Microsoft April Recap

Lots of updates that are relevant to our partners and followers coming out of Microsoft this past month, including some interesting numbers from the Microsoft FY24 Q3 call and a few pivotal changes to Operator Connect, Teams Phone and Microsoft Teams in general, so lets jump right in.  

Key highlights from the Microsoft FY24 third quarter conference call  

A lot of impressive statistics came out of the most recent FY24 call from Microsoft, including: 

• 65% of the Fortune 500 now use Azure OpenAI services, putting Microsoft at the top of the list when it comes to AI innovation. This includes some multi billion-dollar, multi-year commitments coming from Cloud Software Group and the Coca-Cola Company. 
• There has been a ~50% increase in Copilot interactions per user in Microsoft Teams which Microsoft say is “bridging group activity with business process workflows and enterprise knowledge”. Microsoft have added over 150 Copilot capabilities since the beginning of 2024.  
• Most importantly for some Service Providers, in the call Microsoft revealed that there are now over 20 million PSTN enabled Teams users, giving them a nearly 30% bump year-over-year. 
  
  

Microsoft Teams is now unbundled from standard Microsoft licenses 

One big change that happened at Microsoft in April was their announcement that starting April 1st there will be a global change which makes it so that “Office 365 E1/E3/E5 and Microsoft 365 E3/E5 suites with teams [will] no longer [be] sold to new subscribers”.  

Even though these changes have been active across Europe since last year, it may take a little while for businesses to understand the recent Microsoft Teams licensing changes globally, but there are a few outcomes that this change may bring for new subscribers.  

Microsoft have committed to maintaining a 99.999% uptime SLA for Microsoft Teams Phone 

Microsoft have now committed to a financially backed SLA of 99.999% uptime. Where it was previously at a level of ‘four 9’ uptime, that extra decimal point really shows the confidence that Microsoft now have in their Teams Phone ecosystem. This agreement will affect Microsoft Teams Calling Plans, Teams Phone and PSTN audio conferencing.  

New updates to the list of Microsoft approved Operator Connect Carriers 

With the addition of the latest Carriers to the Operator Connect platform, there are now a total of 93 providers spanning 95 countries. This gives businesses even more choice than before as Operator Connect gains more momentum globally.  

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