams Essentials and Microsoft 365 customers. It’s now available in the Teams Store with support for Stripe and PayPal, while the GoDaddy integration is “coming soon”.

“Small businesses continue to face many, many challenges. Whether dealing with a cash flow crunch, finding new customers, or expanding to new channels, small businesses need partners to help them solve these problems,” said Bernardo Martinez, vice president of microbusiness at PayPal.

“Our collaboration with Microsoft allows us to address a common pain point – accepting payments for virtual customer interactions – by providing them with a trusted method that both consumers and businesses know well.”

The Bose Videobar VB-S is the latest entry in the audio company's foray into video conferencing. It follows the VB-1 which we reviewed last year. It's a more compact version aimed at huddle rooms and smaller meeting spaces up to 3x3m, but offers many of the features of its predecessor. Following the same design language, it's a graphic box which can tuck neatly under a television, perched on a table or wall-mounted using the included bracket - it also has a standard thread for use with a tripod.

Measuring 267 x 48 x 87 mm and weighing in at 1kg, without mounts and power supply, it still manages to boast four far-field beamforming directional microphones, a 4K video camera with sliding cover and a 15w Bose mono speaker. On the rear are a connection for the power supply and a single USB-C for connecting to a computer.

With Wi-Fi 802.11ac (but no Ethernet port) and Bluetooth 4.2 (but no audio jack) aboard, the potential for a flexible standalone video-conferencing suite is huge – however, here's where the problems start. The Bluetooth connection allows the speaker to play music or presentations, but it also lets the user set up a bridge for active UC calls. While the Wi-Fi functionality is primarily provided to allow for remote configuration and management by administrators.

Given the near £900 level of investment provided, we were disappointed to find that, like its predecessor, the VB-S has no in-built functionality. Indeed, the user guide actually suggests leaving the 3m USB-C cable draped on a table for easy access to meeting holders to connect their computer. When Meta will sell you a Portal TV device including direct access to most of the main conferencing services for under £100 – we find it quite surprising that the VB-S doesn't even offer an HDMI port for connection to a TV. Although the USB-C port does include Displaylink, that assumes that your TV has it, and the vast majority of huddle room TVs simply don't. In short, this is essentially a £900 webcam – albeit a very high-end one.

Bose boasts of its certification with various platforms and teleconferencing brands, but in reality, it's platform agnostic because it's a mere laptop peripheral. That's not to say it performs badly, as we'll discuss, but to add Wi-Fi and only use it as a means to manage it from another room seems a huge missed opportunity. The inclusion of a remote control, therefore, seems superfluous, given that the meeting organiser will be sitting in front of their laptop already.

Putting that to one side and accepting the VB-S for what it is, there's no doubt that it's an excellent device in terms of performance. Where it does excel is in terms of sound quality – as you'd expect from a company better known for its headphones and home audio. The beamforming microphones provide clear, balanced audio from every direction, while suppressing both ambient noise and the output from the speaker, ensuring there's no feedback. The speaker gives rich, warm, full spectrum sound, but again, given the inclusion of an option to use it as a Bluetooth audio speaker, we're not sure why Bose didn't opt for stereo speakers, especially at this price point.

The really clever stuff comes from the camera, which provides an excellent picture to remote users, and thanks to the microphone array, can be set to focus in on the current speaker with almost no delay, across a 123 degree field-of-view on the diagonal. Aspects of the picture, such as white balance and hue are controlled automatically, but these can be overridden using the software suite.

That software suite consists of two products: Bose Work Management, which gives remote access to make administrative changes to an entire fleet of Bose products, and Bose Work Configuration: available for Windows, MacOS and Android – with the Android app offering support for Google Chromebooks. The Bose Work app was reasonably easy to set up, but it's also another app to have open on the host laptop. Perhaps a solution would be to use a dedicated computer in each meeting room, but when you've already spent £900 on a device, this shouldn't be necessary.

Bose Videobar VB-s: Is it worth it?

All in all, we're left in a quandary by the VB-S. Bose positions it as a small-room version of its predecessor, but in many ways it's actually a step backwards, retailing for only £100 less. The difficulty in offering a verdict, however, is there's nothing to fault in its specification or performance either. The issue is functionality. We can see there is an argument that by being dependent on a laptop, there's no question of vendor lock-in with your conferencing software – but this feels more of a benefit for Bose than for the potential customer. Given the price tag, we would have expected an all-in-one device with conferencing software on-board and a direct connection for a display.

We're left in the unusual position of praising a device for being very good at what it does, but questioning so much of what it doesn't yet could have – indeed, what other devices such as the Maxhub UC S10 does for £300 less. All-in-all, it's hard to recommend the VB-S because it feels like a new take on yesterday's expectations; a real-world product designed without any real-world thought for who'd be using it.

The recent pandemic has changed the way we work, and yet this is a device designed to meet pre-pandemic expectations. It's impractically cumbersome for the modern meeting room, overpowered for a home-worker and taunts specifications of connectivity that remind you of all the things it could have been and isn't.

For the use cases it's designed for, you'd be able to buy a pair of Bose stereo Bluetooth speakers and a cheap monitor and still have change for a new TV to go on the wall – and with that array, you wouldn't need to connect a laptop to anything.

Bose Videobar VB-S specifications

Kandao may not have a high profile in the UK video conferencing (VC) arena, but its Meeting Pro camera looks set to change this perception. Sporting dual 4K fisheye lenses, this portable camera provides a 360° panoramic field of view (FoV), employs eight microphones for speaker tracking and offers a choice of five presentation views.

Even better, its embedded Android 10 OS means it can function as a fully independent conferencing system, with network and internet access provided by its 10/100 Ethernet port and built-in Wi-Fi 5. You can also connect it directly to a host PC over its USB port and use any UVC-compliant conferencing app.

Using standalone mode, we connected network and HDMI cables, waited 30 seconds for the Android OS to load and received a smart user interface on our HD monitor. You can use the Bluetooth remote handset to navigate the menus, but we found it easier to connect a USB dongle to the camera and use a wireless keyboard and mouse.

The App Store page presents icons for installing VC apps and Kandao offers 12 options, including Microsoft Teams, Cisco WebEx, Zoom, GoToMeeting, BlueJeans, Google Meet and Skype. The camera's 64GB of RAM allows you to load as many as you want, and in most cases, you just click on their icon to install them.

Adding the Skype and Teams apps requires more work as these are downloaded from the Google Play store. The camera must first be registered and requires you to log in to your Google account and enter the unique 19-digit Google Services Framework ID it generates. The lack of documentation doesn't help, but registration is a one-time process and we could then install the Teams and Skype apps.

Each installed app is assigned a home page quick-launch icon, and we had no problems using the Teams, Skype and Zoom apps to set up meetings and accept invitations from other users. Our meeting participants found the camera's top 1080p resolution produced a clean, sharp image with a good colour balance and, if required, you can use the handset to reduce quality to 720p.

A handset button is provided for swapping between the five display modes during meetings, or you can use the mode button on the camera. These comprise a horizontally split screen with two 180° views, an upper panoramic view with two active participants below, another with four active participants, a patrol mode that combines the active speaker with a slow pan of the entire room and a presentation mode that shows the active speaker.

Auto-tracking impresses: the camera took a couple of seconds to zoom in on the active speaker and had no difficulty following them as they moved around the meeting room. The mic array has a good range of up to 5.5 metres and the downward-firing 5W speaker was loud enough to cover our 24m2 meeting room, although the lack of decent bass makes it quite shrill at the highest volume settings.

The latest firmware adds AirPlay and Miracast screen mirroring. Using an iPad on the same network, we presented its screen to the camera's monitor using the iOS Control Centre menu. Point a web browser at the camera's IP address from a PC and you can mirror its entire screen or selected content to the camera's monitor just as easily.

In host mode, the camera worked fine with the Teams and Skype apps on our Windows PC. You don't need to do anything as the camera swaps to host mode when it senses a USB connection and returns to standalone mode when the cable is removed.

The embedded Android OS makes the Kandao Meeting Pro a highly versatile camera that's ideal for a wide range of meeting scenarios. Improved documentation would ease installation, but it delivers good image quality and fast speaker tracking while its range of views ensures everyone gets in the picture.

Kandao Meeting Pro Specifications

SMBs that want a standalone video collaboration bar designed for Microsoft Teams Rooms will find the Epos Expand Vision 3T well worth a look. Powered by a 6-core ARM v8 CPU with 4GB of memory, the Vision 3T runs the certified Microsoft Teams Rooms on Android app so you only need to bring your own monitor.

It combines a Sony 4K UHD camera with a wide 112-degree field of view, dual digital MEMS mics, an HDMI port for connecting a TV and a USB-C connector for adding a second monitor. There's even a microSD slot. Automatic framing and audio tracking zero in on the current speaker using digital PTZ functions, while the embedded Epos AI feature handles noise reduction.

That's a lot to pack into a video bar that's only 285mm wide, and the reason for this smallness is that the 3T lacks internal speakers. Instead, the kit includes an Epos Expand SP 30T speakerphone that connects to the 3T over USB. If you already have any Epos Expand model, you can purchase the Vision 3T Core package for £780 and use that instead.

Initial setup was smooth: we connected our HD monitor, powered the 3T up and waited a minute while it booted. Using the onscreen setup menu, we connected it to our wireless network (gigabit wired is also supported) and attached a dongle to the USB-A port for a wireless keyboard and mouse as we found it much easier to enter details using these as opposed to the Bluetooth remote control.

The 3T then loads the familiar Teams interface and asks you to log in to your account. A normal Teams account can be used, but all you'll be able to do is send meeting requests from it and accept those from other Teams users.

To get the best from the 3T, we declared it as a Rooms device and assigned it a Microsoft 365 Exchange resource mail address. Other Teams users can then book meetings from Outlook simply by including the 3T as a room location in their invitation.

From the Teams admin portal, the 3T appeared as a new device in the Teams Rooms on Android list. We used a free Rooms Basic licence, but upgrading to the Pro version enables features such as device health status and remote firmware upgrades. When a booking is received, the onscreen display shows the details in the meetings panel to the right along with the requested start time and duration. A menu option also allows you to create on-demand meetings and invite multiple participants.

Starting meetings is a one-touch process. The user simply selects the Join icon on the screen or uses the Teams button on the remote handset or speakerphone rim. The 3T presents the standard Teams meeting interface, while controls such as audio mute, volume and ending meetings are easily accessed using the remote handset.

The camera presents a sharply focused image and, although the top resolution is 1080p, the 4K sensor ensures quality doesn't deteriorate when zooming in. Speaker framing and tracking is swift, too, with it taking no more than three seconds to respond to movement.

Speakerphone audio quality is good, with this 12cm diameter disc producing a crisp, clean sound that easily covered our 24m2 meeting room. The kit includes a five-metre USB extension cable, so for larger rooms it can be moved further away from the camera.

Businesses investing in Microsoft Teams Rooms will find the Epos Expand Vision 3T a worthy collaboration partner. This Android-powered room bar is easy to install, delivers good video and audio quality and is always ready to use at a moment's notice.

The pandemic forced businesses to rapidly adopt new working practices and nearly three years after the first lockdown many are finding the hybrid model works so well, it's likely here to stay. Video conferencing (VC) plays a pivotal role in this new distributed workplace and has evolved just as quickly with vendors now providing a comprehensive choice of products for every meeting space and budget.

Avocor is a prime example as this US company offers an impressive range of VC solutions covering personal spaces and home offices all the way up to large meeting rooms. Central to this portfolio are its interactive displays which include all-in-one (AIO) touchscreen and non-touch models with integral cameras plus soundbars and in sizes up to an enormous 105in.

The Series One family is the culmination of a partnership between Avocor and Google Workspace and is designed to offer a complete AIO collaboration solution that combines a classy touchscreen with seamless Google Meet integration. The Desk 27 on review provides a personal meeting device for up to two people and is also a fully functional desktop monitor, docking station and digital whiteboard.

Avocor Series One Desk 27 review: Design and features

The Desk 27 looks good on the desktop thanks to its excellent design and build quality. The kit includes a solid desktop stand which clips neatly into a recess at the back or it can be wall mounted using a standard Vesa 100 bracket.

Google Meet services are powered by the embedded Chrome OS and there's plenty of power on tap as the Desk 27 employs an Intel Core i5 CPU. This is teamed up with a Google Edge TPU which handles the AI-based TrueVoice noise cancellation and 'Hey Google' voice command processing.

The 27in. capacitive touchscreen impresses as it incorporates a Nano IPS Quad HD (QHD) LCD display with a top 2560 x 1440 resolution. The above-average 300 cd/m2 brightness and wide 178-degree viewing angle means meeting participants sitting to one side won't miss out on the action.

A 5MP camera with digital pan, tilt and zoom functions is positioned centrally at the top of the screen but a remote control handset isn't provided so you can't manually control the view. Down below the screen is a fabric-covered soundbar with two internal speakers, an eight-mic array for auto-framing and a magnetic holder for the passive stylus.

The Desk 27 is well connected as it offers a Gigabit Ethernet port and integral 2.4/5GHz 11ac wireless services. All other ports are located to one side and include a USB-C input with 45W PD, two USB 3.2, HDMI-out to a second monitor and 3.5mm headphone jack.

Avocor Series One Desk 27 review: Meet mode

The device needs to be enrolled in your Google Workspace account and will require a Google Meet hardware licence which costs around £211 per year. Once activated, the Desk 27 can be remotely managed from your Google Admin portal with options including changing settings, status monitoring, connecting to or disconnecting from meetings and assigning Google Calendar resources.

Using the Desk 27 in meet mode only requires power and network connections and the screen presents a simple interface with options for starting or joining meetings, calling a phone and using the Google Jamboard to run whiteboard sessions. If a calendar has been associated, you'll receive notifications of the day's planned events to the right.

We had no problems starting or joining meetings and found the touchscreen very responsive to finger and stylus taps. Google Meet may only support a maximum 720p resolution but our remote meeting participants commended the Desk 27 camera for its clean, sharp image and good colour balance.

The mic array worked well with other participants saying they could hear us clearly and TrueVoice proved very capable at removing unwanted background noises such as paper rustling and keyboard tapping. The integral speakers aren't very powerful and lack any decent bass – sound output is good enough for a small huddle room but nothing larger.

During testing, we found that auto-framing wasn't working and were advised by Avocor that although it is enabled in hardware, the required Meet update has yet to be provided by Google. Likewise with the HDMI output and Google AI voice commands as these are other Desk 27 features not yet supported by Meet.

Avocor Series One Desk 27 review: BYOD mode

BYOD mode is simple to use and for testing, we connected a Windows 10 Intel NUC to the Desk 27 using its USB-C port and the supplied cable. It uses the DisplayPort alternate mode which was automatically selected after which we were presented with an Avocor AVM-2770 camera, speakers and microphone.

Full touchscreen services are also provided and from here on, we could use any UVC-compliant conferencing application. We had no problems running meetings using Microsoft Teams and Skype but although noise cancellation was enabled, auto-framing was not available for either app.

The video output selection button on the side of the monitor proved to be very useful as we could swap between meet and BYOD modes without needing to unplug the PC. Furthermore, if you unplug the attached device or power it off, the Desk 27 automatically switches back to meet mode.

Avocor Series One Desk 27 review: Verdict

Businesses investing in Google Workspace with Meet as their preferred conferencing platform will find Avocor's Series One Desk 27 can fit seamlessly into their environment. It's easy to use as meetings can be started with a single tap, video quality is very good and the BYOD mode adds extra versatility as you can use it to run any conferencing app.

Our main concerns with the Desk 27 are that the auto-framing, HDMI output and Google AI voice commands were not functional during our review. These will only be enabled when Google delivers the necessary Meet updates through the Workspace Admin portal with Avocor advising us this could be in the next couple of months.

Avocor Series One Desk 27 specifications

When Owl Labs launched the Meeting Owl in 2018, its innovative fish-eye lens, smart speaker tracking and active framing put the fun back into video meetings. The main drawback was its low 720p resolution, which the Pro version boosted to 1080p in 2020. The Owl 3 also has a 1080p resolution but adds a number of useful new features.

The Owl 3 impresses with its ability to present a 360-degree panoramic view across the top of the screen, dynamically splitting the main display to show the three most recent speakers and zero in on the person currently speaking. It's powered by the same Qualcomm Snapdragon 605 CPU as the Pro version but receives improvements to the Owl intelligence system that manages auto-focusing tasks and adds a micro-HDMI port for an optional expansion mic pod.

The array of eight microphones spread equally around the inside of its fabric-covered cylindrical body is used to identify who's talking, and audio is delivered by three outward-firing speakers to spread the sound through 360-degrees. The USB and power sockets are under the base while the lower plastic band has buttons for audio mute, volume control and changing the speaker focus feature from slide animation to straight cut.

Installation is simple. After plugging the Owl 3 into a Windows 10 Pro desktop PC, it loaded all drivers and defaulted to the split-screen mode. You'll need to download the Owl mobile app and connect to it over Bluetooth LE (low energy) so you can register the device, connect it to a wireless network for firmware updates and activate the meeting room analytics feature – we used the tablet version on an iPad for this.

The Owl 3 supports all the main VC platforms, but check the Owl Labs support site first as some can't handle the camera's panoramic view. It worked fine for us with Teams, Zoom and Skype, with the slick display sure to impress people the first time they see it.

During meetings, it swapped seamlessly between each speaker, adding others as they spoke while keeping the panoramic view at the top. It reacts quickly to voices, taking around two seconds to snap from one active speaker to another, with the slide animation placing up to three speakers in a split main window. Video quality is noticeably better than the original Owl model, and audio quality from the triple speakers is extremely good, too. When holding a small round table meeting, we found a volume level of 50% was plenty loud enough while remote participants said they could hear us clearly, even when we stood three metres away from the table.

We used the iPad app to remotely manage the Owl 3 over Bluetooth and passcode-protect access. It can be used to choose the central point for the 360-degree panoramic view or disable it, set the camera to lock and focus on one person, follow a presenter, and pair it with another Owl to provide attendees with a view of both feeds.

The app's dashboard lets you turn the video feed off, control the volume during meetings and use a whiteboard to present notes and diagrams to attendees that replace the split screen in their session window. Meeting analytics and status views of all your Owls are presented in the Nest cloud portal, which is linked to your registration email address.

There are many imitators, but no one else does video conferencing like the Meeting Owl 3. It's fairly expensive, but the video quality is great, speaker tracking and framing are impressively fast and the smart dynamic split-screen view ensures no meeting participant feels left out.

The Rally Bar Mini is ideal for SMBs that want a professional meeting room solution that's more discreet than Logitech's mighty Rally Bar. It will also appeal to tidy minds as it employs the same rear cable management bay as its bigger brother, ensuring all your wires are safely secured.

It may cost around £900 less than the Rally Bar and be nearly 20cm narrower in width, but it doesn't compromise on features. The central 4K UHD camera offers motorised pan, tilt and zoom (PTZ) functions, it employs the same six-microphone beamforming array for auto-framing of active participants, and has a 70mm woofer and two 38mm mid-range speakers that all use an anti-vibration system to improve sound quality.

The smaller lens next to the camera is Logitech's AI Viewfinder, which enhances its RightSight technology for improved framing and focus accuracy and provides people counting and room usage analytics. The last two features are accessed from the Logitech Sync cloud portal, and we used the local Sync app on our host PC to add the camera and its meeting room details to our account.

The Rally Bar Mini supports three operational modes. You can use it with a dedicated room computer or let users bring their own device and load a VC app of their choice. In appliance mode, Logitech's on-board Android-based CollabOS turns it into a standalone system that runs certified VC apps including GoToRooms, Teams Rooms and Zoom Rooms.

Plug Logitech's optional Tap controller panel into the Rally Bar Mini and you can use its colour touchscreen to quickly set up meetings. A Bluetooth proximity sensor is provided for checking room availability and joining meetings from a mobile.

BYOD mode is quick to use: simply connect a monitor and follow the onscreen wizard. You can join a wireless or wired network and add your Sync account details, but we found it quicker to attach a USB keyboard and mouse to enter our details rather than use the Bluetooth remote.

Connecting a Windows 10 Pro PC to the camera's HDMI-in port allowed us to view its screen on our meeting room monitor and use our local Teams, Skype and Zoom VC apps.

Configuring the Rally Bar in appliance mode is equally swift: we chose the Teams option from the wizard, logged in to our account and were presented with the familiar Teams interface for quickly starting or joining meetings.

The camera may have only a 4x digital zoom (the Rally Bar combines 5x/3x optical/digital zooms) but video quality impresses, with remote attendees praising the pin-sharp image and clean colour balance. Brightly lit backgrounds weren't a problem as Logitech's integral RightLight feature easily

compensated for them.

Speaker tracking isn't great as, unlike digital PTZ models, the camera has to physically move the lens to stay on point. During a Teams meeting, we moved around the room as we spoke and found the camera could take up to eight seconds to respond.

On the plus side, the integral mics delivered great sound quality, with remote participants saying they could hear us clearly even when we moved four metres away. The triple speakers aren't diminished by the smaller enclosure, as maximum volume was far too loud for our 24m2 room.

Logitech's Rally Bar Mini offers everything SMBs need for professional meeting room VC services. The three operational modes make it versatile and, although speaker tracking can be sluggish, it delivers excellent video and audio quality, with Logitech's Sync cloud service providing valuable remote management features.

“Businesses will look to adopt VR headsets rather than replacing their laptops.”

“What?”

Steve Hatch, Meta’s VP for Northern Europe had just uttered one of the boldest claims about the metaverse so far. I was eyeing another sausage roll from the buffet table at the time so, at first, I thought I had misheard him. I was at Meta’s King’s Cross office with a cohort of other journalists and analysts, hoping to catch a first glimpse of the new Meta Quest Pro headset, and the even newer Horizon Workrooms app – it was a physical media event but we were about to return to the metaverse.

The rise of Meta (née Facebook) is as ballsy a business transformation as there has ever been; billions of dollars have been spent, some 11,000 jobs have been lost, and the name of one of the world’s most influential organisations has been changed – a gambit like no other. Yet, it was the idea of headsets replacing the trusty laptop that made me do a double-take.

Countless questions flooded my mind. For instance, don’t you need the laptop to use alongside the headset? It was hard to rein in my BS detector. At that point, however, I hadn’t actually tried Meta’s new headset, or seen Horizon Workrooms. In fact I hadn’t actually experienced any Horizon applications before. I had nothing to really counter this claim with.

Of course, the claim resurfaced again and again. It was even repeated in Meta’s Future of Work report. It was even backed up with two key stats: the first is that 60% of employees want to see VR headsets in the office by 2024, and the second was that 62% want avatars and virtual collaboration spaces.

The report, which is based on a survey of 2,000 employees and 400 business leaders across the UK and the US, is nowhere near enough people to highlight the global interest in such a risky technology. Meta also consulted experts within, and beyond, the company to define the future of work and, is it any surprise that people who work closely with the firm would highlight the metaverse as a key area.

Nevertheless, in a short space of time, the metaverse has become the tech industry’s buzziest buzzword. Perhaps it highlights the influence of Mark Zuckerberg, who has pushed this concept into the global lexicon. Now, seemingly all companies want to be operating in this three-dimensional version of the internet. The seriousness of the pitch is underlined by a softer approach, however, as it’s no longer “move fast and break things”. Instead the company is going slowly, predicting it will take years for its vision to come to fruition, also stressing that it won't be one organisation that builds this idea – but many.

Hands-on with the Meta Quest Pro

Meta has such faith in the VR headset that it believes these will be prioritised over laptops in the enterprise space. The product that’s given them this confidence is the Meta Quest Pro, which IT Pro was invited to test. Fellow journalists and analysts were split into groups of four and taken into separate rooms where a Meta hardware specialist ran through housekeeping rules. A headset rested in front of each person sitting at the table.

On first impression, the Quest Pro looks sleek. It’s all-black and feels smooth and cool to the touch. The front section is massive, covering both your eyes and most of your forehead. The headset is also, admittedly, a little heavy. To get the best visual, I found it needed to sit higher on the head, so most of your nose was poking out, although the lenses are adjustable if you need them closer together or further apart.

Initially it’s comfortable; it’s well padded and it can be tightened with a handy dial at the back. You don’t ever lose the feeling of having a headset on, though, in a similar way to wearing a helmet. After ten minutes, or so, t does become a bit of a burden. Much later, while walking to the tube station, I chose not to put in my earbuds because I could still feel the headset’s lingering presence.

The Quest Pro is meant to be used untethered, and it comes with two hand-held devices. These look and feel like the handles of fighter planes, with little buttons and joysticks on the top, but there’s also a stylus tip poking out from the bottom so you can doodle on a virtual whiteboard.

With our headsets on, we entered the metaverse or, more specifically, the new Horizon Workrooms platform. The app is still full of cartoonish avatars that don’t have any legs or much business appeal, but the way it works – the actual user experience (UX) and the controls – is very impressive. Without the controls in your hand, you can operate your virtual dashboard by simply pinching your thumb and forefinger. There’s also a beam of light that shoots out of your virtual hand, like Iron Man on battery-saver mode, that you use to select where to sit or change settings.

Other participants appear across tables or rooms, and those without headsets can be accommodated – appearing as a tile like in classic video conferencing. People, oddly, have presence in the virtual world; we all did a little ‘high-five’ test and I felt like the person next to me was next to me in real life, even though they were physically much further away. I could also hear the warm brummie accent of IT Pro freelancer Mark Samuels, although I was 100% sure he wasn’t in my room. Engagement, quality UX, spine-tinglingly cool – Horizon Workrooms ticks all those boxes.

Who will own the metaverse?

Despite the intriguing overall experience, I wasn’t totally impressed with the headset, but I am reluctant to leave it with a negative review, as it’s still an idea in its infancy. Other companies are producing more attractive wearables in the augmented reality (AR) space, such as Lenovo, with headsets likely to become more streamlined in the form of smart glasses. Many are even holding out hope that smart lenses will kick these concepts into the mainstream. Regardless, Meta remains front and centre. As for whether the metaverse will take off, from a business perspective, that’s still hard to see. Cartoon avatars are a little too silly, and entering this world represents far more effort than simply logging onto a video call with your… laptop.

It will be interesting to see where Microsoft goes with regards to the metaverse. CCS Insight chief analyst Ben Wood, also in attendance, pointed out something to me that, admittedly, softened my stance on working in the metaverse. Microsoft is meant to be a competing company (have we all forgotten Hololens?), yet it’s partnered with Meta to bring Mesh for Microsoft Teams into the metaverse. Essentially, the Quest Pro and Horizon could just be another vehicle through which people can access Microsoft Office, Wood suggests.

Admittedly, the Quest Pro has its faults, and the hardware component of the metaverse is still in need of a definitive final form. Meta might very well tank its business before its laptop predictions can be proven right, but the ideas are starting to stick.

Technology plays a vital role in helping government and public sector organisations respond to challenges and deliver services to the public, and in increased use of digital tools can unlock new capabilities and efficiencies. One somewhat unique example of this is the Welsh government, which must meet certain standards to ensure that the Welsh language is treated equally to English.

As well as providing Welsh-language options in its apps and services, this also includes supporting Welsh speakers in meetings, and the Welsh government has been working with Microsoft on the ability to include live translation in Teams calls via human interpreters. Joining us this week to discuss the opportunities this provides for bilingual organisations, as well as how the Welsh government is using technology to enable its digital strategy, is Glyn Jones, Chief Digital Officer for the Welsh Government.

Highlights

“So when the pandemic hit, we were just going through the transition as many people were, I think, into Teams… So our chief technology officer at the time immediately said to Microsoft, right, how are we going to get on the roadmap for Teams, that we can provide bilingual meetings, and we've led this dialogue with Microsoft; I understand that we're the country that have been driving this the most.”

“We've been doing a lot of work with Bangor University and other people around developing the language sets and the training data to improve the natural language processing and the artificial intelligence around this. So eventually, you will hopefully be able to have speech to text translation, so the subtitles will appear in whatever language you want them to do. And once you've got that, you can use the automated translation facility to translate to whatever language you want.”

“When we fund those kinds of language technology developments, another thing we're clear about is that we expect the resources and data to be released under open licence. So that means the training data can be shared with other companies. And they can add Welsh into their services. So we're very keen that as in terms of public money, when we're investing into this, we're investing in open licences.”

Read the full transcript here.

Footnotes

• What is natural language processing?
• Microsoft unveils 'largest ever' AI natural language model
• How coronavirus has accelerated the digital transformation of Britain's public sector
• What is open source?
• Microsoft Teams review: A no-brainer for Microsoft shops
• Microsoft bolsters Teams platform with host of call quality improvements
• Slack Connect vs Microsoft Teams Connect: Better than email?
• Welsh gov reveals plans for 5G, cyber security testbeds
• IT vacancies in England and Wales up 105% in 2021
• Google demos real-time speech to text translation
• Zoom acquires AI translation startup Kites
• Speak easy: How neural networks are transforming the world of translation

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This automatically-generated transcript is taken from the IT Pro Podcast episode ‘Enabling bilingual business’. We apologise for any errors.

Adam Shepherd

Hi, I'm Adam Shepherd.

Rory Bathgate

And I'm Rory Bathgate.

Adam

And you're listening to the IT Pro Podcast. But before we get into this week's episode, I've got some news that I'd like to share. And that is that this will be my last episode of the podcast. As of next week, I'll be leaving IT Pro for pastures new. But don't worry, I'll be leaving you in the capable hands of Rory, who will be manning the helm after I'm gone. And he'll be joined by our erstwhile co host Jane when she makes her triumphant return later this year.

Rory

Thanks, Adam. You will be greatly missed, but I know that you've got great things in store. And in the meantime, I'm excited to helm the podcast and look forward to the return of Jane.

Adam

Yeah, it's it's gonna be good to hear Jane back on the podcast when she gets back later in the year.

Rory

I know that longtime listeners will be happy to have Jane back as one of the co hosts.

Adam

Now on to the main event of this week's podcast we are going to be looking at technology use in government. Governments around the world are incredibly reliant on technology, not just to increase their own operational efficiency in the same way that every organisation is, but also as a vehicle for delivering digital platforms and services to their citizens.

Rory

Making effective use of this technology can be a tough balancing act. But when done right, it can offer transformative results for both government employees and the general public. This week, we're joined by an IT leader who has been navigating the challenges of this task. Glyn Jones, Chief Digital Officer for the Welsh Government, Glyn, thanks for coming on the show.

Glyn Jones

Bore da. Mae'n fendith bod yma heddiw. Good morning. It's a pleasure to be here this morning.

Adam

It's a pleasure to have you. So Glyn, what role does technology play in delivering services to the people of Wales?

Glyn

Yeah, so we have set out our ambitions around using digital technology and digital services through our digital strategy for Wales, which was published back in March 2021. Now, we saw during the pandemic, how using technology and digital had become basically critical to providing services to people in Wales. So we wanted to capitalise on the momentum that we've seen during the pandemic, and set out an ambition for really transforming how citizens received public services in Wales. And to do that, by the use of digital ways of working and technology. The digital strategy really sets out a vision for world class public services to be delivered with the user at the centre of the design. And to really try and give the public the experience from public services that they get from their online shopping and their online banking. It's a big ambition, you know, we've got a long way to go. But what we've been able to do since we set out that digital strategy is really build some momentum, build some excitement around what we're doing in Wales. Under the strategy, we set up a new body called the Centre for digital public services, who were given the task to be leaders, to work with public authorities and central governments to understand digital and technology, to help them use digital and technology better in delivering those critical services to the people in Wales.

Rory

So as part of this move, you've recently been involved in a project with Microsoft, which allows organisations to use live human interpreters to translate between different languages during Teams meetings; could you expand a bit more on that project and how it fits into the wider strategy?

Glyn

Yeah, so this is a really important project for us, and our digital strategy. So Wales is a bilingual nation, about one in five people speak Welsh. In the last census, there was 560,000 people. And we've got an ambitious strategy around the use of Welsh language, we want to double the use of Welsh language on a daily basis by 2050. We also want to increase the number of Welsh speakers to a million by 2050. But we understand that as part of that, we need to make sure digital technology is supportive of those aims. As a bilingual nation, obviously, we want to be able to give people the opportunity to use Welsh wherever they want to and that means in official business with government, and also for our own staff to be able to work bilingually. Prior to the pandemic, we were all meeting face to face mostly. So you could deliver those bilingual meetings by having a physical translator or interpreter in the room and we'd all wear headsets, or those people who couldn't speak Welsh would wear headsets to make sure they got a bilingual feed into their ears. The pandemic hit. We all shifted to work from home. We all started using online video conferencing platforms. And, you know, the immediate question came, well, how do we make sure we continue to have bilingual ways of working? How do we make sure we allow citizens and our partners to engage with us in Welsh, and how do we meet the statutory standards we have in Wales, while whilst we're all working from home and working remotely. And that ranges from the internal meetings we would have within Welsh Government to meetings we would have with our partners and our stakeholders to meetings our ministers would have with people. And it's really important for us that we provide a provision for bilingual meetings, because not only do we need to do it, but it's the right thing to do, because meetings will become far better and more productive; people are able to engage in the language of choice. So when the pandemic hit, we were just going through the sort of transition as many people were, I think, into Teams, Teams became our sort of day to day core business. So our chief technology officer at the time, immediately said to Microsoft, right, Microsoft, how are we going to get on the roadmap for Teams, that we can provide bilingual meetings, and we've led this dialogue with Microsoft, I understand that we're the country that have been driving this the most. It's really an example of where we as a country want to support the global efforts to provide bilingual services working with those big companies to do so. So Microsoft picked us up, understood the requirements through through the regular dialogue between ourselves and our Welsh language technology colleagues, as well. And started showing us some wireframes, prototypes, and it was all looking good. They involved us in the test circle at quite an early stage, that was about Christmas last year. And through doing that, we were able to provide them with people like me, who are Welsh speakers, translators interpreters, other public sector bodies, who could work with Microsoft to be part of the development journey, and to help test the features and to improve and iterate to make sure that by the time the product landed, it was it was fit for purpose, and it would meet the requirements we all have. And happy to say that it's now in general availability, we've we've just had it released to our to our staff in the past week or so. So really excited about how this functionality can help us have conduct our business bilingually, conduct business bilingually with partner organisations, it is not just a thing for the public sector, private sector will also be able to use it. And it's also not just about the Welsh language. It's agnostic of language, it literally provides you with the opportunity to have multiple audio feeds in Teams. And I understand from Microsoft that they can handle up to 16 languages in a particular meeting.

Adam

Wow. I mean, this obviously unlocks a lot of potential for international business generally. In terms of the bilingual aspects, were there any other countries or territories that you took inspiration from in terms of their approach to leveraging technology to deliver bilingual services and experience? I mean, Canada is the obvious example that springs to my mind in terms of a country that operates bilingually by by default.

Glyn

Yes, my colleagues in the Welsh language division within Welsh Government, I think they've got quite a lot of good contacts across the world with those kinds of countries, particularly where, where there are countries with minority languages. So you're talking about areas such as the Basque region, and Catalonia. And so on. So what we hope to do through this is provide, in a sense, provide a driver for Microsoft to make a change, which will impact on others. And if they're doing the same as well, then that's great. My understanding is on this particular one, we were the we were the leaders, Microsoft told us we were the ones pushing it. But yeah, if you if you look at how the EU Parliament runs, or the United Nations, and you see there that those those proceedings happen, regardless of what language people want to speak. And we just need to be able to get that same sense within Wales, that regardless of what language you can speak, you can contribute to a meeting, and you don't need to worry about the technology. And I just think this is a real game changer now, and actually, despite us being over the past few years found it difficult to retain the sort of everyday use of Welsh that within within a corporate environment, you miss the corridor conversations you might have in Welsh, you will certainly have missed those formal meetings, which won't have happened so frequently through Welsh, we will actually come out of this with a set of technology, which will actually be a game changer for us and the rest of the world and being able to truly have bilingual meetings where you may be the only Welsh speaker in the room, but you can contribute in Welsh and colleagues around the around the table will be able to understand what you're saying and have that dialogue with you.

Rory

You're looking to break down these language barriers to the extent that in the long term when this system is working perfectly, you're barely thinking about the technology when when you're in the meeting itself.

Glyn

Yeah, absolutely. So this is, in a sense, providing what Teams, what the new functionality in Teams does now is provide you with an audio stream. So if there's an interpreter in the room, if you're a non Welsh speaker, you can, you can choose the audio feed you want to listen to. So as soon as I start speaking Welsh, my audio will dip and you will hear the interpreter talk in English. So that's fine, that's great. But that still requires an interpreter in the room to do the manual translation. And that's a really important step. But I see it very much as a stepping stone. So we've been doing a lot of work with Bangor University and other people around developing the language sets and the training data to improve the natural language processing and the artificial intelligence around this. So eventually, you will hopefully be able to have speech to text translation, so the subtitles will appear in whatever language you want them to do. And once you've got that, you can use the automated translation facility to translate to whatever, whatever language you want, which, which again, will then hopefully, you know, it may not be the case for every meeting, because for every for some formal meetings, you will certainly want that manual translation, but if it's just a meeting within the office, you know, some of the automated translation will certainly be good enough to help people, what we then need to do is get people to build the confidence in doing so. So as as a Welsh speaker, I know that if you're in a room with other English speakers, you've got to have the confidence to say no, I'm going to use Welsh, and you are going to have to use whatever tools there are to, to have that conversation with you. And I think there's a business change element to this. There's a communication and a cultural element to bilingual ways of working, which goes beyond the technology. And that's, that's in a sense, our next step, now that we have the technology, we really want to make those meetings as effective as possible. So for example, even even before this has launched this week, on on a Teams chat, we could already translate from Welsh to English in text through the automated Microsoft translate; not many people are using that, people still default to put in the Teams chat in English rather than Welsh. So how do we change the culture? How do we get people confident enough to be able to have bilingual meetings? How do we get the chair of a meeting to encourage that to happen? So it's very much as much of a behavioural and cultural thing as it is technology.

Adam

I was gonna say, I was quite surprised, given Microsoft's heavy investment in AI, that this system is leveraging human interpreters, rather than AI translation software for, for default, it seems like a kind of natural comfort zone for Microsoft particularly to to go straight for AI rather than the human element. So it's, it's sort of not surprising that that's the the end goal, if you like is to incorporate AI elements alongside human translators.

Glyn

Yeah, that's definitely the case. So now our requirement was for human interpretation. Because, you know, we know there's still a journey to go on artificial intelligence and getting it right. So it's really important for us to make sure we have that human element to this right now. And that will certainly be the way most meetings happen for the for the short term. The long term aim has to be to do that. And of course, a lot of that does depend on the training data and the maturity of the the algorithms they have available. Now working I think I said with Bangor University on this, they have, they have released a transcriber to produce automatic subtitles for Welsh videos. So it is happening, but we need to make sure the quality and so on is is right. When we fund those kinds of language technology developments, another thing we're clear about is that we expect the resources and data to be released under open licence. So that means the training data can be shared with other companies. And they can add Welsh into their services. So we're very keen that as in terms of public money, when we're investing into this, we're investing in open licences. We've been working with Amazon Web Services as well. They've released recently a dataset called MASSIVE in capital letters, which is natural language data. And you know, we were really pleased that they engaged with us. And actually, Welsh is one of the 51 languages that they've used in that dataset. So I think the more of those training datasets we get out there, the more natural language material and resources are out there openly, you know, the better this will get in the future.

Rory

And it's, as you said earlier, where with this public funding, with this open source goal always, the hope is that in the future, it could it could benefit multiple languages, multiple countries that are currently seeing this this language barrier impacting on public and private services.

Glyn

Yeah, Absolutely, absolutely, the more languages we use, the more interoperable we'll be and the more we can retain and promote those minority languages, to sustain those languages, but not only just to sustain them, as I said at the start in terms of the number of speakers, but actually the language is used, because a language that's thriving is a language that's living, I think, is how we say; I may, I may have reflected our policy aims slightly wrong here. But you get my gist; a language has to be living to be thriving, and you want to be able to use the language. And I'm sure many other countries are facing the same challenge of keeping the number of speakers but also making sure people have the ability to use them in an increasingly global world.

Adam

So Glyn, looking at the the technology side of this, what benefits have you seen from having this technology built directly into the Teams platform? For example, do you find that having it directly there has increased the effectiveness and the adoption of Teams and other digital services within your organization's?

Glyn

Yes, so I mean, as I said, it's just hit general availability. So in terms of the usage, we will now be putting out in terms of our organisation, guidance and material on how best to use it. But this is the important thing for us. So I, to be fair, Zoom have had a facility over the past two years, that's been really, really important for many organisations have been able to deliver some bilingual meetings, but Zoom didn't meet all of our requirements. And part of that was because we are a Microsoft house, we have Microsoft embedded in our day to day work. So all of our meetings are Teams, and therefore having it embedded into everyday, everyday working is really important, particularly for that behavioural change thing I mentioned, if we're going to add barriers for people to go off to another product, to be able to facilitate bilingual meetings, then those are going to be barriers that mean it doesn't happen so well. And if you think about the wider wraparound feeling of a meeting, the invitation, the chat, that has the for me, it's looking at as a whole sort of bilingual experience. And that can only be done for us and other public organisations by having it embedded into Teams, it obviously also then helps us interact with the other uses we all make of Teams around Teams channels and records management and so on. So having that really embedded into our work is is crucial to allow it to be natural and the norm within an organisation I think.

Adam

Cause I'd imagine, I'm not sure which way round this, this is more likely to work. But I would imagine that either having the services available in Welsh or with Welsh kind of support built in makes people more likely to use them? Or maybe it's the other way around that having having the Welsh support makes people more likely to use Welsh. Maybe both?

Glyn

Yeah, so I think the the important is you make it as frictionless as possible for somebody to use whatever language they want. So for example, if you're using a government website, and you're in your lead into a, an English website, it shouldn't be 10 clicks, then to try and find another, a Welsh or another language, it should be as seamless as possible. Ideally, you should have given that choice as soon as you land on the website, what language do you want to interact with the service in, that's what happens in cash points in Wales. So if you go to a cash point in Wales, if whenever you are getting cash out these days, which I think is increasingly rare, you get the option of choosing English or Welsh first, then you get, so you don't have to physically make a change. And as a Welsh speaker, you don't have to do anything extra to get the Welsh. And that's what we want bilingual services to be like, and if you make as frictionless as possible, you just encourage people to use them. And people will have the confidence that there is a good bilingual service here that I can feel confident that the Welsh version is going to be right. I'm not going to go five screens down and then just find an English version because hasn't been translated or nobody's really thought of the end to end process as a bilingual process. So yeah, very much, let's make it as easy as possible. And, you know, as I said, let's let's go get this technology to be the norm that they're offering Welsh as part of that offer, wherever you are, I mean, there is no reason some of the stuff couldn't couldn't be global. So, for example, I was just really pleased at some point in the past few years that I went to McDonald's in England, and they offered Welsh as a language for their online orderings screen. Why wouldn't you? Because they've they've put the effort to do that in Wales. So why would you not that then incorporate that into your sort of online... I'm doing the thing, sorry, not very good for radio. If you've put the effort to put the technology in, in Wales to provide the digital menu offering in Welsh, why wouldn't you then just use that in other parts of the UK? Right?

Adam

And that's the beauty of digital systems in particular, they're so highly extensible. You know, you can something like, you know, language support, for example, can be super easily lifted and shifted across, you know, across your ordering systems all over the world.

Glyn

Absolutely.

Rory

On that point of digital systems, and you mentioned government websites, I know that the Government Digital Service has announced a plan to shift towards one login for gov.UK, that kind of centralization of services. Is this centralization of services across government websites, does that tie in to this kind of frictionless system of translation? Is the end goal down the line a system where someone could log on to a government website, and through one system, be able to access everything without as you're saying, having to go down steps to have everything translated?

Glyn

Yeah, I think that's that's got to be the ambition. So the one login for government is a UK government project at the moment, but we're working closely with them, we're feeding into the thinking around that. And one of the one of the things we have been pushing on is because the UK government deliver services in Wales as well as well as Welsh Government do, you need to make sure that one login for government reflects the Bilingual Services and bilingual service designed from the start. So that's the sort of, in a sense, the outward facing bit of it, which is really important. But Rory, you're right, and actually the end goal here, so we have this concept in Wales that you should, that you should be able to give a language preference. And that's the preference. That's, that's the language you want to do business with that organisation in. Ideally, you know, if you've told governments, you want to want to work with them in Welsh, as you said Rory, that that should become the norm then for when you're accessing services, I think we've got a long way to go. But as I say, we're engaging with the one login for government and trying to work out what it means for services in Wales, but that has to be the ideal is that you, you, your default language is Welsh, and therefore you get offered their services in Welsh, we're also really keen for example, for that to happen within the Microsoft environment itself as well. So if you can establish yourself as a Welsh speaker through the Microsoft Active Directory, you get the the Welsh interface and everything else, by default. At the moment, you have to then sort of go extra and install it and so on. So I think that that's definitely got to be the aim.

Adam

Yeah. And that extends, presumably, to just the small but impactful user experience tweaks such as like, in Word, for example, having the Welsh spellcheck dictionary automatically downloaded and activated.

Glyn

Yeah, absolutely. And some of that does happen already. And a lot of that is because of the work we've done with Microsoft over the years to embed Welsh into some of their packs. And the, you know, as I said, the Welsh language interface for Windows was something that we worked at Microsoft with quite a few years ago now. And we're really pleased when it was launched, but yeah still, you've got to put the effort in to make it as frictionless as possible. And then it's ensuring the sort of big vendors are keeping up with when they're investing in new technology, that we don't have to go through this, again, that it's a default that Welsh is a language that those sort of services and technologies are offered in. And, and from our point of view, you know, we want to highlight to them that if they want to do business in Wales, they have to provide those, provide the technology options to support Bilingual Services, because that's what public authorities in Wales need to have.

Rory

So moving from the public to the private sector, because I know that you mentioned that maybe as an ambition in the future, the private sector can benefit from this as well, is the idea that alongside the Welsh tech sector, so companies operating from Wales, based within Wales, being able to benefit from this in house, you're also looking at a benefit for big tech, shall we say, being able to have a frictionless experience with Welsh customers, with Welsh businesses? So it's a kind of a win win in that in that regard?

Glyn

Yeah, absolutely. So obviously, the functionality in Teams now is is available to anyone who's subscribing to the normal Microsoft Teams package. So it will be provided under the normal general licence which is great so they don't have to invest extra in this functionality. So from that point of view, private sector will be able to benefit just as much as us. More generally, you know, in our digital strategy and our Welsh language technology action plan, we're really keen to promote businesses thriving in Wales in digital sectors. And the more they do that, obviously, they will benefit from providing services in Wales, people in Wales will benefit from those organisations. Working from Wales, having good digital capability in Wales. As you've sort of said, Rory, it'll also feed off each other and it's a win win. Those big vendors, I know they have have a customer base. And well, Welsh speakers are one of the customer bases, and my job and my colleagues in the Welsh language technology team. I'll name check Jeremy Evas and Gareth Morlais, who do fantastic work on this, our job is to make sure those vendors hear us and understand the requirements for Wales, and where there's a will for them to work with us, as we've shown with Amazon and Microsoft, now, we're here to work with them, you know, we we know that they'll need some support to understand requirements. And I think we've demonstrated how keen we are to to do that for the benefit of everyone.

Adam

Where there's a will there's a Wales, you might say. So looking at your own use of technology, then, how are you planning to expand on the use of digital tools within the Welsh Government in the future? You mentioned during the pandemic, you made a big shift over to teams to fuel that kind of more digitally transformed, kind of flexible, and more agile way of working? Are there any plans to kind of build on that with more or deeper use of these kinds of tools?

Glyn

Yeah, I mean, we will all have seen how we've just changed our ways of working in in two and a half years, and, you know, a number of massive benefits in terms of collaboration, and through using Teams channels, and other collaboration channels. Everybody working collectively, on particular projects. So we've had to do a lot of work over the past few months, obviously, on the Ukraine crisis, we're making really good uses of Teams channels there to work together and collaboratively and keep each other informed. One massive change we've seen is actually staff engagement with senior management, because instead of sort of, doing a tour of large government sites, and getting a few people come to a particular meeting room that would never house the five and a half thousand people working in Welsh government, we're now able to run live events, with our permanent secretary, ministers and senior managers talking directly to staff and we regularly have around half of our workforce logging into those things. And we see then from people survey results, the staff are feeling far more engaged than ever, they feel senior managers are far more visible than they ever were before. And they're just so easy to set up, aren't they? So, you know, so many benefits. So yeah, so the task I've been given is like, how do we how do we capitalise on that? How do we do better in the future? So we're trying to invest in a digital team to really look at some of our, you know, we're a central government department, we still have clunky ways of working, that's not a surprise. So we want to do better, we want to provide our staff with the kind of business processes and, and digital services that that we're trying to offer citizens out there that they get from their bank, as I said earlier, but that they should be getting within Welsh Government. So we want to really get to the bottom of where we see inefficiencies, where are we seeing the staff having to fill in five forms to do something, and to try and help automate, streamline that as much as possible. So yeah, so it's, it. It's just something that's part of our transformation plan for the for the next few years, and really excited. And actually, the feedback we get from staff is actually, you know, there's loads of things you could do, but actually focus on the basics, get your basic forms right, get your basic HR processes to be better and more online, help us collaborate externally. So those those are the kind of priorities we'll have for the next three years.

Rory

And that focus on collaboration that you've that you've highlighted and basic Employee Services, employees and contractors feeling seen within these channels. Just as you're enabling conversations through digital transformation, through translation, it feels like you're also enabling maybe transparency from the top down. Would you say that you've seen an increase in transparency as a result of transformation as well?

Glyn

Yeah, definitely, as I said, So senior managers are more visible than ever. And just through the digital channels, that engagement now so people feel, you know, back in the old days, we'd be in a room and senior managers would say their thing and some people would put their hands up and do they'd probably get to two or three questions during the day, now, you know, we can have the Q and A's, we can have the live polls, whatever it may be during during a live event, which really just supports that engagement, that collaboration, and also allows people to really, you know, put in the hard questions to senior managers, and to really understand what's going on in the organisation and, and wider. So yeah, definitely, I think it supported transparency as an organisation. I should have also said it, you know, very, the heart of what we do in public service in Wales is actually collaboration, it is our way of working, we are a small country, we have 22 local authorities and seven health boards. So we've always said, Well, you know, we can always all get in a room together to fix problems. And that's that has been true, but it does still require people from north Wales and South Wales to get in a room together somehow. But actually, collaboration, engagement with stakeholders, all of that has benefited from this new technology as well. And we will move back to face to face, but I don't think we'll ever now stop using virtual as a way of getting people together to collaborate, to work together on those problems in a much, much easier way than having to find a hotel room in mid Wales that we can, we can cram into, and have three months notice of it. So that collaboration across public services, we benefited from this. But I'd like to see how we can use digital technology to move that further, to have common common digital platforms, common digital services, share technology, as much as we can drive collaboration, integrated services, but also at the end of that, cost efficiencies so that we're doing things once and we're sharing components as much as we can.

Rory

So we've talked a lot about digital transformation in both the public and the private sector. How do you think this will impact the position of Wales as one of the UK's burgeoning tech hubs?

Glyn

Yeah, so whilst the focus of our digital strategy is on that public service aspect, and providing Systems Service, that's where we feel we wanted to really raise the bar, part of one of our missions is about the digital economy, building thriving sectors in Wales, and particular focus on areas such as FinTech and cyber, where we have really got strong sectors already, building on those. Really keen that through the digital strategy, and through developing our use of technology, we help people thrive within the Welsh economy. And that will help Wales as a sort of competitor within the UK but globally. And just going back to the theme of today, particularly that Welsh language aspect, you know, we feel that through the work we've done with Microsoft or our Cymraeg 2050 strategy through our Welsh language technology action plan, that that's an area where we really want to continue leading the way in terms of globally pushing for bilingual technology.

Adam

Well, I'm afraid that's it for this week's episode. But our thanks to the Welsh Government's Chief Digital Officer Glynn Jones for joining us.

Glyn

Diolch yn fawr iawn, thank you very much.

Adam

And that's also it for me. It's been an absolute delight co hosting the podcast for the last three years and I'd like to thank each and every one of our listeners for tuning in and putting up with my rambling. I hope you will continue to do so and I'm sure that the podcast is going to be better than ever without me dragging it down. If you'd like to know more about what I'll be doing next, you can follow me on Twitter at @AdamShepherdUK, but with that, I will hand over to Rory Bathgate, the IT Pro Podcast's official new host.

Rory

Thanks, Adam. You're a tough act to follow. And it's been my pleasure to share these last few episodes with you. I know that listeners will want to join me in wishing you the best for your future endeavours, which I hope won't take you too far from the world of podcasting which you've truly made your home.

Adam

Thank you very much.

Rory

You can find links to all of the topics we've spoken about today in the show notes and don't forget to follow us on social media and subscribe to the IT Pro Podcast wherever you find podcasts.

Zoom is reportedly planning to launch email and calendar apps as it continues to expand beyond video conferencing.

The "Zmail" and "Zcal" services have been in the works for two years, according to The Information, which cites people familiar with the projects. Zoom declined to comment on the matter, though reports suggest both could be unveiled in November at its annual Zoomtopia conference.

These additions would help evolve Zoom from a video conferencing specialist into a fully-fledged competitor to the likes of Google Workspace and Microsoft Office. The company has already taken on the likes of Slack with greater chat capabilities and collaboration tools such as digital whiteboards.

With its own email and calendar services Zoom would be able to integrate more deeply with companies that already use its services as both can be used for scheduling video meetings. Though the reasoning behind these new services may be more about both Microsoft and Google - and even Slack - trying to muscle Zoom out the way. For example, Google is adding more and more functionality to Meet and even improving the way it works with its other products like Gmail and Google Calendar.

Looking more widely, there is a general trend of software companies expanding their services to become more holistic. Both Workspace and Microsoft Office have undergone extensive changes and transformations since the pandemic as they have sought to carter more towards the hybrid office.

One could argue that much of this could be attributed to the sharp rise of Zoom as a video conferencing service. The company offered simple and affordable - also free - video conferencing and initially, it has to be said, better quality than competing services like Microsoft Teams. That is no longer the case and as companies begin tightening budgets due to the looming financial crisis, Zoom could be seen as an unnecessary extra. Unless, of course, it can offer more for a competitive price.

NAS specialist Qnap has lately been expanding into new areas such as network switching. It’s now turning its attention to the SMB videoconferencing market with the KoiBox-100W. It’s a clever concept: a portable appliance that can operate as both an all-in-one conferencing solution and a wireless screen-sharing station for in-person presentations.

If you’re fed up with monthly subscriptions, there’s one feature you’ll like right away. Instead of charging a recurrent fee, the KoiBox is a one-off purchase with all licences included. That gets you support for the most popular conferencing platforms, including Skype, Microsoft Teams and Zoom. The KoiBox will appeal equally to businesses that want to go off-grid, as it can provide private conferencing services too, with Qnap taking care of all user authentication and meeting connections.

Inside, the KoiBox is powered by a 1.8GHz Intel Celeron 6305 CPU, and it pipes 4K video out of a single HDMI port at the rear. Next to it sit four USB-A 3.2 Gen 2 ports, to which you can connect cameras, speakers, microphones, a keyboard and mouse as required, plus a Gigabit Ethernet socket - although you may not need this as the KoiBox has built-in Wi-Fi 6.

You can’t see it, but there’s one final connector: an internal SFF drive bay, into which you can install an SSD to record your meetings. We were able to slot in and use a 1.92TB Micron SATA SSD with no fuss.

Setting up the KoiBox is very easy. You just connect it to a display and use the included remote-control handset to step through the onscreen setup wizard. This guided us through choosing a language, formatting the SSD and confirming our AV equipment as working (we tried both a Logitech ConferenceCam Connect and a Poly Studio P15 system, and had no problem with either).

Once setup is complete, the KoiBox presents a colourful homescreen from which you can access all functions using the remote. To share your screen from a PC you just need to enter the IP address of the appliance in Chrome or Firefox, select the wireless projection option and choose whether you want to cast the entire screen, a window or a browser tab.

Mobile screen sharing is supported, too: we tried the free KoiCast iOS app on an iPad. This immediately opened with a view of the KoiBox’s screen, allowing us to see what someone else was sharing, or begin a sharing session of our own.

Cloud meetings are easy to set up, especially if you’re using Microsoft Teams, as the KoiBox has native integration with this platform. After we’d assigned one of our Team user accounts to the KoiBox we were right away presented with the standard interface we all know and love.

For private video calls the appliance uses the KoiMeeter app – the same one as found on Qnap’s NAS appliances, but pre-registered so you don’t have to worry about time limits. Unhelpfully, the user manual neglects to explain how PC and Mac users can join private meetings, but it’s easily done – they just need to point a web browser at the KoiMeeter website and log in with their Qnap account. Remote participants get a picture-in-picture view in their browser, along with video and audio controls, a screen-sharing button and facilities to invite other users up to the maximum of four per meeting.

If remote users are logged into the KoiMeeter web service, they can also be invited to meetings directly from the KoiBox by entering their personal KoiCode. This is one reason you might want to connect a keyboard: the remote control works, but it’s tedious having to use it to flick through the onscreen dial-pad.

Mobile users can use the KoiMeeter app for iOS and Android to start meetings and accept requests from the KoiBox, or they can bypass the KoiBox entirely and use the app to conduct private meetings amongst themselves.

The KoiBox-100W is an intriguing alternative to the mainstream providers. Once you’ve added the cost of a 4K camera and audio equipment it isn’t much cheaper than a budget video bar, but it’s easy to set up and use, it will appeal to SMBs wanting private videoconferencing services, and the screen-sharing capabilities are a nice bonus.

Qnap KoiBox-100W specifications

Microsoft has announced an overhaul of its Microsoft Teams Rooms licensing, with new pricing to cater to a wider range of business sizes.

In a post on its website, the tech giant stated that from September 1, Teams Rooms will be offered in two tiers, ‘Basic’ and ‘Pro’. Teams Rooms Pro will be priced at $40 per room per month, while Teams Rooms Basic will be offered for free to any customer who has purchased a certified Teams Rooms device.

Teams Rooms is Microsoft’s hardware and managed service solution for Teams, in collaboration with certified providers of video conferencing hardware. It is currently offered at a ‘Standard’ or ‘Premium’ tier, which cost $15 and $50 per month respectively.

Microsoft identifies small and medium businesses (SMB) as the target audience for the Basic tier, which it states includes “scheduling, joining meetings, content sharing, and collaborative whiteboarding, as well as basic security and management capabilities out-of-the-box”.

Basic tier licences each cover one device per room and are only available as part of the setup process for certified devices. Customers are permitted up to 25 Basic tier licences per tenancy. Microsoft argues that this justifies offering the service at no additional cost, as it represents “a great opportunity for upsell to Microsoft Teams Rooms Pro”.

Similarly, Microsoft states within the blog post that providing the Basic tier for free gives its certified Teams Rooms partners a larger and more informed customer base, with increased upsell opportunities.

“The new licensing model will help improve the journey for your SMB customers with a low-friction path to the Teams Rooms solution at no cost (Teams Rooms Basic), increase sales and your monetization opportunities (Teams Rooms Pro), and clarify common questions about the use of user licenses, management value, and enhanced hybrid features.”

Free trials of Teams Rooms Pro are also available, to give customers first-hand experience of its benefits. Commercial customers will be allowed up to a one-month trial period, while charities, educational facilities and government customers will be afforded 60 trials.

In another change, Microsoft will be updating the managed services for Teams Rooms devices. AI-powered platform management will be included with Teams Rooms Pro SKU, with Microsoft promising round-the-clock monitoring, configuration of update rings, diagnostics and in-depth analytics into incidents. In line with this change, Microsoft will be phasing out the use of service engineers for incident management from October 1.

Current Standard and Premium customers will be allowed to use their licences until expiration but will have to choose one of the new SKUs at point of renewal.

One of the most noticeable legacies of the pandemic is the number of hybrid meetings we now have because whether you’re in the office or at home (or somewhere fancier) the average workforce is spread far and wide.

And, by now, most workers will have some idea of what makes a good team meeting: you need crystal-clear sound quality, crisp, high-definition video and that all important feeling of inclusion, particularly for those that are remote. Much of this can depend on the hardware being used, which is why many businesses opt for specialist video-conferencing solutions from companies such as Trust.

Although it may seem like it, video conferencing isn’t a new technology that has come about as a solution to the pandemic or the mass shift to remote working. It was here long before the outbreak of COVID-19, but it just wasn’t as big a priority for businesses or the technology industry until now. Before 2020, business meetings were largely in the office with one or two colleagues dialling in, but now it can sometimes be half or more of the participants are at home. This often means that a percentage of the participants (those at home) can have difficulties seeing and hearing those in the office.

This is why a good video-conferencing unit is a worthwhile investment. The Trust Iris device is affordable and very straightforward to install. Simply plug it into a laptop and you’re ready to host team meetings with up to eight people in one room. It’s also compatible with the most popular video conferencing platforms, including both Zoom and Microsoft Teams. What’s more, its breadth of features can cover any and all headaches that arise with hybrid meetings.

Sounds like trouble

Let’s say you have a meeting of eight people, with four of those in the office and four more dialling in. When remote participants speak, we can usually see them quite clearly, with video conferencing software highlighting their tile. So for the attendees in the meeting room, the talking person will usually be presented on a big screen. The problem is when that is reversed where people in the meeting room talk but exactly who is speaking might not be clear to those who are remote. The view of the meeting room might be too wide or the people in the room are in seats that might be out of view of the camera.

Luckily, some hardware solutions can tackle this problem with specialist software. For instance, the Trust Iris video-conferencing unit has a voice tracking feature where the device will automatically turn towards the speaker and also zoom in on them so remote attendees get a clear and accurate view. Those talking will also benefit from Trust Iris’s ClearSound technology which are algorithm-enhanced speakers optimised for voice audio. AI is used here to hone in on the sound of a voice and automatically filter any vibrations so that every word can be captured and shared as it is spoken. What’s more, built-in microphones will pick up sounds from a range of five metres, which is more than enough for most meeting room sizes – certainly if everyone is sat round a table. And noise-cancelling features will also help to rid the meeting of unwanted external sounds, such as construction works or other employees chatting nearby.

If the meeting room is a little larger than normal, you may need to modify your setup to make sure that everyone can still be heard. For instance, the Iris has an optional extended microphone which slots into the dedicated USB-A port at the back of the camera. This also has a 10-metre cable, to capture sound from that little bit further.

Perfect vision

Video conferencing isn’t just a standard call, however, as the visual is just as important as the audio. If more than three people turn up at the office for the meeting, faces can become a little hard to see. For those at home, it can sometimes be a case that you’re not sure who is taking part or who is even speaking, particularly if there are new people or someone you don’t know that well in the meeting.

Often, a hybrid meeting can feel like you’re simply watching other people meet. Those in the office can chat on the way to the meeting, or strike up a conversation before it starts, leaving you, the worker at home, feeling like a third wheel. One solution here is to allow for some ‘pre-meeting’ chatter with the remote attendees, but of course not all businesses will have the time for banter.

What does help is having that feeling that you’re there in the room, that you can see everyone as clearly as they see you. Most video conferencing software, such as Zoom or Google Meets, will have certain features to enhance images, but these will only do so much. However, the Trust Iris video-conferencing unit has automated technology that can find and zoom in on each speaker as they start to talk. And its 4K ultra HD sensor can cut through blurry and grainy visuals to make the experience crisp and clear for all. There is also a handy remote to manually zoom, or pan and tilt the camera view.

The main goal of these kinds of technology is to boost participation. Meetings are still going to happen and hybrid ones can sometimes neglect some participants or make them feel like non-important extras on the call. Being able to see and hear everyone as clearly as one would in a physical meeting is finally becoming a reality for virtual gatherings.

Fortunately, video-conferencing solutions are no longer expensive or restricted to one room, while requiring an IT specialist on hand at all times for setup or troubleshooting. Trust Iris is a plug-and-play, affordable unit that can turn any room, huddle area or breakout room into a fully fledged video-conferencing suite. When colleagues are in the same office and connecting with those that are remote, the Iris’s wide 120 angle lens means that they don’t have to huddle around one laptop webcam in order to be visible. Everyone can be clearly seen while sitting a safe distance apart and with ClearSound technology, everyone can be heard.

With devices like Trust Iris, any location can quickly and easily be turned into a space fit for reliable and valuable interaction with colleagues based anywhere in the world.

Learn more about Trust Iris

Barclays and Microsoft have announced a multi-year agreement that sees the Redmond giant’s Teams platform become the bank’s collaboration tool of choice.

Microsoft Teams will power collaboration between the firm’s 120k staff and service partners, making it one of the largest deployments of the platform in the financial services industry.

The move will streamline Barclay’s existing communications and collaboration solutions, with Teams replacing several point solutions previously in place across the business.

The bank has worked closely with Microsoft to develop a deployment plan across the company, which includes enhancing the data retention, search and retrieval capabilities available with Microsoft Purview, Microsoft’s unified data governance solution for managing software-as-a-service (SaaS) data.

“Modern technology is essential to enabling our employees to deliver the highest level of service to our customers in a way that is resilient and sustainable,” commented Craig Bright, global chief information officer, Barclays.

“Microsoft Teams gives us an end-to-end collaboration platform that helps us connect our colleagues and enhance our business capabilities.”

Microsoft has been beefing up its Teams platform in recent months, introducing several enhancements that include call quality improvements such as echo cancellation and audio adjusting for poor acoustic environments.

The Redmond firm has also tweaked the platform so that it uses 50% less power than when it first launched, meaning video calls and meetings are now considerably more cost effective for businesses.

In its latest announcement, Microsoft revealed that Barclays was able to deploy Teams globally “within months”, with the impact immediately enabling greater collaboration and communication within teams, with the bonus of reduced email traffic.

“Over the past two years, digital collaboration has become central to how work gets done,” said Rajesh Jha, executive vice president, Experiences & Devices, Microsoft.

“Barclays is leading the way for the financial services industry globally, by giving its employees modern communication and collaboration tools that enable them to connect without friction.”

When the IT Pro team went into lockdown, way back in March 2020, we began reviewing some of the services that enabled us to work remotely. We dived deeply into Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Slack and even Skype. I, myself, went head first into the world of Google Hangouts, the tech giant’s main video conferencing app, at the time.

I liked Hangouts. To be honest, it was all I’d known until Zoom went mainstream. I used it for work and family lockdown quizzes (oh, God, remember those?). I wrote a fairly decent review and a few days after its publication, Google announced Hangouts was to be killed off. Typical.

‘Killed by Google’ is a phrase the company reportedly hates, but it has that very reputation for good reason (Google+ anyone?). However, Hangouts wasn’t wholly getting binned as its capabilities were actually being integrated into Google Chat.

Is this a way for Google to avoid the ‘Killed by’ label? Probably not. Instead, it's actually more about condensing Workspace, the company’s productivity suite formerly known as G Suite, into a less bloated platform.

That, in itself, though, is part of a wider trend to make these cloud-based business apps more holistic, to the point that they no longer need to integrate with other providers: I’m talking here about the new age of vendor lock-in.

It’s a trend we can also see in the metaverse, with each business essentially creating their own virtual realm from scratch.

Hangouts is still there, of course, quite literally hanging out, waiting for its scheduled death in November. And yet, Google is still moving things around, mixing apps together in a bid to find the right balance. The latest change is adding the capabilities of Meet to the Duo app, which will also be rebranded to ‘Meet’. But there’s an odd twist, as, at the same time, the original Google Meet app is still going to be around. Yes, it's all very confusing and needlessly complicated.

Eventually, it should all make sense. Duo is an app for making one-to-one calls and Meet is a pure video conferencing platform, so adding them together is a no-brainer. It’s just a bit of a mess in the short term where you’ll have two Meet apps on your desktop. Users that have Duo already installed won’t necessarily have to do anything; the features for Meet have already begun rolling out to Duo and the app icon will change (to Meet) in the coming months. What’s more, anyone who downloads Meet from September will have the combined Duo-Meet version.

You can still use the original Meet app, but enjoy that while you can as it’s clearly headed for the end. Again, Google has managed to avoid the whole ‘killed by Google’ tag here by not technically killing anything as Duo and Meet are simply merging - all that will be lost is the name Duo. When the time comes, Google will prompt users to migrate over, although a specific date hasn’t been disclosed as yet.

These types of tweaks are likely to keep coming as we further navigate the world of hybrid work. To be fair, the way our cloud services look and function has drastically changed since 2020. G Suite is now ‘Workspace’, Gmail is now a hub for more than just email and Office 365 works more like Workspace.

The sudden popularity of video conferencing and collaboration platforms like Zoom and Slack can sort of be blamed here. Their rapid rise almost forced the likes of Google and Microsoft to reinvest in their business apps. Slack, indeed, will have you know that Microsoft Teams is nothing but a poor imitation of its own product. Slack, however, which was taken over by Salesforce is, itself, now trying to position itself as a ‘digital HQ’, a one-stop shop for all you need, with mini video conferencing capabilities and email-like external chat functions.

Slack and Zoom was once a popular pairing for smaller businesses, but the latter is slowly adding Slack-like chat functions. It recently announced Zoom One, a set of business and enterprise tiers that offer more than just video conferencing services. Again, it's about keeping users in one place, under one umbrella. There’s nothing very collaborative about that, now, is there?

Shenzhen-based Obsbot describes the Tiny 4K as an “AI-powered PTZ 4K webcam”, and unusually, it actually delivers on the AI promise. Combined with the pan, tilt and zoom features that PTZ is short for, it removes many annoyances associated with video calls.

Take something as simple as your position within the frame. Similarly to Apple’s Center Stage feature, the Tiny 4K is clever enough to follow you as you move around. It doesn’t do it using digital zoom, but by rotating itself on its gimbal so that you can still enjoy a crisp 4K resolution. The only time you lose that is if you zoom in, as this is a digital effect, not an optical one.

You can also set a zoom preset that means – with a gesture – you can tell the camera to crop to your head and shoulders during a call. Repeat the gesture and it cancels the zoom and returns to the full view. We found it works best when there’s a relatively clear background behind your hand, and it may take a few practice goes before it becomes second nature, but it’s a nice feature. And if for some reason it doesn’t work, you can jump into the app to manually change the zoom (and pan and tilt).

This would all be for nought if the image quality was mediocre, but the Tiny 4K produces a well-balanced and detailed image. There’s little noise, even in low light, and the colours are excellent. The auto focus works well – if you hold something up to the camera, say – and while we’re not wholly convinced by the HDR feature, it gives a lift in tougher lighting conditions.

Obsbot builds a dual microphone into the base of the camera, which will cut out some background noise through, you guessed it, AI. And one of the nicest features is its privacy mode, where the camera points directly downwards on command.

There are a couple of rough edges. The software is cluttered with options once you head into the settings, and could prove confusing at first glance. The unit is also best attached to a monitor rather than a laptop, because the stand is only properly secure once you remove a tape over the adhesive.

Again, though, Obsbot shows its smarts by using a magnetic base. So you can permanently attach the stand to your monitor, and then temporarily remove the Tiny 4K to sit in a freeform position on your desk, say. Or attach it to a tripod using the screw slot on its underside. In fact, the only real downside to this webcam is its price, which is sturdy at almost £250. You can save around £100 by choosing the 1080p version instead, but that will lead to blurrier zoomed-in images. Personally though, we would advise swallowing the extra cost.

Obsbot Tiny 4K specifications

Huddles, town halls, company-wide meetings – whatever you choose to call them, these events serve several vital purposes in the functioning of a successful business. A huddle is the opportunity for business leaders to speak directly to their employees, for teams and individuals throughout the organisation to explain their part in the overall working of the company and to share their successes, and to make your workforce feel like a united entity pulling towards a common goal.

That final point is of particular importance in the face of our new hybrid working models. The shift to a mix of remote and in-office working has brought many benefits to business, allowing some of the gains of lockdowns in 2020 and 2021 to be retained, as well as opening up recruitment pools beyond the local area, so that talent can be employed from anywhere in the world. But at the same time, remote working can risk leaving employees feeling cut off from their colleagues and less a part of the company than they would if they were visiting a physical office every day as most of us did in the pre-COVID era.

Another challenge posed by hybrid working is that it is much harder – and in some circumstances almost impossible – to gather your workforce together in one physical space for a company-wide meeting. This results in something of a paradox – huddles are a powerful tool in fostering a sense of collaboration and inclusion among employees, but remote workers who need this the most are the ones that cannot be physically present to benefit from it.

Of course, as hybrid working has taught us, being physically present in a space is not the be all and end all of a rewarding and successful job. There are technologies that can be used to make sure that employees get the most out of company huddles so that they feel part of the event, and that they are being spoken to and heard just as much as the rest of their colleagues.

A level playing field

The challenge of hybrid huddles is that you need to optimise for both in-person and remote attendees so that one group isn’t prioritised over the other. Remote workers shouldn’t be made to feel that they are simply detached observers watching from afar but not truly being engaged with. On the other hand, you don’t want your technological setup to create a stilted and static experience that puts a barrier between the speaker and the audience in the room.

Speakers need to be able to move freely and be expressive while still being heard by remote attendees. There are various options to consider. Hand-held microphones can be passed between speakers and attendees who have questions, or static arrays can be installed on walls and ceilings to pick up everything the speaker says while remaining unobtrusive in the space itself. Mixing devices and programmes can filter out background noise and control levels so that those listening in remotely receive clear sound and aren’t left scratching their heads.

A quality image is just as important as sound in making sure that remote attendees can see what is happening and feel part of the event. Cameras should be set up to view the speaker, and you might also want to consider having a separate webcam so that remote workers can also see when someone is asking a question.

But it isn’t as simple as pointing a webcam in one direction. Set a standard camera too close, and the speaker is apt to wander in and out of view. But set it too far away, and they will look indistinct and viewers attending remotely will struggle to tell who they are and what is going on.

Smart PTZ (pan-tilt-zoom) cameras can make all the difference, automatically following the speaker and zooming in so that they remain centred and visible at all times without having to be viewed from too far away. For instance, the OBSBOT Tiny 4K includes AI-tracking with auto-framing, combining a two axis gimbal with a deep learning neural network algorithm to accurately and fluently track and centre the target. It includes customised tracking modes to make sure that the webcam is set up correctly for the particular space. Just plug the Tiny 4K into a computer and it’s ready to use.

Of course, picture quality is of high importance too. The Tiny 4K features a 1⁄2.8’’ Sony Sensor with a 4K lens for a crystal-clear image that helps remote attendees to feel like they’re in the room, and HDR to even out light levels so that the image isn’t overexposed or obscured by low light.

In larger spaces cameras and microphones may be just as essential for in-person attendees, as well as projectors and speakers so that those sitting further back can see and hear what is going on. This setup can also allow remote participants to be heard and seen when they come to ask questions, reinforcing their inclusion in the huddle.

With the right technology and a carefully considered setup, you can create huddles that work for everyone in your hybrid workforce, and achieve their goal of uniting your business.

To learn more about OBSBOT Tiny 4K AI-Powered PTZ 4K Webcam, click here

From 7 to 17 July, you can receive up to 30% off the entire OBSBOT product line, including the Tiny 4K, on Amazon

They say necessity is the mother of invention, and this almost unprecedented device - containing a combined webcam, microphone array, speaker and light - is the living proof. As the way we work has changed since 2020, companies have had to adapt to the new reality. Anker, perhaps better known for their high end cables and chargers, has expanded its ‘Ankerwork’ suite of office products with a well thought out desk companion that solves a wealth of needs for a single price tag.

Ankerwork B600 Video Bar review: Design

The B600 certainly isn’t a small device. It’s around twice the size of a standard webcam, meaning that if you’re using a laptop, you’ll probably opt to have it freestanding or threaded onto a desk mount, as it took a certain amount of skill to get it to sit comfortably even on a 27in monitor. There’s a camera cover for complete privacy, which doubles as a housing for the lighting; a good example of the intelligent design on show here.

At the rear are two USB-C ports, one for power and one to connect to your machine. It’s worth mentioning at this point that the B600 is a thirsty beast and requires both to be used - even a slightly lower current is enough to throw this hungry device offline. That leads nicely into the only real niggle we have - the supplied USB-C power supply has a cable so short it barely reaches the desk, so if you don’t like having 4-gang extensions on your desk, you might want to invest in an alternative of your own. In the great scheme of things, it’s a minor niggle, but at best, it’s a confusing choice.

Also on the rear of the unit is a single USB-A port. This is designed to accommodate the dongle supplied with Ankerwork’s wireless headsets, if you’d prefer a private conversation rather than using the built-in pair of 2W speakers.

Ankerwork B600 Video Bar review: Setup

Ankerwork products can all be controlled from a single app, available for Windows and MacOS, as well as Android and iOS - which is great news for Chromebook and iPad users. The best way to describe the app is “dynamic” in that it morphs its look and options, depending on which combination of products you have connected. Simply install the software, open it, tell it to add a product and it will do the rest - it really is that simple.

Although the B600 is compatible with any software where you’d usually use a webcam, speakers and microphones, there are some overriding settings available in the app which are worth taking ten minutes to configure. These include whether it should adjust the luminosity of the light to compensate for ambient light levels, and whether to ‘follow’ you with the face tracking feature. There’s also a wealth of options to adjust tint, contrast and other aspects of picture quality, but we found the defaults were more than ample. Once all this is done, you can fire up your chosen videoconferencing app, and get chatting.

Ankerwork B600 Video Bar review: Performance

Anker has never been a company to do “just enough”, and the full 1080p webcam in the B600 produces images that we’d go so far as to say are ‘broadcast quality’. We were amazed with the crisp, clean picture, excellent colour reproduction and natural looking facial reproduction thanks to the built-in light bar, even in otherwise low light.

This can all be set to auto-adjust using Anker’s MagicSight algorithm. The facial recognition software also ensures you’re always centred in the frame; some video-conferencing products (such as Meta’s Portal TV, for example) tend to move unnecessarily, but the B600 manages to keep itself still unless its absolutely needed. In a huddle room scenario with multiple subjects, however, it can get a little confused, so in these instances it’s preferable to turn this feature off in favour of a wide angle of the room.

The four-mic array provides excellent reproduction and thanks to the VoiceRadar feature, the B600 can pick out your voice, while simultaneously cancelling out background noise - great for homeworkers who want to block the sound of kids, vacuum cleaners or roadworks. Meanwhile, just as the camera follows your face, the mic array can still pick out your voice from up to 2m away, if you have to run to grab a pen and paper.

The two side-embedded 2W speakers pack the kind of punch that means they’re great for listening to music through, as well as being more than sufficient to be able to hear voices in an online meeting, though there remains the option to pair with a compatible Ankerwork headset for a more personal, hands-free experience. As an aside, the Ankerwork headsets come with free AI-powered transcription, making them well worth a look too.

Ankerwork B600 Video Bar review: Verdict

As we enter the post-pandemic way of working, it’s a credit to Anker that they’ve produced what is essentially an entirely new product category, and got it more-or-less right first time. At £220, it’s an investment, but that’s exactly the point - this is a product that does away with several others, and manages to outperform all of them. It’s a product that you’ll be using for years to come, and the only challenge left for Anker is how its successor will manage to top it.

Even the accompanying Ankerwork software is a significant cut above average, and actually becomes more useful as you add more products from the range. It’s a neat trick, and it’s an even neater one to design a product that’s equally at home in a bedroom office or a corporate boardroom. For this reason, we have no hesitation in giving it our full recommendation.

Ankerwork B600 Video Bar specifications

Small offices and mobile workers that want a videoconferencing (VC) solution that puts everyone in shot will love Maxhub’s UC M40. This slim metal baton sports a 5-megapixel 4K camera with four lenses arranged around the top to deliver a full 360-degree panoramic field of view (FoV).

Measuring 68mm on each side and only 182mm tall, the UC M40 is one of the smallest panoramic cameras we’ve seen, and its 450g weight makes it highly portable. This compactness doesn’t come at the cost of features, either, as the UC M40 is very well endowed.

Inside is an array of four omnidirectional mics used for active speaker tracking. You can see these in action as the upper surface has a circular blue indicator that shows where it has detected a voice.

There’s much more to this camera than an all-round view, however. In Standalone mode its smart image manipulation offers a choice of seven different visual presentations. You don’t need to load any software, and you can swap between each view using the mode button located below the front lens.

The first two views link up with the camera’s active speaker tracking. The Discussion mode places a panoramic view along the bottom with views of the two most recent speakers above, while the Beamforming mode changes the two upper windows to a single 180-degree view that focuses on the current speaker.

The five other modes don’t use speaker tracking and offer a choice of single panoramic or split screen with different compositions of the four available views. The camera uses Maxhub’s “hyperstitching” technology to bring the lens images together and does a fine job. The only way we could see the joins was by moving our hand all the way around the camera body.

You can have even more fun by swapping to the Professional mode and using Maxhub’s PanoCAM Studio software to create up to seven custom views. These range from a Compose mode that combines a panorama with six close-up views of participants to a Presentation mode that can be used to show a whiteboard along with the active speaker.

In Standalone mode, we connected the camera’s USB port to a Windows 10 host computer and added power. You can use just a USB connection, but this only provides enough juice for the camera and will disable audio.

The UC M40 is UVC-compliant so will work with any VC app that supports this. We had no problems using it with Microsoft Teams, Zoom, Skype and Cisco WebEx. Video quality at 1080p is very good, with a sharp focus and good colour balance and, although the internal 3W speaker is small, we could clearly hear remote participants in our huddle room.

We found the Discussion and Beamforming modes worked perfectly, with the tracking views snapping instantly to the active speaker the moment they started talking. We were also impressed with the mic array’s ability to identify human voices and reject other sounds such as hand clapping, paper rustling and keyboard clatter.

The PanoCAM Studio software is equally easy to use and we had no problems designing a range of custom views. In Presentation mode, we could draw a box in the main panoramic view that we wanted the camera to focus on and activate facial tracking so it followed the presenter as they moved around.

To use the custom views in your preferred VC app, you’ll have to leave the software running in the background and select its Studio Camera device as the video source. It worked fine with Microsoft Teams, and a feature we really liked was the ability to swap between any of the six custom views during meetings.

Maxhub’s innovative UC M40 offers a refreshingly new perspective on video meetings. Easy to set up and use, it has a view for every occasion, good video quality, and is an affordable choice for small businesses.

Maxhub UC M40 specifications

Slack has added new 'co-working' tools to its Huddles service which includes video and multi-person screen sharing functions.

The new capabilities revealed at Slack Frontiers on Wednesday are part of the comms platform's "digital HQ" strategy which aims to make Slack a virtual replacement for the office.

Slack Huddles isn't meant to replace video conferencing services like Zoom or Google Hangouts as it caters more toward quick sessions or off-the-cuff meetings of around 10 minutes or so. Specifically, Slack Huddles was developed to re-create the informal discussions colleagues have in offices.

Pushing that further, users will soon be able to see each other as Huddles will have 'lightweight' video which will be accessible with just one click. This will include multi-person screen sharing and capabilities to react to others with drawings and emojis and share documents, links and comments in a thread. What's more, the thread will automatically be saved to the channel so it can be accessed later on.

All Huddles will start as audio-only by default, in a small, minimised screen. One click will launch the video and users can also select blurred or stylised backgrounds.

The screen-sharing features will differ from traditional models as each user on the call can share their screen, simultaneously. This may sound slightly confusing, but as a use case, Slack describes a design session where different participants can pull up their own images at the same time for the rest of the call to view. These can then be worked upon with a live cursor which can be used to emphasise and highlight certain bits of a shared screen, so if something on a design needs to be tweaked, users can draw on the part they want to fix.

All new coworking features will be available to Slack customers - regardless of subscription level - in the autumn and will be available to use with Slack Connect.

The worldwide video conferencing market size is poised to reach 19.73 billion by 2030, according to a new report by Grand View Research.

A compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 12.5% is anticipated for the market between 2022 to 2030, owing to the increased adoption of cloud technologies and Video Conferencing as a Service (VCaaS).

Avaya, Cisco, Huawei, Logitech, Microsoft, Polycom, and Zoom are among the top vendors influencing the video conferencing industry.

“The global outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic forced several organizations to implement remote working, which created a significant demand for video conferencing software and applications such as Google Meet, Zoom, and Microsoft Teams.”

“These applications are now playing a major role in facilitating employee collaboration and accelerating digital transformation,” stated Grand View Research in its report.

Emerging telehealth solutions are also influencing the market. The global healthcare video conferencing solutions market size is slated to reach 114.46 million by 2028. The burgeoning growth is attributable to urbanization and the increased penetration of telemedicine solutions.

The video conferencing market is also ‌experiencing rapid growth in the education sector, with educators increasingly opting for web conferencing, audio conferencing, and instant messaging to deliver notes and stream live conferences.

However, the software segment is ‌projected to register‌ ‌the‌ ‌highest CAGR of over 13.0% over the forecast period, ‌driven by mounting cloud-based subscriptions across several platforms.

Create immersive environments for communications, collaboration, and learning.

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Find out how you streamline ad hoc communication and collaboration to enhance productivity and drive competitive advantage.

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Zoom has unloaded a host of new updates and features that include a virtual whiteboard, gesture recognition and an AI software that analysis calls.

The new features are about Zoom adapting to changing user habits and needs as hybrid and remote workplaces evolve.

Zoom's 'Gesture Recognition' feature is very much in that vein as it takes away clicking and simply allows participants to raise a hand or put thumbs up to deploy use a reaction during a call. It will be limited to two gestures, to begin, and also required client version 5.10.3 or later.

The video conferencing giant has also introduced Zoom Whiteboard, which will be built into the desktop app, Zoom Meetings and Zoom Rooms. There are also plans to add support for Zoom Chat, a service that allows users to add sticky notes and images, as well as save their whiteboard after a meeting has ended. This will be made available on version 5.10.3 or higher, through the Whiteboard tab.

Notification controls have also been improved, with capabilities to turn chat notifications on or off and also a feature to create a central library of polls. Zoom hosts will also have extra controls with a new function to check Breakout Room activity, including screen sharing and audio and video status. What's more, Zoom will also notify users when they enter Breakout Rooms.

There are also updates to Zoom Contact Center, which now allows users to switch on or off automatic call recordings for both in and outbound calls. It also has analytical updates, with adjustable channel flows for chat and SMS. Users can also show videos to customers in Waiting Room.

Audio quality has also been improved, with a cut down on audio delays for Asia-Pacific-based customers. Zoom will also originate 'Call-Me' out calls from data centres in the region.

UCaaS provider GoTo, which was formerly known as LogMeIn, has announced the appointment of channel veteran Michael Day as its new vice president of Partner Sales.

Day will lead the company’s recently announced GoTo Partner Network, which has been designed to include a greater global focus and more ways for its partner ecosystem to gain customers and increase value.

The firm’s current head of the partner programme, Patrick McCue, is moving to the role of vice president of Partner Sales for the LastPass partner programme, which will now operate as a standalone cloud security business.

“As we look towards the future of both GoTo and LastPass it is clear that we need industry experts to lead partner programmes at both businesses,” commented Mike Kohlsdorf, President and CEO of GoTo.

“Today, I’m excited to welcome Michael Day to GoTo. With years of experience in the UCaaS and software space, Michael’s skillset positions him well to continue to grow effective partner programmes for all GoTo products. For the LastPass business, Patrick McCue’s past experience at security companies made him our natural pick to lead the LastPass partner programme.”

Day brings more than 20 years of channel and sales experience to GoTo and spent the last five years at unified communications and collaboration (UCC) provider RingCentral. Before that, the channel veteran spent 13 years at SCRAM Systems, a provider of software solutions for the criminal justice and government industry.

Commenting on his appointment to the new role, Day said he saw a “tremendous opportunity to join the new GoTo”.

“While an established player in the remote workspace, the recent rebrand to GoTo and simplified portfolio of collaboration and remote support tools brings incredible differentiation to a crowded market needing a refresh,” he explained.

“I look forward to working with the team to explore new possibilities to grow our partner programme globally and separate GoTo as the clear leader in the space.”

Zoom has cut the ribbon on its new Zoom Up partner programme, which has been designed to make it simpler for partners to transact and grow their business alongside the communications platform provider.

The firm says its refreshed partner initiative aims to reward businesses for continued investments in Zoom, as well as introduce new ways to leverage the Zoom communications platform.

For the first time, the program is also now offering the resale of Zoom Phone with Zoom calling plans for qualified partners in select countries.

“Our partners are fundamental to our growth and success at Zoom, which is why we are constantly evaluating new ways to improve and offer additional benefits to our partner ecosystem,” commented Laura Padilla, Head of Global Business Development and Channel at Zoom.

Essentially, Zoom Up has been built to provide five key business benefits. The first is the launch of Zoom Phone with native capabilities, which enables qualified partners in select countries to sell the full suite of Zoom Phone licenses with Zoom calling plans. Zoom says this will “open the opportunity for resale partners to easily offer the full Zoom Platform”.

The scheme also serves up a simple, unified framework for an easy-to-follow pathway, as well as incentivises continued growth with a revamped rewards system.

The fourth key benefit centres around expertise and transformation, with the inclusion of new competencies, accreditations, and a clear roadmap for partners to develop their expertise.

Lastly, Zoom Up is serving up additional marketing resources for partners, ranging from the Partner Demand Center for demand generation in any language, to additional marketing development funds for the highest levels of the programme.

“Just as Zoom focuses on delivering happiness to our customers, we strive to deliver partner happiness, which is why I am extremely excited about the introduction of the Zoom Up Partner Programme,” Padilla added.

“The introduction of Zoom Up is the next phase in our continued evolution and demonstrates our commitment to joint success with our partners.”

Microsoft has revealed updates to its Teams, Outlook, and PowerPoint services to tailor them more towards the realities of hybrid and remote work.

The changes are a mix of software updates and new hardware offerings, including new components for its Surface Hub platform.

As COVID plunged the world into remote working during the early months of 2020, Microsoft was one of the first companies to warn that it would fundamentally change the way we work.

Two years later and many of its services have gone through drastic changes to accommodate dispersed workforces and that is continuing with further updates that were revealed on Wednesday.

New Microsoft Teams layouts

One area that has received considerable investment since the start of the pandemic is video conferencing and Microsoft's focus here is to improve the presence of those joining from home.

It has added a new 'Front Row' layout to Teams, which drops the video gallery to the bottom of the screen so that those physically in the office can see their remote colleagues face to face. This was first pitched almost a year as part of the company's vision for the future of meetings.

That is also the case for updates to the companion device feature within 'Teams Rooms'. Microsoft says it has made it an "easier and less distracting" experience for participants using their own devices. It has done this by hiding the user's laptop video feed from the meeting room screen as well as from the gallery of people joining from other companion devices in the room.

There will also be a prompt for users to turn their laptop video on before joining a meeting so that they can be clearly seen by remote participants no matter where they are in the room.

These enhancements will be generally available for Teams Rooms on Windows and Android in the second quarter of 2022, the tech giant said.

Neat.Board, Surface Hub 2 camera

The updates also include new collaboration features for hardware that have been designed for in-office video calls and presentations on Microsoft Teams. Touchscreen displays developed by Neat and Yealink were revealed almost a year ago, but they will now be able to support the shared whiteboard feature in Teams Rooms.

The Neat.Board, for instance, can be mounted to a mobile stand with wheels, enabling it to be positioned anywhere in the room or even to a separate workspace. Both Neat and Yealink touchscreens are currently in the process of being certified for Teams Rooms on Android and will be available in the second quarter of 2022, according to Microsoft.

In addition to the Teams Rooms updates, Microsoft is also launching its first AI-powered camera for the Surface Hub 2. This is a smart camera that supports automatic reframing, a wide field of view, and image correction features that will all improve meetings.

The camera has a 12MP sensor with a 136-degree field of view and will be supported by an algorithm Microsoft has developed that automatically compensates for distortions, tilt, and wide-angle corrections to ensure objects or people stay true to life. This should, in theory, allow the camera to detect everyone in a room so that they're visible during meetings.

Microsoft Outlook and PowerPoint

Another integral part of Microsoft's vision for the future of work is its 'Loop' components feature, which was originally part of its 'Fluid Frameworks' project. These are blocks of Office content that live independently on screen that can be copied, pasted, and shared with other people. The contents of the Loop can be continuously updated after it has been shared. It's been available in Teams since January, but will now be added to Outlook.

Outlook users will also be able to test a new RSVP feature to let others know if they plan on attending meetings in-person, virtually, or not at all. This will begin as a public preview, but only in the web version of Outlook.

And, finally, there are also updates to PowerPoint with new cameo and recording studio features. The former (Cameo) integrates a Microsoft Teams camera into a presentation slide, whereas the recording studio lets users record themselves speaking to any slide. Both will be available in the second quarter of 2022.

Slack has discontinued its services in Russia, following in the footsteps of Apple, Microsoft, and Amazon, Slack has discontinued its services in Russia.

The Salesforce-owned messaging app is excluding Russian users from its platform in accordance with international sanctions levied upon Russia and policies enacted by its parent company following the invasion of Ukraine.

“We do not have a material business in Russia. Through resellers and other channels we have a very small number of Russia-based customers, and we began exiting those relationships last week. Our hearts go out to the people of Ukraine, their loved ones, and all of those affected,” Salesforce announced last week.

Per reports, several Russian organizations lost access to their Slack accounts without warning, rendering any data available for download impossible. That said, the lockout only impacts companies directly sanctioned under the law.

"Slack is required to take action to comply with sanctions regulations in the U.S. and other countries where we operate, including in some circumstances suspending accounts without prior notice, as mandated by law," the company told Axios in a statement.

"We are in contact with affected customers regarding the impact of these actions on their account status, where permitted by law."

Slack won't delete any data belonging to its Russian customers, however, sanctions prevent users from accessing data until after the ban is lifted.

Earlier this month, AMD, Intel, and TSMC blocked chip sales to Russia. Having limited production capacity at home, the move poses a significant threat to Russia’s military computing applications.

The last two years have drastically transformed the way we collaborate with colleagues, clients and stakeholders, for a time reducing the many meetings to video conferencing calls without the option of in-person communication. Some of us will not have set foot in a meeting room since early 2020, but as the working world returns to some semblance of normality, that is beginning to change.

However, the return to our physical meeting spaces does not herald a full-blown resumption of our former practices. The way we work has changed, and our expectations and requirements surrounding collaboration have been drastically altered too. Our meeting spaces will need modernising to ensure that we are properly reaping the benefits of the new world of hybrid working. This poses various challenges, and the way we rebuild and redesign these spaces to meet them will have a great impact on how effective and equitable channel partner business collaborations will be going forward.

The opportunities of hybrid

It’s true that pre-pandemic meeting spaces often included audio- and video-conferencing technologies, which would allow collaboration with people in other office buildings or working from home. However, the quality and user-friendliness of this technology was not always prioritised.

By adopting the right audio and video tools, we can enable real communication, exchange and discussion wherever meeting attendees are based. The new approach to designing meeting rooms must explicitly avoid the accidental creation of hierarchies where those in the office take priority, and instead ensure that remote workers feel heard and involved in all discussions. If we enshrine these ideas in our approach to meeting-space design, we can boost participation, productivity and cohesion among teams and unlock the full value of a dispersed workforce and leverage talent from a far broader pool. Ultimately, a more collaborative and democratic environment will positively impact everyone in the workforce.

The right technology – and the processes in place to use it properly – are key to giving remote workers equal inclusion in the conversation. Having a phone placed in the middle of a huge meeting room table or a distant camera perched in the corner is no longer going to cut it. Instead, we need to adopt high-quality tools and devices that are user-friendly and scalable, to minimise technological issues and downtime and to make this inclusion as frictionless and reliable as possible.

To achieve a meeting space fit for everyone, the priorities of how we design them need to change from the ground up. Decisions based on aesthetics and the comfort of those physically present need to be balanced with an awareness of acoustics and the positioning of technology so that remote attendees can see and be seen, hear and be heard. Bearing these concerns in mind, we are in the position to take full advantage of the benefits of the hybrid working model.

A meeting room fit for everyone

What is clear is that we need to completely reassess how we approach the design of meeting spaces and our common understanding of who they are for. By thinking of them as a blend of physical and virtual spaces, we can begin to reassess the fundamental needs these spaces should meet.

Meeting room design has often leaned towards making spaces as large and open as possible – especially board rooms where the most high-level meetings are likely to take place – with a trend for sleek, flat surfaces that unintentionally serve to reflect and echo sound and make it very difficult for microphones to pick them up effectively. Sound baffles can be used to prevent this, but a reduction in reverberations and echoes can equally be achieved by installing curtains and other soft furnishings that absorb rather than reflect sound.

As we internalise the importance of the meeting room design that serves in-person and remote participants equally, many of these good acoustic choices are likely to become more natural to providers and clients, and a standard part of the design of any of these spaces.

Technology naturally has a major part to play in designing effective meeting spaces. Audio manufacturers offer a variety of microphones that are suited to different spaces depending on their size and layout. For instance, Shure’s Stem Ecosystem features a range of different devices, such as the Stem Table unit. One of these placed in the middle of the table is ideally suited for smaller spaces, while several can be networked together in a larger room. The ceiling-mounted Stem Ceiling microphone is another option for a larger space, with 100 built-in microphones allowing it to pick up audio over a wide footprint. These can be paired with Stem Speakers to create a united system that allows everyone to be heard properly whether they are physically present or dialling in.

Software like Shure’s RoomAdapt can help further by automatically adjusting levels to make sure that everyone can be heard clearly, as well as filtering out unwanted background noise.

The choice and positioning of cameras is also important to ensure that remote attendees can see who is speaking and any important materials being shared in the meeting. Purpose-built cameras may come with various features like intelligent zoom functions, so it’s worth considering which of these are necessary or essential for the space you're designing.

A modern meeting space needs to serve the needs of all attendees, physical and virtual, and there is no one-size-fits-all solution. But with the many tools available, it is possible – and essential – to design a setup that keeps everyone connected.

To learn more, download Channel Pro and Shure’s report Building back better: Optimising meeting spaces in the new working world

Zoom reported impressive earnings for the fourth quarter of 2021 on Monday, but shares of the company fell precipitously following its weak outlook for Q1.

In contrast to the impressive growth the video conferencing firm recorded at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, Zoom's latest earnings pale even as it pursues larger enterprise clients.

Zoom reported a non-GAAP net income per share of $1.29 for Q4 2021. Revenue for the full fiscal year totaled $4,099.9 million, up 55% year over year, while revenue for the fourth quarter amounted to $1,071.4 million, up 21%.

Zoom's board of directors a;sp authorized a program to buy back up to $1 billion of Zoom's outstanding Class A common stock.

Acquisition of new customers and expanding sales across existing customers accounted for the bulk of Zoom’s Q4 revenue. By the end of the quarter, the firm had 2,725 customers contributing over $100,000 in trailing 12-month revenue, up approximately 66% from the previous quarter.

However, enterprise clients take center stage. Zoom served approximately 191,000 enterprise customers at the end of Q4, a 35% year-over-year increase.

For Q1 2023, Zoom expects total revenue to range from $1.07 billion to $1.075 billion. Non-GAAP diluted earnings per share (EPS) are expected to range from 86 to 88 cents with approximately 309 million non-GAAP-weighted average shares outstanding.

For the full fiscal year 2023, total revenue is expected to range between $4.530 billion and $4.550 billion, and non-GAAP income from operations is expected to vary between $1.430 billion and $1.450 billion. A non-GAAP diluted EPS of approximately $3.45 to $3.51 is expected for the entire fiscal year based on approximately 312 million non-GAAP weighted average shares outstanding.

“Looking forward, we are addressing a large opportunity as we expect customers will continue to transform how they work and engage with their customers," said Zoom founder and CEO, Eric S. Yuan. "It is apparent that businesses want a full communications platform that is integrated, secure, and easy to use.

"We are proud to lead the charge of the digital transformation for communications. To sustain and enhance our leadership position, in fiscal year 2023 we plan to build out our platform to further enrich the customer experience with new cloud-based technologies and expand our go-to-market motions, which we believe will enable us to drive future growth.”

Microsoft has said its Teams app now uses 50% less power when running video calls and meetings, thanks to a range of performance improvements it has implemented since 2020.

Microsoft Teams can be especially demanding for users of low-end devices that lack the adequate hardware processing capabilities of more expensive models, Microsoft said, especially with functions like meetings with multiple video streams or sharing one's screen with a group.

Ongoing optimisations to the collaboration platform have improved the experiences for many business users and have led to reduced energy costs, Microsoft said, as it outlined the timeline of its optimisation releases over the past few years.

"One of the challenges brought on by the ubiquity of Teams is the need to create equitable experiences across an incredibly diverse Windows device ecosystem," said Robert Aichner, principal group program manager at Microsoft.

"We’re committed to ensuring great calling and meeting experiences for users on low-end hardware as well as those on high-end workstations and high-resolution monitors. One of the factors we’ve addressed is the difference in power requirements for different customer profiles by ensuring Teams meetings are as energy-efficient as possible, regardless of setup."

Microsoft measured the improvements by creating a testing framework that accounted for different energy-demanding scenarios, such as video meetings and screen sharing, to evaluate the critical processes associated with them to identify optimisation opportunities. Such processes included content capture, encoding, and rendering.

Over the course of 17 months, Microsoft made changes to these processes, starting with video capture optimisation in October 2020, involving a reduction in CPU load when the camera was enabled. This delivered the most significant performance increase, with a 27% drop in power consumption.

Specifically, Microsoft focused on camera optimisations that targeted reduced CPU load in meetings and reducing code complexity in areas such as auto-exposure, auto-white balance, and auto-aliasing.

This was followed by consolidating multiple screen elements for a single render process in February 2021, which brought an additional 14% decrease in power use. Incremental optimisations made over the following year delivered small improvements, slowly building to a peak performance improvement of 52%.

"Similar to our other performance improvement initiatives, these power consumption improvements are subjected to progressive testing to validate the intended benefits across customers and environments," said Aichner. "Additionally, we evaluate each new planned Teams feature to ensure existing processing efficiencies are not compromised.

"So while we continue to launch innovative Teams features to help people connect and collaborate in new ways, we’re also dedicated to making sure these experiences are optimised for all users, regardless of their network and devices."

Microsoft Teams is getting a new LinkedIn integration that will give users access to colleagues' profiles on the professional social networking site.

According to the company's roadmap for Microsoft 365, users will be able to see their colleagues' LinkedIn profiles when in a one-on-one chat.

Microsoft added the feature to the road map last week, and it will enter general availability in March.

This addition follows enhancements to Microsoft Teams in public preview, including a compact chat option that lets users select a view displaying more chat messages and the ability to promote invitees to co-organizers.

Microsoft has been tying Teams more closely to its other products of late. It included tighter Teams integration with Windows 11 by displaying Teams contacts directly on the Windows taskbar for Teams personal users.

LinkedIn isn't the only online service integrating with Teams. In November Microsoft also announced an integration deal with Meta's rival Workplace collaboration service. This will enable the two services exchange content with each other so that Teams video will live stream directly into Workplace groups.

LinkedIn, which Microsoft acquired in 2016, has not always been happy with people accessing its data. hiQ Labs sued the professional social network, forcing it to allow access to its user-generated data. It won on appeal in 2019 but last year the Supreme Court vacated the decision, referring it once again to the ninth circuit court.

Microsoft is also planning some other feature enhancements for Office 365, including easy access to Teams files from its OneDrive storage service. This update, which will be available in April, will see the company add a 'Your Teams' section to OneDrive's 'More Places' page.

The Bose brand is best known for its hi-fi equipment, but its Bose Work family of products is designed to provide fully rounded communications solutions, and the Videobar VB1 is its first all-in-one videconferencing solution.

The design is classy: the VB1 takes the form of a sleek brushed-graphite bar that can be mounted under a meeting room monitor or placed on a desk using the sturdy metal stand included in the kit. Wherever you choose to put it, its 48mm height means it won’t get in the way.

Happily, the low profile doesn’t come at the cost of features. The VB1 sports a central 4K camera and a powerful 20W speaker at each end. Six microphones along its length pick up audio and take care of speaker tracking, while both Gigabit Ethernet and 802.11ac wireless are built in for easy connection to your network. Bluetooth is available for mobile access too, while USB Type-C 3 and HDMI ports handle host computer and meeting-room display connections.

One clever feature of the VB1 is its support for DisplayLink: other VC bars require a HDMI connection to show your meetings on the big screen, but Bose uses a USB cable instead, to ensure compatibility with the widest possible range of devices. We tested this on a Windows 10 PC loaded with the DisplayLink driver and Microsoft DisplayLink Manager app, and found we could easily swap between local and VB1 monitors, or mirror our local screen to the VB1.

Performance was good during meetings. Speaker tracking was suitably quick, with the camera consistently snapping to the correct speaker within about three seconds, and we were impressed with the unit’s ability to transmit clear human voices while excluding other extraneous sounds. We confirmed this for ourselves by setting up a Teams meeting between our VB1 host and another system at the far end of the lab, and making distracting sounds such as hand clapping, paper rustling and keyboard tapping. Through all this the receiving station remained entirely silent, while spoken words were conveyed flawlessly. Indeed, our testers remarked on how clear and natural speech sounded, even when speakers were seated as far as four metres away from the VB1.

Bose’s experience of designing loudspeakers is just as much in evidence. The VB1 projects the best sound quality we’ve heard from a room bar, and it’s great for music too, so you could use it to provide background music for events.

As for video quality, we’ve no complaints. The camera’s wide field of view allows it to work in larger meeting rooms; our only issue is with the digital zoom. This nominally offers 5x magnification, but when the auto-tracking feature zooms in close to a speaker’s face, the image quality conspicuously deteriorates.

PTZ can also be controlled from the supplied remote handset, along with audio volume and Bluetooth controls. Adjusting the camera settings disables the auto-framing feature, but you can instantly turn this back on by hitting the button in the centre.

Bose’s Work Configuration web console provides remote access to all video and audio features, plus a choice of backlight-compensation levels. We particularly like the way the microphone page shows a visualisation of the mic array audio beams, allowing you to change between dynamic and static modes and define custom speaking areas for the room.

Control apps are also offered for Windows, macOS, iOS and Android, which mirror the remote handset controls. And if you have multiple VB1s, you can use the Bose Work Management app for Windows to manage them all from one console.

It’s far from the cheapest VC bar on the market, but Bose’s Videobar VB1 is a class act for huddle spaces and meeting rooms. It’s easy to set up and use, with smart auto-framing features, and its audio quality is a cut above the rest.

Bose Videobar VB1 specifications

Every laptop these days comes with a built-in webcam that can be used for online meetings, but Poly’s Studio P15 is aimed at those that wanting to project a more professional image. It takes many of the features found in Poly’s meeting-room solutions and presents them in a compact bar that clips neatly to the top of your monitor.

Those include a 4K UHD camera with a mechanical privacy shutter, an 8W internal speaker and a beamforming triple-microphone array. The latter is used to provide the same type of speaker-tracking as found in conference-room setups, taking advantage of the camera’s decent 90° field of view and 4x digital zoom, which means the Studio P15 could also work for a small huddle room. With Poly’s custom audio-processing technologies on hand to detect and remove unwanted sounds, background noise shouldn’t be a problem, either.

At the rear you’ll find a connector for the external power supply and a USB Type-C port for connection to a host computer. There are also two USB Type-A ports, which allow the P15 to function as a USB hub.

The installation process is almost nonexistent. The provided clamp affixed the Studio P15 firmly to our 27in Full HD monitor, and as soon as we connected the USB cable to our Windows 10 Pro workstation, the various audiovisual components were picked up and made available to our VC apps. Poly’s free Lens Desktop app for Windows and macOS provides tools for manually configuring the camera’s video and audio feeds, changing the tracking speed and upgrading firmware.

When speaker-tracking is disabled, you can also use the app to control the digital pan, tilt and zoom functions – and to help stave off meeting fatigue the app can remind you at custom intervals to rest your eyes and take hydration breaks. It can even play soothing background soundscapes when not in use.

The desktop app links to the Poly Lens cloud service too, which makes it possible to remotely manage a whole fleet of Studio P15 units. An inventory view shows where in the world each user is located, and camera settings can be remotely configured from the portal.

Image quality is generally good; the focus on the default setting was a little soft for our liking, but the Lens app let us improve matters by dialling up the sharpness setting. The backlight compensation setting works well with moderate light levels, but doesn’t cope with bright sunlight.

The single speaker is fine, too. It delivered clear sound with a warm bass, and we found a volume level of 50% was more than loud enough when we were sitting right in front of the computer. Our remote meeting participants were happy with the microphone quality, reporting that they could hear us clearly even when we wandered around the room.

On that note, we were pleased to see that the speaker-tracking did a good job of framing us at the start of the meeting, and following us around when we felt the need to stretch our legs. If we quickly stepped outside the current field of view, however, it took three or four seconds to work out where we were and snap the view around to the right position.

The Poly Studio P15 is a lot pricier than a consumer webcam, but it offers a high–quality, simple-to-use conferencing solution for home workers and small huddle rooms. Audio quality is good, speaker-tracking works well and the remote management option will be attractive to businesses of all sizes.

Poly Studio P15 specifications

The Maxhub UC S10 is one of the most flexible videconferencing (VC) bars around. It can be connected to a host computer over USB, or function as a fully independent Android-based conferencing system. It also offers wireless screen-sharing services for up to four simultaneous users, and can even serve as a meeting-room wireless hotspot.

Its lightweight design brings together a 4K camera, a single internal speaker, a six-microphone beamforming array and an HDMI port for connecting a display. Automatic framing and audio tracking are also used to zero in on the current speaker using digital PTZ functions.

In appliance mode, the UC S10 is powered by an Android 8-based embedded OS, with a selection of built-in system apps and 16GB of storage for additional packages and downloads. Both 100Mbits/sec Ethernet and 802.11ac Wi-Fi are on hand, along with USB Type-A and Type-C ports for computer connections, input devices and external storage.

We didn’t find the UC S10 the easiest bar to set up, as the package was short on helpful documentation, but you can’t go far wrong. After connecting the power, network and monitor cables, we simply had to wait for a minute for Android to boot up.

We were then presented with Maxhub’s smart user interface on our main display. This offers nice clear icons for loading the Chrome browser, browsing local storage, modifying system settings, upgrading the firmware and, of course, launching various conferencing apps. Maxhub only allows certified packages to run on the appliance, but a good selection of conferencing platforms is supported. Cisco WebEx Meet, Microsoft Teams, RingCentral MVP, Skype, Skype for Business and Zoom can all be installed on demand, so most businesses will find their needs covered.

For getting around the interface a remote handset is included in the box, but we found it easier to plug in a USB keyboard and mouse. Bear in mind that, since there’s only one USB Type-A input port available, you’ll need to use a desktop set with a unified receiver, or plug in a USB hub. The same applies if you want to attach external storage. These aren’t expensive extras, though, especially considering the reasonable cost of the unit itself.

In everyday use the UC S10 is as simple as you could ask for: you just need to choose an app, enter your account details and start your meeting. We tested the Teams, Skype and Zoom apps, and in all cases we found it effortless to set up meetings and invite participants. The camera’s wide 120° field of view allows it to cover a large meeting room, and our remote attendees praised its sharp image and clear sound quality from the mic array.

Auto-tracking is fast, too: it took only around two seconds for the UC S10 to zoom in on the speaker, after which it easily kept up with them as they walked around the meeting room. The single 8W speaker was equally satisfactory – we found 50% volume was quite enough for our 24-square-metre meeting room.

To use the screen-sharing feature you just need to install the companion app on the relevant Windows, macOS, Android or iOS devices, and connect by entering a five-character security code. We had no problem getting Windows and iPad screens to appear side by side on our room monitor, and using the local VC app’s screen-sharing service to present them to all meeting participants.

The Maxhub UC S10 might be a little fiddly out of the box, but once you’ve set it up and connected a keyboard and mouse you’ll have no complaints. It works as either a connected solution or a standalone one, with great video and audio quality, flawless speaker tracking and support for a wide range of popular cloud videoconferencing apps.

Maxhub UC S10 specifications

The Home Office has spent an estimated £37.7 million on over 53,000 new laptops, tablets, and phones in the last three years.

Nearly half of these devices (24,253) were purchased in the last 12 months, in order to aid remote working during the COVID-19 pandemic.

This data, retrieved using a Freedom of Information (FOI) act by the Parliament Street think tank, revealed that the number of purchased devices increased by 148% from September 2019 to September 2020, with an additional 18% increase between September 2020 and September 2021.

Laptops were the most common purchase, having risen from 6,940 in 2019, to 16,889 in 2020 and 16,586 in 2021.

However, mobile phone purchases had the biggest increase over the past three years, up from 1,361 in 2019, to 7,638 in 2021 - marking a 461% increase since the introduction of remote working.

The data also showed that Zoom has remained the video conferencing platform of choice for the UK government since the start of the pandemic, allowing the House of Commons to resume work during lockdown restrictions. This was in spite of the widespread security concerns that prompted the Ministry of Defence (MoD), US Senate, and Germany’s Foreign Office to ban its staff from using Zoom. The Home Office is said to have spent £6,716 on Zoom licenses alone, across 142 unique users.

By contrast, the number of new Office 365 accounts acquired by the Home Office had fallen from 3,804 in 2019 to 513 by 2020, before rising again to 2,415 in 2021. The most recent purchases could have been made in order to avoid the Office 365 price increases that are set to come into effect in March 2022.

The data comes weeks after a similar FOI revealed that HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) had invested in almost 40,000 new devices for its employees since October 2020 in a bid to facilitate hybrid and remote working. This hardware investment was a 366% increase year-on-year, with HMRC purchasing 37,624 laptops, tablets and phones in the last 12 months. However, the cost of this investment wasn’t revealed.

Setting up a videoconferencing system for a medium-sized or large meeting room can be a messy business: often you have to deal with multiple components, connected by a mess of wires draped across the floor. Logitech’s Rally Bar is a far tidier proposition, combining everything into a single unit that can be mounted on a desk or wall.

While the design is appealingly simple, it’s not exactly discreet. The bar measures nearly a whole metre across and weighs a hefty 7kg. The centrepiece of the unit is a big 4K camera offering motorised pan, tilt and zoom (PTZ) functions, and a six-microphone beamforming array extending to either side allows the software to auto-frame active meeting participants.

You’ll also notice a smaller lens beside the main camera; this is Logitech’s AI Viewfinder, which improves framing and focus accuracy, as well as providing people-counting and occupancy analytics, via Logitech’s Sync cloud service. At each end, 8W speakers deliver a big soundscape, while an internal anti-vibration system helps keep things clear even when both sides of the connection are talking at once.

The last notable feature is more low tech, but still welcome: a cable-management panel at the rear protects and organises the power, USB, network and HDMI connectors under a metal cover.

The Rally Bar can be used in two different operating modes. In BYOD mode you connect the Bar via USB to a host computer; this makes the camera, microphones and speakers available to any UVC-compliant videoconferencing app. After cabling a Windows 10 PC to the HDMI-in port, we were immediately able to view its screen on the monitor, and start meetings using the Teams, Skype and Zoom apps installed on the PC.

Alternatively, you can use the bar in appliance mode; this turns it into a standalone VC system built on Logitech’s Android-based CollabOS platform. A selection of certified apps can be run directly on the Rally Bar hardware, including RingCentral Rooms, Microsoft Teams Rooms and Zoom Rooms. We chose Teams from the onscreen wizard, logged in to our account and

were right away presented with the familiar Teams interface, ready to start or join an online meeting.

Video quality is excellent: the large camera delivers superbly sharp images and great colour balance, while Logitech’s RightLight feature does a top-notch job of compensating for brightly lit backgrounds.

The twin speakers deliver a clean sound, too, with enough audio clout to fill our 24-square-metre meeting room at only half volume. Remote participants felt that the microphones delivered clear sound quality; the only disappointment was the slow video tracking speed. This is because the Rally Bar can’t instantly whip the camera around to the active speaker, like a digital PTZ system can. In a socially distanced meeting room with people spread out, we found it could take as long as eight seconds for the Rally Bar to achieve the desired view.

Another slight caveat is that if you want to use the Rally Bar in appliance mode, we’d recommend connecting a USB keyboard and mouse: you can do everything you need to with the supplied Bluetooth remote, but it can feel a bit laborious. Or, you could invest in Logitech’s optional Tap controller panel, which provides a colour touchscreen from which you can set up meetings with a few taps.

If you need a videoconferencing solution that will work for big, busy meetings, the Rally Bar puts everything you need into a single convenient package. Speaker tracking can be slow at times, but video and audio quality are beyond reproach, and the choice of operating modes makes it highly versatile.

Logitech Rally Bar specifications

We’ve all been in situations where we’ve purchased furniture from different shops just to find they don’t quite work together. Perhaps the TV cabinet was bought online while the coffee table was purchased in-store. Despite both sellers claiming their furniture was a particular shade, they don’t quite match. End result? A combo that doesn’t provide the value it should.

For businesses, and particularly smaller ones with fewer than 10 employees, adopting multiple technology solutions from different vendors can generate that same feeling. Despite them all claiming that they’re compatible, the experience isn’t completely seamless, and can cause frequent irritation as well as higher costs. The challenge is only growing too, with solutions increasing in complexity, resulting in many experiencing a lack of coordination, particularly in terms of connectivity, voice, and collaboration.

It’s here where businesses turn to channel partners to streamline the adoption of technology, so they have exactly what they need at a price point that suits them.

The importance of all-IP: resilient connectivity and VoIP

The past 18 months have demonstrated the importance of connectivity and voice capabilities, with workforces requiring the ability to work from anywhere with no reduction in experience.

Connectivity is vital to supporting digital capabilities. The underlying foundation of business operations, strong, reliable connectivity, was seen as the fourth utility and enabled businesses to adopt more digital ways of working and delivering services. However, it’s only one piece of the puzzle.

Businesses also rely on their voice capabilities to provide a first-class service. Yet, many small businesses still use legacy phone lines that require the PSTN. That means phone numbers reach on-premises business phones but nothing beyond that. If employees can’t receive calls when not at their desk, they can’t be truly flexible. What’s more, missed calls can lead to lost sales and unhappy stakeholders.

In other words, even if a small business is operating with adequate connectivity capabilities, without an integrated Voice-over-IP (VoIP) phone system they have only half of what is needed to support a truly hybrid workforce. The answer is a fully combined package that provides everything they need, while stripping away what they don’t. Channel partners hold the key to driving this transformation.

Time to act

The ONS found that 24% of businesses forecast a higher use of remote working in the future. Alongside that, organisations are also facing the closure of traditional copper-based phone lines, with the ISDN and PTSN set to be switched off by December 2025. This combination of factors means that it’s the right time to embrace flexible working.

Over 16 million lines and channels will need to move to digital alternatives as businesses look for new ways to stay connected. For small business owners, this landmark change also represents an opportunity to optimise and simplify their approach. Businesses with 10 employees or fewer operating on single site premises will only require one digital phone line, which enables employees to make and take calls anywhere, at any time, through mobile app or office handsets, all from the same business number. Moreover, the traditional features, including voicemail, call diverting, and out of hours rules are available, regardless of which device is used. Simply put, all this means they require just two solutions for all of their connectivity and voice needs.

There is a significant opportunity emerging for channel partners to enable preparation for the all-IP world, particularly in the micro and small business market. A majority 76.3% of the businesses in this space are single-person organisations, with 95.7% of the market operating with fewer than ten members of staff. This market represents a huge opportunity for partners, meaning that now is the time to forge relationships and promote digital transformation ahead of the scheduled switch-off.

No bells and whistles

Small single-site businesses don’t need solutions to the scale of larger enterprises. Often, they simply seek ‘no bells and whistles’ technology that can handle voice requirements and is supported by a reliable managed network that ensures fast connectivity – it’s channel partners that can provide this powerful and flexible combo that are in the best position to deliver.

A single provider of both has benefits for businesses and channel partners. For businesses, they know they are getting two necessary technologies that work hand-in-hand meaning no annoying incompatibility issues. Dealing with one provider can also often ensure the most cost-effective method of adopting the solutions needed.

For partners, offering such a combo enables them to provide the essentials to operating in the all-IP world and, as customers experience their digital transformation journey, they’re likely to turn to the organisations that provided what they needed at the start. There is an opportunity here to develop new, stronger, and longer lasting relationships. Similarly, dealing with one vendor which can provide both solutions saves partners time which means they can focus on growing their business.

Ultimately, the simple truth is that small businesses will not be able to hit their goals and grow if their technology remains mismatched. What they seek is that feeling you get when your interior design is on point, everything compliments, and you’re completely comfortable with how it looks. Channel partners have the opportunity to provide this by offering combined connectivity and VoIP capabilities in a streamlined way. In turn, this enables them to cater for an under-tapped market, fuelling business growth and lasting relationships.

Gavin Jones is channel sales director at BT Wholesale

Users of Zoom's free tier might start seeing advertisements on the platform as part of a new pilot programme.

The ads will only be used on the browser page displayed when users end a meeting, and will not appear during calls. This will also only be implemented on the basic tier of the service.

Banner ads will appear at the top of the browser screen and there will also be a link that lets users manage cookies.

It marks a significant change from Zoom, which became a household name during the pandemic largely because of its free tier. However, there have been questions about how it would monetise its free users as the world returned to some type of normalcy.

The basic service allows users to host group meetings for up to 40 minutes, but there will potentially be a new restriction on the basic tier, one which Zoom says is a necessary step.

"This change ensures that our free Basic users are able to continue connecting with friends, family, and colleagues with the same robust platform we have always offered," Janine Pelosi, Zoom's chief marketing officer, wrote in a blog post.

Zoom has spent much of 2021 trying to grow beyond a video conferencing platform, investing heavily into hybrid working capabilities, which included a $100 million fund for startups to build applications on the platform.

The company has also been busy with potential acquisitions; it recently announced plans to acquire German machine learning startup Karlsruhe Information Technology Solutions. The firm also attempted to make a multi-billion dollar takeover of customer service software maker Five9. But the deal was called off, reportedly due to Five9 investor concerns, with US regulators also uneasy about the takeover.

For most businesses, the pandemic has been a huge disruption – but some have benefited. Delivery services, online supermarkets and streaming sites have all boomed. Perhaps none has seen such a meteoric rise as Zoom.

Zoom’s growth isn’t simply a case of offering the right service at the right time. There were plenty of online meeting platforms to choose from, including 8x8, Cisco Webex and Microsoft Teams, but Zoom was the one that broke out of the business realm to facilitate remote pub quizzes, online fitness classes and virtual family get-togethers.

A key reason is ease of use. Zoom made it supremely easy to invite non-subscribers into your meetings, and for those people to join. In the first half of 2020, as its name became synonymous with videoconferencing, it became an obvious default option for businesses seeking a reliable, familiar way for employees to communicate during lockdown.

Now, although pandemic restrictions are finally easing, many organisations intend to allow employees to keep working from home, at least part of the time. And for businesses that settled on Zoom – or some other service – at the start of the pandemic, that raises an important question. Is the service still the right solution for an era where video calls are not a stopgap solution but an integral, ongoing part of your working practices?

As Stefan Walther, CEO of communications solution provider 3CX points out, the downsides of Zoom are starting to become apparent. “A lot of people don’t need the extent of the feature set,” Walther told PC Pro. “It’s a great platform; it works very well, but it comes with a hefty price tag, per-user licences with a lot of add-ons, and a quite expensive dial-in feature.”

It’s time to explore your alternatives – and one you might not have considered is hosting your own videoconferencing service.

Free and easy

You don’t necessarily need to pay for fully functional conferencing software. Jitsi is a complete free-to-use open-source option that includes end-to-end encryption and integration with Google, Microsoft products and Slack. First appearing under the name SIP communicator in the early 2000s, it’s now run by communications specialist 8x8, which supports the ongoing development of Jitsi alongside its commercial hosted videoconferencing solution.

To get started with Jitsi, you just need something to run the back-end on. Server code for Debian/Ubuntu and Docker can be downloaded for free, along with a range of support packages on GitHub, plus Chrome extensions, iOS and Android apps. Jitsi rooms can be embedded in your own website, and there’s a hosted web front-end at meet.jit.si for anyone who doesn’t want to host it themselves.

If you’re wondering whether Jitsi is good enough for your company, be reassured that some big names rely on it – including Wikimedia, which hosts its own public portal. In choosing a video platform, the organisation said it found that, for meetings of 10-15 participants, Jitsi’s performance was “subjectively on par with Google Meet and Zoom”.

Indeed, the developer says the platform is suitable for hosting unlimited free meetings with up to 100 simultaneous participants – although if you need a bigger capacity, or advanced features such as closed captioning, moderation and analytics, it recommends you step up to the paid-for 8x8 Meet service.

While Jitsi can be appealing for certain scenarios, it’s not your only free option. Google Hangouts, Cisco Webex and others allow free meetings for limited numbers of participants or limited times; 3CX only starts charging for its hosted conferencing solution after the first year’s use.

Web conferencing for education

Another free, open-source option is BigBlueButton. It’s a popular choice in education settings: having emerged from the Technology Innovation Management program at Canada’s Carleton University, it’s now supported by more than three quarters of the worldwide market for learning management systems (LMSes).

BigBlueButton is straightforward to deploy. The server runs happily on 64-bit Ubuntu 18.04 inside a Docker container, and it uses no client software at all, relying instead on native browser features. This makes it ideal for home-teaching environments, but also for businesses seeking an easy way to ensure that employees can stay in touch, regardless of what device they’re using or where.

As you’d expect, some of BigBlueButton’s features have a distinctly educational flavour. It supports online whiteboards and allows hosts to pick a random user to answer questions. Like many videoconferencing platforms, it allows the participants to raise a digital hand to ask a question or offer a response, and the host can click to lower all raised hands at once.

However, BigBlueButton sports a range of business staples, such as document sharing and breakout rooms, along with screen sharing and integration with CMS software as well as LMS tools.

Reasons to run your own server

Installing and managing your own videoconferencing solution is more complex than opting for a ready-made alternative, but it has benefits. Businesses and educational establishments can more finely tune their spending and back-end management, as well as gain greater control over add-ons and the location of data.

With third-party services, this type of control varies considerably between the different providers. Zoom account owners and administrators can customise which data centre regions they use for hosting real-time meetings and webinar data, although the default is locked to the region in which your account was originally provisioned.

With 3CX there’s more flexibility. CEO Stefan Walther told us that, on his company’s platform, “you’re always 100% in charge of your location, your data and the people you invite”. There’s no need to install a dedicated app if you’re happy to host meetings in the browser, and British users’ data will stay within the UK while European user data resides within the EU.

Skype for Business is another service that supports a self-hosted back end; however, owner Microsoft is currently encouraging customers to ditch Skype and move onto Teams instead, which resides wholly on Microsoft’s own servers.

Another factor to consider is the breadth of services you require. Buy into 3CX’s integrated communications service and you’re getting more than just a videoconferencing solution: it’s a fully featured PBX with a lot of extras, including VoIP for regular phone calling, messaging and presence tools, with support for both software clients and physical phones. Skype for Business has a similarly wide-ranging feature set. Having all of this in one place can help productivity, as employees don’t need to mess about switching between multiple tools, but smaller businesses often won’t need to go beyond video, group chat and messaging.

Managing your own service – even if it’s not hosted on your own hardware but cloud services such as Azure or AWS – means that you’re free to switch providers when you choose, or even migrate to an alternative videoconferencing platform entirely. Should you instead choose to roll hosting and app provision into a single payment, you don’t have this flexibility: there might be a minimum lock-in, and even if you migrate because your current provider no longer meets your requirements, there may be residual bills to be paid.

Support and hosting

While features are an important consideration when choosing a conferencing platform, another critical issue is support. A communications server is a key piece of business infrastructure, and you’ll need the expertise to keep it running. In many instances – but by no means all – a charged-for service will often be easier to get up and running more quickly. Likewise, less tech-savvy end users may find it easier to work on the move if they can do so using apps, rather than a mobile browser.

Some services have quick setup wizards for easy deployment, but others expect a significant level of technical know-how on the part of administrators, which may make them an impractical choice for smaller organisations, at least as far as self-hosting is concerned. Even for the larger enterprise, an option that requires constant monitoring could justify adding one to the head count which, over the course of a year, could end up costing just as much as opting for a provider-hosted alternative.

At the same time, depending on which path you choose, you may also have limited recourse to external support. Jitsi, for example, warns that “neither the immediate Jitsi team or 8x8 provide commercial support for Jitsi. Jitsi does enjoy a large developer community with many development shops and individuals that provide support and commercial development services. If you need help, we recommend you do a search or post a request on our Community Forum.” It’s better than nothing, but you might have trouble convincing the board that this is a viable solution.

You’ll need suitable server hardware too. Thankfully, this isn’t a big ask: most services don’t need a ton of resources and will run in a container or virtual machine. Alternatively, you can use a very lightweight dedicated system; Jitsi and 3CX can both be installed on Raspberry Pi devices, for a terrifically cheap one-box solution.

TrueConf is another commercial service that supports the Raspberry Pi – and even allows you to download a ready-made Linux-based image that’s preinstalled with the conferencing software and all necessary documentation.

Redundancy

Running an on-site videoconferencing solution can cut ongoing costs, but it risks creating a single point of failure if your local infrastructure goes down. For this reason, even if you’re happy to own and manage your own communications services, it can make sense to let someone else host the server: cloud-based services should have contingencies for outages and multiple lines with automatic failover.

Many of the solutions discussed here can be hosted on the Azure, AWS or Google Cloud platforms. Amazon’s own Chime communications service, which runs on AWS, goes one step further, offering an SDK that developers can use to integrate its features into their own web or mobile applications, including SIP trunking, chat, collaboration and screen sharing.

Zoom out?

If you’ve only ever thought of videoconferencing as a closed, third-party service, the potential of setting up and operating your own services can be liberating – and economical. However, it also means taking on responsibilities – for installation, for maintenance, and possibly for loss of business if your system goes down.

Taking a cloud-hosted approach reduces that risk, but brings ongoing connectivity and capacity costs to consider, even if the software you’re running is itself free. And if you opt for a system without professional support then a misconfiguration or corrupted upgrade could also prove costly in engineer hours and lost productivity.

We’d recommend therefore that you don’t rush to ditch your current conferencing service. Today’s crop of commercial systems are robust, well-supported and easy to use – and often easier to roll out within an organisation than a self-managed solution.

Rather, the point is this: in past years, online videoconferencing might have seemed like a luxury or a gimmick. That’s no longer the case. Videoconferencing is right at the heart of business, and likely to remain there for a long time to come. It’s time to take a fresh look at your needs, and weigh up whether the time is right to take these crucial services into your own hands.

This article originally appeared in issue 21 of IT Pro 20/20, available here. To sign up to receive each new issue in your inbox, click here

COVID-19 has created an unprecedented shift in the way we work, forcing millions to leave the workplace behind in favour of cobbled together home office spaces and virtual meetings. While this transition was disruptive at first, Ernst & Young research reveals nine in ten employees want the flexibility it’s brought to continue post-pandemic. This has led many organisations to embrace a hybrid approach, whereby employees split their time between home and the workplace.

It’s clear, however, that offices need to adapt as people prepare to return. As a result of remote working, employees have enjoyed clear productivity benefits fuelled by technologies such as video conferencing and cloud-based collaboration software. Many will also fear a return to twice-daily commutes and in-person meetings could cause them to feel burned out – so solutions will need to be employed to ensure employees don’t resent returning to the office.

One way to project what the office of the future will look like is to understand people’s remote work experiences over the last 18 months. According to Hyperoptic, the future of the workplace is technology-driven, with nearly two thirds of Brits (59%) saying they’d like to see new technologies introduced into their offices within the next 12 months. More specifically, 20% are calling for more Internet of Things (IoT) tech, 14% for 3D printing and 13% for virtual reality (VR) teleconferencing devices.

Next-gen comms

Zoom and Microsoft Teams enjoyed unparalleled success during the pandemic and quickly became household names. Employees, however, are beginning to tire of these tools, with Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella even warning of the risk of video call ‘fatigue’ caused by back-to-back meetings. To combat this growing issue, businesses need conferencing tools that better engage their hybrid workforce, according to Dennis Shafranik, a partner at investment firm Concentric.

“Zoom-esque solutions are still not that great or engaging, are tiring for people to use, and don’t translate context or emotions.This makes it tough to build lasting trust through,” Shafranik tells IT Pro. “A cool example of technology that could transform video conferencing is Google’s pilot, Project Starline, which creates a live, 3D video-image of a remote colleague, and comes much closer to recreating a true in-person meeting.

“A variety of telepresence and telerobotics are also being developed, to enable workers to feel physically within a space alongside their colleagues. An example is Double Robotics, which is essentially an iPad on a robotic arm, and too expensive for most businesses at present. However, in the coming years, we’ll see developments to improve these innovations, to make them more affordable and efficient. And there is certainly an opportunity in the market, with organisations looking to boost home productivity now ‘normal’ office life has resumed.”

Narinder Sahota, CTO at IT company Advanced, agrees, adding that attempts to foster a virtual employee experience, be it through Teams or Slack, has rapidly turned into an “app overload nightmare”, with innovative technologies required to make the experience more personal. People, at the moment, are “struggling to distinguish the wood from the trees”.

“As such,” he continues, “we are going to see businesses simplify and personalise technology in the workforce. We’re already seeing Google test its ideas for the office of the future with its prototype hot desk of the future, with desks that adjust to a user’s personal preferences, as well as 3D meetings and inflatable privacy walls made of cellophane.”

Burnout detection

This “app overload nightmare” is also causing employees to burn out; an issue only set to get worse as they return to the workplace. Dr Jamil El Imad, chief scientist at NeuroPro, believes his Dream Machine – a VR system that uses advanced signal processing techniques to monitor the brain and other bio-data – could be the answer. After recognising the potential of VR, he worked on using cloud computing to capture and analyse brain activity. The end result is a machine that simulates the meditation experience.

“I believe the future office’s primary function is to heal and to re-humanise the work environment and entrench a culture of compassion and individuality,” El Imad tells IT Pro. “The deeper we connect not only with our minds but with our hearts too, the more motivated and empowered we become to outperform.”

His Dream Machine reads neural activity in real-time and curates a natural experience that reflects a user’s changing state of mind. It’s a ‘mind gym’, El Imad explains, designed to help us focus in a fun way using VR and neurotechnology. One example involves beaming a user to a tropical island. The mission, in this exercise, is to use the power of the mind to clear the heavy fog on the island; only by concentrating can you clear the fog and enjoy the natural beauty. Essentially, he says, you’re rewarded with a feeling of weightlessness by relaxing and breathing naturally. Following this exercise, users receive a performance score based on how well they concentrated and how relaxed they were.

“We know that wellness, physical and mental, is key to performance and resilience is key to prevention. We also know that mental resilience can be trained so it’s time we pay attention to our mind and lift our mental resilience to help us cope better in this fast changing, uncertain world.”

The ‘deskless’ revolution

Office-based workers aren’t the only ones set to see technology change the way they work. Innovation will also revolutionise so-called ‘deskless’ jobs – such as those held by nurses, cleaners and field engineers – which currently still rely on paper-based checklists and outdated spreadsheets.

Kit Kyte, CEO of workflow software firm Checkit, tells IT Pro that although headlines claim most workers want a split between office and home working, the reality is most employees work neither at an office nor at home. “In fact, 80% of working people are deskless,” he says. “All the talk of hybrid models, video-conferencing and file sharing is lost on that population because they’ve been excluded from the digital conversation. But there’s a groundswell of change. Businesses are starting to recognise the impact deskless workers have on overall productivity, customer experience, safety standards, efficiency and waste reduction. Those that are digitally enabling their deskless workers and connecting disparate data sources will have an advantage in the future.”

Kyte adds we’ll move from command-and-control structures to allowing frontline teams to make data-driven decisions. Staff will also have greater autonomy, instead of following paper-based checklists. Cleaners, for example, won’t slavishly follow hourly schedules, rather they’ll be prompted to attend sites based on footfall data from smart building systems. They’ll no longer work in isolation but as part of a wider digital ecosystem, with innovative businesses combining IoT and automation with digital assistants to eradicate ‘dark operations’.

Steve Black, co-founder and chief strategy officer of Topia, even believes that such technologies could create ‘deskless’ jobs from those currently in office-based roles. “We expect to see a future of work where flexible working takes on an entirely new meaning. In that world expect to see fluid global teams, with rapidly changing footprints and a wider scope of mobility,” he tells IT Pro. “Teams will form around a specific role or task for a company, so for a certain time period individuals will be plugged into an organisation but may then leave once the task is completed and move onto a different team or role.

“Consequently, headquarters will shrink with more satellite offices popping up as they embrace location agnostic teams with sophisticated talent and project management software that will use AI and predictive analytics to proactively identify market opportunities, then assign resources. So rather than flexiwork it will become a flexi-task workforce. Employees will be attracted to a role or assignment because of the fulfilment it offers and the experience and career opportunities it offers. For governments and employers this will mean an even bigger focus on connectivity, local facilities to meet-up and having the right tools to collaborate, but also they will need to understand where we live will be more determined by quality of life than what job opportunities it might offer.”

Cloud-based communications provider Fuze has unveiled fresh enhancements to its unified communications platform, as well as two new solutions for field workers.

Designed to deliver improved communication and collaboration for the hybrid workforce, the additions include new mobile, meetings and admin features - such as background blur, improved security, enhanced voice and video quality, screen share from chat, and more.

There are also new Microsoft Teams integrations, including new flexible direct routing, enhanced access to call history for Fuze users, as well as a new hybrid mode and Fuze Contact Centre agent tab.

Fuze says these enhancements will offer users a seamless end-user experience which will ultimately boost productivity and collaboration across distributed workforces.

“Workers need to have the flexibility to easily communicate and collaborate across devices, with their peers and customers from any location,” commented Rob Scudiere, Fuze president and COO.

“At Fuze, our goal is to meet users where they work and address the communication needs of the modern worker as they continue to evolve, and this platform update is a critical step in doing so during these rapidly changing times.”

Alongside the platform updates, Fuze has also unveiled two new offerings for field workers: Fuze Walkie-Talkie Mode and a RealWear assisted reality solution.

Walkie-Talkie Mode enables users to send instant audio messages and have them automatically played on receipt, creating a hands-free option when working in the field.

Additionally, Fuze’s solution with RealWear’s assisted reality wearable devices offers workers instant hands-free access to meetings, calls and messaging with a heads-up display.

Operating on an Android mobile device, it utilises a front-facing HD camera to capture photos and share live footage with experts to help troubleshoot and resolve tasks in the field. Both solutions are directly accessible via the Fuze mobile application.

“There is a critical need for streamlined communications, and our Walkie-Talkie Mode provides the real-time, hands-free touch points needed to keep workforces connected while staying safe,” Scudiere said.

“As assisted reality continues to drive the future of remote support in the field, our enterprise-ready solution with RealWear will empower the modern industrial worker to better collaborate, be more productive, and operate safely at the pace required to drive positive business results.”

Zoom users will now be able to benefit from a new live transcription tool, the video conferencing giant announced today.

The feature, which automatically generates speaker subtitles on Zoom video meetings or webinars, is now available across all free and paid Zoom Meetings and Zoom Video Webinars accounts.

However, the tool is currently only available in English, the company stated, with plans to expand live transcription to other languages in the future. Zoom also supports third-party captioning services which might offer auto-generated captions in other languages.

Zoom’s live transcription can be enabled by users through the Zoom web portal, or privately requested during a meeting session using the toolbar.

The feature not only has the potential to make communication easier but is also a crucial tool in making video conferencing more accessible to those with hearing impairments.

Zoom Meetings and Chat product marketing manager, Theresa Larkin, said that it’s important that “everyone can successfully connect, communicate, and participate” using the video conferencing platform.

“Without the proper accessibility tools, people with disabilities face tremendous barriers when using video communication solutions. That’s why we are focused on building out a platform that is accessible to everyone, and features such as auto-generated captions are an important part of that mission,” she added.

Zoom has also set its sights on enabling real-time, multi-language translation capabilities for its users in an effort “to deliver happiness to our users and improve meeting productivity”. In June, the company announced the acquisition of Karlsruhe Information Technology Solutions (Kites) – a startup focused on the development of real-time AI-powered translation technologies.

Prior to that, Zoom also unveiled a new range of desk phones fit for the office and the home that includes high-definition video as well as built-in collaboration software. The new offerings, with live transcription being the latest, are part of the company’s efforts to retain users as lockdown restrictions are eased and more workers return to the office.