Microsoft keeps working toward the ultimate meeting experience. From the enterprise side we have Microsoft Lync meetings in the desktop app, browser or mobile to the full Lync Room System. On the consumer side Skype now has Group Video and Group Screen sharing.
But according to a recent VanityFair interview, it sounds like Gates and Nadella are still envisioning a better meeting experience in the form of a new “meeting-room application” that does everything from sharing notes to videoconferencing inside one application:
“If the Gordian knots that lie ahead faze Gates at all, he doesn’t show it. He says his next meeting is with “one of the genius guys who’s really pushing this idea that when you write an application you don’t write an application for this thing and then another application for that thing and another application for this thing. When you fire up the meeting-room application, everybody’s machine has a part of this meeting-room application.” His idea is that once you’ve launched—call it Meeting Room Plus—you can do everything that needs to be done, from sharing notes to videoconferencing, without having to pause to open something else up. “On that one, I think we’ll take the lead,” says Gates. “That’s a very cool thing, and it does kind of trump what’s come before.”
“I think that’s a great way to think about it,” says Nadella. “Let’s say we walk into this room. There are cameras there that recognize each one of us, automatically log us into a shared whiteboard, rendezvous the machines you have, a phone or a tablet, so that you can share things.”
Does this mean that Microsoft Office will get integrated into a Microsoft Lync and/or Skype meeting experience? It does sound like this what is being envisioned. And considering Office Web App PowerPoint functionality is already surfaced inside Microsoft Lync meetings this certainly is the current trajectory and even more integration that includes things like OneNote and beyond is easily imaginable. This is also one area that Microsoft has the ability to differentiate unlike some other vendors in the meeting space.
And walk into the room and have it recognize and join you to the shared meeting and whiteboard? Sounds like Nadella is suggesting a kind of “No-Click Join” experience that could make a very natural meeting join experience and shave off those couple minutes fiddling around joining a meeting when you are standing right in front of the meeting you want to join.
Obviously this is all ideas on the future, not any concrete products, but still interesting to see the future envisioned.
Read the whole Vanity Fair interview here.
Vanity Fair (page 5 of 6)
http://www.vanityfair.com/business/2014/11/satya-nadella-bill-gates-steve-ballmer-microsoft#
http://www.pcworld.com/article/2692978/bill-gates-microsoft-is-developing-a-killer-meeting-room-app.html
http://www.zdnet.com/microsoft-continues-its-quest-for-the-perfect-meeting-room-bundle-7000034516
I am also working on building conference room in my office, the main motive is video conferencing. Though I liked idea of having fully furnished meeting room which boasts large projectors and excellent internet connectivity.
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