Tag Archives: microsoft

Tech News : OpenAI And Microsoft

OpenAI and Microsoft have announced that they are extending their partnership to work on more AI research and development.

What Is Open AI? 

OpenAI is a San Franciso based research organisation/capped-profit company that develops and promotes ‘friendly’ AI. Their research focuses on creating and promoting advanced AI technologies (including machine learning, robotics and natural language processing) to ensure that AI systems are safe and aligned with human values. OpenAI are currently in the news as the creators of ChatGPT which is a language model that uses the transformer architecture, a deep learning model, to generate text based on input data, and is based on advanced Natural Language Processing (NLP) and machine learning techniques.

Extend What Partnership?  

OpenAI first partnered with Microsoft in July 2019. The collaboration was aimed at bringing OpenAI’s technologies to Microsoft’s cloud services, allowing customers to build and run AI-powered applications and services.

How The Partnership Has Benefitted Both 

Examples of how the Microsft-OpenAI partnership has benefitted both include:

– Microsoft and OpenAI working on multiple supercomputing systems. For example, the supercomputer systems are powered by Microsoft’s Azure, which has been used to train all OpenAI’s models. These models are now deployed in Microsoft’s Azure to power products like GitHub Copilot, DALL·E 2 and ChatGPT.

– Microsoft being able to build one of the top five publicly disclosed supercomputers in the world in collaboration with (and exclusively for) OpenAI, and hosted in Azure.

– OpenAI’s models being deployed across Microsoft’s consumer and enterprise products and Microsoft introducing new categories of digital experiences built on OpenAI’s technology, e.g. Microsoft’s Azure OpenAI Service. This enables developers to build AI apps through direct access to OpenAI models through Azure.

– Microsoft becoming OpenAI’s exclusive cloud provider with Azure powering all OpenAI workloads across research, products, and API services.

Not Everybody’s Happy With The Capabilities Of New AI Models 

Recent advancements in publicly available AI such as ChatGPT and Generative AI have shaken-up the market and left some companies feeling distinctly unhappy. Generative AI systems can generate new content such as text, images, music, or video based on examples or patterns learned from existing data and recent spats making the news include Stock picture agency Getty Images, for example, commencing legal action in the High Court of Justice in London against Stability AI for allegedly unlawfully copying and processing millions of images covered by copyright to train its software.

In contrast to Getty Images, however, Getty’s competitor in the stock photo market ‘Shutterstock’ has opted to strike a deal in developing OpenAI’s Dall-E 2 AI image-generating platform using Shutterstock libraries to train and feed the algorithm.

What Does This Mean For Your Business? 

Microsoft has realised the value and potential of AI and its partnership with OpenAI has given it a strategic and competitive advantage in areas like supercomputing and the extended partnership will allow it to add value and stay ahead by deploying OpenAI’s models across its consumer and enterprise products. Specifically, Microsoft’s (hybrid) cloud computing platform ‘Azure’ is likely to get a considerable boost with OpenAI’s models. Although OpenAI’s own brand has received a considerable boost over the popularity of ChatGPT, the continued partnership with Microsoft is a way for OpenAI to tie itself in even more closely with a major player, gain massive distribution for its products, and grow its influence and market share in the emerging AI world. This story also shows how AI is a major growth area, and it shows the power of strategic alliances and synergies in gaining dominance quickly in new markets with new technologies. One interesting aspect of this story is how image companies like Shutterstock appear to have realised the need to get on board quickly with AI technologies and could steal a march on larger competitor Getty by doing so.

Tech Tip – Sharing In Microsoft OneDrive

Microsoft’s OneDrive cloud storage system at Onedrive.com allows you to share files and folders with other members of your team, control who has permission to just view or to edit files and folders, and work together on them at the same time. Here’s how it works:

– To share files of folders using a link, login to Onedrive.com and select (by putting a tick next to) the files or folders you’d like to share.

– On the menu top left, click on the ‘Share’ symbol (the arrow in the box). Specify who to send it to in the ‘To: Name, group, or email’ field. Here you can put the email addresses of those you’d like to share the link with.

– Click on the downward arrow to the right of this field and give permission for them to edit the files or just view them and specify any other ‘Link settings’. Write a message and click ‘Send’.

– To simply copy the link to send by email or other means, instead of writing a message and clicking on ‘Send, click on the “Copy” button in the “Copy Link” section.

– To share the link on social media, after clicking on ‘Get a link’ and ‘Copy’, select ‘More’ to see the social media options.

– To share a whole folder, follow the same process. To change permissions, select ‘Shared’, select the relevant folder, or file, and select the ‘Information’ icon.

– Next either select ‘Add People’ to share with more people or ‘Manage access’ to change permissions or select the ‘Can Edit’ or ‘Can View’ dropdown to change permissions or Stop Sharing.

Security Stop-Press : Phishing Threat In Microsoft Customer Feedback Tool

Avanan researchers have warned that threat actors could send a phishing email through Microsoft’s Dynamics 365 Customer Voice CRM tool. This could be done by disguising it as an important voicemail from the customer where the “Play Voicemail” button redirects the victims to a phishing landing page. The advice to users is to look carefully at all URLs, even when they are not in an email body.

Tech News : Re-Branding Means Microsoft Office Becomes Microsoft 365

After 30 years of Microsoft Office, a major re-branding will see it being re-named as Microsoft 365 as part of Microsoft’s expansion of its productivity suite.

What, Who, And How? 

Microsoft has announced that starting in November, Office.com (the Office mobile app and the Office app for Windows) will all become part of the re-branded Microsoft 365 app. These changes will apply to everyone who uses the Office app for work, school, or personal use. Office 365 subscriptions were first re-branded as Microsoft 365 two years ago.

The tech giant has stressed that the re-branding will have no impact on existing users’ accounts, profiles, subscriptions, or files. There will also be no changes to existing Microsoft 365 subscription plans. The only noticeable change will be that the app will update automatically with a new icon and name.

Going, But Not Completely 

Microsoft has stressed, however, that Office is still not going away entirely because, as part of Microsoft 365, users will still have access to apps like Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook. Microsoft will also continue to offer one-time purchases of those apps to consumers and businesses via Office 2021 and Office LTSC plans.

When? 

The first changes in the re-branding will begin rolling out for Office.com in November 2022, and changes will begin rolling out for the Office app on Windows and the Office mobile app in January 2023.

Microsoft 365 App 

The re-branding emphasises the moving of all the Microsoft apps into one mobile and desktop Microsoft 365 app, which the company says will be the “starting point” for accessing Microsoft’s tools, content, and suite of apps going forward. For example, the Microsoft 365 App will incorporate My Content, relevant content based on who users work with and what they work on work on, a new apps module, and the Create module (including templates). It will also be home to Teams, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, Loop, Clipchamp, and Stream.

What Does This Mean For Your Business? 

Existing work, school, and personal users will notice the logo change of the re-branding to Microsoft 365 in the coming months although their actual accounts, profiles, subscriptions, or files won’t be otherwise affected. The re-branding marks the next step in Microsoft shifting things into one consolidated app with Office 365 for SMEs and Office 365 ProPlus under the brand. This should simplify management and cement its position as one productivity cloud that meets the needs of many groups in one place. In terms of name changes, Office 365 Business and Office 365 ProPlus will be branded as Microsoft 365, Office 365 Business Essentials will be Microsoft 365 Business Basic, Office 365 Business Premium will be Microsoft 365 Business Standard, and Microsoft 365 Business will become Microsoft 365 Business Premium.

Tech News : Excel Collaboration Now Easier

Microsoft Excel’s new @mentions feature allows users to create, assign, and track tasks in a workbook, thereby making collaboration in Excel easier.

Added To Roadmap 2020 

The @mentions feature, which was added to Excel for the web in 2020 and added to the Microsoft 365 roadmap in January 2021, has been made popular through its use within Teams. Along with comments and tasks, @mentions is a way to give feedback, communicate with collaborators, and guide them to a specific part of the document. It works in a document in the following way:

– Right mouse click to add a comment to part of a shared document – in this case, a cell in an Excel spreadsheet.

– Type ‘@mention,’ select he co-worker to send the comment to, type the comment, and select the arrow to post it.

– The selected co-worker receives an email notification letting them know that they need to act. They can respond from the email or select the link to go to the comment in the document.

Hyperlinks Can Be Included Too 

As of January, Microsoft announced that, following an update, users would be able to put hyperlinks into comments added to spreadsheets.

@mentions General Availability In October 

Desktop Excel users are the first to get the @mentions feature, although Microsoft says that it has been added to the rolling out cycle with general availability scheduled for October 2022

Google Has @mentions 

Microsoft’s competitors have long supported the ability to tag other users. In Google Workspace, for example, @mentions enables users to tag their colleagues and co-workers whether they are within or outside an organisation. The ability to tag other users is also present in Slack and Atlassian.

What Does This Mean For Your Business? 

Enabling this feature in Excel is a widening of Microsoft’s plan to introduce more features across its 365 apps that make collaborative working easier, thereby meeting the needs of the many businesses that now operate home/remote and hybrid working. It also helps Microsoft to keep up with competing platforms that already use @mentions and tagging, e.g. Google Workspace. Microsoft has been introducing many features and even new apps, (e.g. Loop) over the last year to help make collaborative working easier for users. The Excel app specifically has also been boosted with improvements for collaborative working. In 2021, for example, it was given new capabilities including co-authoring, Dynamic Arrays, XLOOKUP, and LET functions to allow users to collaboratively work with others and analyse data easily.

Tech Tip – An Easy Way To Copy Web Data To Excel

Save time effort with this easy way to copy web data to excel. Instead of copying and pasting chunks of data at a time e.g., from a table on web page, simply copy the URL of the page you’d like to get the data from. Here’s how:

– Open Excel.

– Click on ‘Data’ (top menu) and click on ‘From Web.’

– Paste the URL of the web page containing the table of data into the field that loads and click on ‘OK.’

– Select the table you’d like to copy the data from and click on ‘Load.’

– The table of data will now load into Excel.

Tech News : Internet Explorer … Explores No More

Microsoft has announced the retirement of its famous Internet Explorer browser which is now officially out of support as of June 15, 2022 for certain versions of Windows 10.

Why? 

First announced in May 2021 and after 25+ years) Microsoft has announced that “Internet Explorer (IE) is officially retired and out of support as of today, June 15, 2022”. Microsoft’s blog on the subject points to how the web and other browsers have evolved to the point where incremental improvements to Internet Explorer couldn’t match the general improvements to the web at large. This led to introduction of Microsoft Edge with Windows 10 in 2015 and the phasing out and retirement of IE. Although IE had had 95 per cent of the browser market back in 2004, new dominant players in the browser have emerged – Google Chrome, Apple’s Safari, and Mozilla Firefox (and Microsoft’s own Edge as just mentioned).

Redirected To Microsoft Edge 

Microsoft says that over the next few months, opening Internet Explorer will progressively redirect users to Microsoft Edge with IE mode. Here, users will still see the Internet Explorer icon on their devices (e.g. on the taskbar or in the Start menu) but if they click to open Internet Explorer, Microsoft Edge will open instead with easy access to IE mode.

What Is IE Mode And Why? 

IE mode has been added to Microsoft Edge because some websites only work with IE. For instance, they may have been built with old technology and may not function properly with modern browsers.

Also, for some users, IT businesses that may be using legacy sites as part of their normal business processes, IE mode can be automated so that those pages launch in IE mode automatically for users.

Details Imported To Edge From IE 

As part of the redirection process, Microsoft says that users will have their data, such as favourites, passwords and settings imported from IE to help the transition. If a user wants to delete or manage their data at any point afterwards, Microsoft says they can do so in Edge from the Settings menu.

Future Windows Update Will Mean A Permanent End 

Microsoft has said that IE will eventually be disabled permanently as part of a future Windows Update, at which point the IE icons on users’ devices will be removed.

Not All Immediately 

The first versions of Windows from which IE has been retired are Windows 10 Home, Pro, Enterprise, Edu and IoT (there is no IE in Windows 11) but IE will not be immediately removed on all these versions. Instead, there will be progressive re-directs to Microsoft Edge over the next few months.

Also, for some versions of Windows currently in-support and used in critical environments such as in-support Windows 10 LTSC releases (including IoT) and all Windows Server versions, as well as Windows 10 China Government Edition, Windows 8.1, and Windows 7 with Extended Security Updates (ESUs), Microsoft will continue to support IE on those versions until they go out of support.

What Does This Mean For Your Business? 

Internet Explorer played an important part in the development of the web, nevertheless the web and the browser market have changed dramatically over time. Notably, the rise of smartphones with pre-installed browsers – Apple with Safari, and Android with Google Chrome – and Mobile and tablet internet usage overtaking desktop saw Chrome rise to the top and Microsoft’s IE (and now Edge) fell behind. As Microsoft pointed out, IE was no longer up to the demands of the modern web, and Microsoft had already invested in Edge as the successor. In 2020, Microsoft upped its game in the browser wars by releasing a version of Edge based on Chromium. This may be one of the reasons why Edge has just pipped Safari to second place in the browser market with 9.65 per cent share, but this is still a long way behind Google’s Chrome. Some businesses (IT) that still need IE in some critical environments will, of course, be glad that support continues for some versions, and the use of IE mode is useful way to help with the transition from IE to Edge for many users.

Tech News : New Microsoft Update Enables ‘Reactions’ In Outlook

With the next update, as part of Microsoft’s 365 roadmap, Outlook users will soon be able to ‘react’ to Outlook emails without sending or receiving incremental emails.

Like Emojis 

The Microsoft ‘Reactions’ feature will enable Outlook users to choose a thumbs up, laugh, heart, celebrate, or shed a tear reaction to emails. As well as applying their own ‘sentiment’, users will soon be able to see the reaction of others to emails in Outlook. With the preview date scheduled for July and release for August, it appears that Mac users will be the first to be able to try the feature.

Competing With Social Media Platforms 

Being able to react to emails in this way is similar to how social media users have long been able to react to posts. Social media platforms such as Facebook’s WhatsApp and Snapchat have both recently announced the addition of reactions features with more emojis, and Microsoft’s reactions feature appears to be a way to compete with them. For example, on 5 May, Facebook announced the beginning of the rollout of its own ‘reactions feature’ – i.e. six different emojis. Also, back in January, Snapchat announced a major update (for iOS) which included Bitmoji Reactions (to allow for more expression), and Poll Stickers to enable emoji-powered polls in Snaps and Stories to survey friends.

Teams Emojis Expanded 

Back in January, Microsoft announced that it was increasing the number of emojis available to use as Reactions in Microsoft Teams to 800 emojis to allow users to express themselves when applying reaction to chat messages. The rollout was put back to March 2022.

Why Are Emojis So Popular? 

Some of the reasons why emojis have become so popular with web users, particularly with social media users and others involved in chats, is because they are a universal language, they save time (not always having to think of a verbal reply but still responding appropriately), there are now many of them (they offer flexibility), they can be fun, and they can quickly and clearly indicate popular opinion in responses.

What Does This Mean For Your Business? 

The introduction of ‘reactions’ to Outlook emails is both a competitive move by Microsoft (e.g. with WhatsApp, Facebook, Snapchat, and others who have introduced a similar feature recently) and simply to meet user needs and expectations. For example, many users involved in quickly evolving chats on collaborative working platforms and social media now value a fast, easy way to respond without having to waste time on an unnecessary, new written response. Using expanded reactions Outlook feels as though it may be a natural progression for emails and could save businesses valuable time.

Microsoft accreditation awarded to SMY IT

A leading IT company in Suffolk has gained a Microsoft Silver Partner accreditation for the fifth year running in November 2018.

SMY IT was shortlisted in this year’s East Anglian Daily Times Business Awards for the small business category. They also and got the accreditation from Microsoft for their expertise in the cloud and also small-midmarket cloud solutions.

This makes them one of only a handful of providers in the UK with both the experience and competence to deliver first-class cloud solutions for businesses.

Every 12 months, all accredited companies have to be re- certified.

These include technical assessments, exams, verified references and real customer feedback.

The silver accreditation is only given to businesses who have “demonstrated expertise in quality solutions in one or more specialised areas of business.”

Managing director of SMY IT Jonathan Smy said: “We’re thrilled to have been awarded this accreditation for the fifth time.

“This shows that we continue to excel in all that we do. We have helped transform many businesses’ way of working through using the cloud.

“Being a Microsoft Silver Partner means we receive emerging products, technologies and features while they’re still in the development cycle.

“This allows us to work with our clients on certain platform upgrades and technology improvements many months before general release. This means they are always one step ahead of the game.

“It’s certainly been a big year for us with being runners up in the EADT Business Awards. We are also having a fresh revamp of the brand ahead of our fifth anniversary.

“We continue to shine and surpass expectations and I can’t wait to see what happens next.”

Want to find out how our Microsoft Silver status benefits your business? Take a look at our blog.

Want to know what our other recognitions are?  Take a look at our blog.

Do you know what your Microsoft Secure Score is?

Ever wondered how your IT security holds up?

In this day and age, cyber security or computer security, is one of the most important processes in place to ensure that your business can continue to function.

Therefore, you need to make sure yours is up to scratch. If not, you’ll be at risk of viruses, malware and spyware making its way through your systems. This could result in a loss of data or even fraud.

This year, Microsoft have introduced a ‘Secure Score’, which essentially measures how good your security is. It’s basically like a credit score for your IT security!

How does it work?

Microsoft Secure Score can analyse what Microsoft Office 365 applications you use (for example your Exchange email) and then looks at your settings and activity. Secure Score then pairs these up against their own Microsoft guidelines to give your business a score.

Depending on what applications you have, your usage, location and level of risk, the score will be out of a certain number. The highest you can have is 822.

Here’s an example for you:

Every company’s score is personalised depending on numerous factors. In general, the higher the better – but you should be striving to hit at least 65% of your target score.

Furthermore, Your Secure Score will tell you what steps you can take to improve your score and how to reduce your risk.

Surprisingly, you will most likely already have the security features you need to improve your score.  A lot of features are often included in Microsoft Office 365 packages.

How do I find out my Secure Score?

If you have admin permissions for an Office 365 Business Premium or Enterprise subscription, you will be able to access your Secure Score on the Microsoft website. If you don’t have an admin role, you won’t be able to access this.

 

Not sure how you can improve your Secure Score?

SMY IT Services can do the legwork for you! Our security packages are second to none, and we can help you in a variety of ways to ensure your business is protected. Get in touch with us today to find out how we can help increase your security.