Meta had their connect event, and while the headline is the 1499 Meta Quest Pro… that’s not where I want to spend my time. Instead, Microsoft and Meta announced a partnership to focus on how people work and game in virtual reality. Microsoft will bring Teams, Office, Windows, and Xbox Cloud Gaming to Meta’s Quest VR headsets. That includes bringing Windows 365 desktops and the Teams experience, including adapting Meta’s avatar system for Teams and Teams getting support within Meta’s Horizon Workrooms.
Microsoft had its own event this week, too –among the announcements is Microsoft Teams Premium, which adds AI-powered smart features. The most significant addition is a new meeting recap feature that essentially adds an AI virtual assistant to each meeting to share highlights and automatically capture all important parts.
If you want to see Microsoft’s commitment to Teams… they have ensured that Cisco’s video conferencing hardware will be updated to let users set Teams as the default. WebEx isn’t going anywhere; Cisco made it clear in the press release.
Also, this week was Google’s Cloud Next event, and here’s what I noticed — Google is investing more in its “smart canvas” concept for Docs, letting users embed information and apps inside a document. It’s also releasing some new Meet features with hybrid work in mind, like automatic meeting transcriptions and an AI-powered framing tool for conference room cameras to keep speakers in focus.
Why do we care?
The investments into the work layer by all three are what I wanted to note here. I’m not a believer in the metaverse right now (and we’ll be breaking this down on Tuesday’s episode of Killing IT), but that’s the red herring. Microsoft Teams and Google Workplace are getting the investments, and there’s a reason. It’s where the importance of the technology stack has moved. And customers want consulting here. They need expertise.