Microsoft has published a report outlining its vision for post-pandemic office life, which places Teams Rooms as the centrepiece and says that 'hybrid work is inevitable'.
The report called 'Hybrid work: A guide for business leaders' emplores businesses leaders to 'design for the people not in the room' and to move everything to the cloud.
Unsurprisingly it puts Microsoft Teams at the heart of this new hyrbid working model, and recommends 3 factors whene designing Teams Rooms; 1) A large screen placement for inclusivity, 2) Camera and microphone placement optimised to identify who is speaking while maintaining eye contact 3) Everyone can see and participate in whiteboarding session.
The larger screens is a key element of this report, as it enables meetings to include face-to-face contact to make the session more natural. It recommends spatial audio so that attendees can see where the sound is coming from. The aim is to make the technology as invisible as possible with microphones hidden in the ceiling.
It includes promises to improve Teams Rooms by including intelligent speakers that let everyone know who said what in the room, as well as making meeting chat, notes, and action items visible next to the content on the screen so that people can engage with all aspects of the meeting.
Microsoft Mesh, its new mixed reality platform, also gets a mention, although details are scarce its says it will 'enable people to interact holographically with others, with true presence and in a natural way'.