Microsoft has added new elements to Viva, Box has become more compact with Slack and Zoom, and more news

Microsoft said on Thursday that it has acquired Washington State-based Ally.io, a startup that provides software to help organizations track progress on key goals. The terms of the transaction were not disclosed. According to Redmond, a Washington-based Microsoft company, Ally.io will be included in Microsoft’s Viva product launched last year.

You may remember the big fanfare when Viva was launched, Microsoft said it will shake up the enterprise technology space. It positions it as an “employee experience platform” and integrates “participation, learning, happiness and knowledge discovery directly into people’s work processes.” When it starts, it consists of four main elements:

• Long live connect: Internal communication and access to reference information.
• Long live opinion: Benefit indicators for individuals and managers.
• Long live Learn: An e-learning market that includes LinkedIn Learning and integration with other sources such as Coursera, Cornerstone, and Saba.
• Long live topic: Wiki-like cards that summarize terminology and link to internal experts and resources.

By providing Viva users with goal management, goal sharing, and goal and key results (OKR) monitoring, the addition of Ally will increase the employee experience for Viva.

If the launch of Viva itself does not shake the market, it will directly compete with performance management platforms such as Asana and other performance management platforms such as CultureAmp, Workboard, 15Five, and Perdoo.

In fact, this means that Microsoft 365 will provide performance management and everything else at the core of Microsoft 365. In a blog post explaining what will happen next, Kirk Koenigsbauer, chief operating officer of Microsoft Experience and Devices, said as follows, “We will invest in bringing Ally.io to the Microsoft cloud, developing existing integration with Microsoft Teams, and Weave Ally.io into Viva, Office, Power BI and the wider Microsoft 365 applications and services.”

He added that from a broader perspective, the acquisition is a response to the changing realities of work. Koenigsbauer writes that flexibility and remote work have always been important, but the desire to do meaningful work is also important. The shift to hybrid makes it more challenging to keep each leader, team, and individual consistent and move at the same pace. Ally.io responded to this, allowing everyone in the organization to have a clear understanding of the entire work process, linking daily work with the company’s strategic goals.

The OKR category is an emerging and fast-growing field. Microsoft intends to dominate the market by combining Ally with other elements of Viva. How the market will react to this is difficult to predict, but competitors will face an uphill battle.

Microsoft prepares new financial cloud

Before leaving Microsoft this week, it is worth noting that its commitment to a new cloud focused on specific verticals has begun to take shape. The company has confirmed that its industry cloud focused on financial services will be officially launched on November 1, 2021.

The Microsoft Financial Services Cloud debuted in February, promising to lay the foundation for privacy, security, and compliance. Microsoft Cloud for Financial Services integrates deep cloud services of all Microsoft platforms and products, especially Microsoft Azure, Microsoft 365, Microsoft Dynamics 365 and Microsoft Power Platform, and is based on industry data models with unique new features and customization To the financial services industry.

It is also designed for the most complex control framework and regulatory requirements faced by the industry, with built-in multi-layered security, compliance and trust commitments.

The news was released eight months after the company revealed that it will launch three new industry clouds this year: manufacturing, non-profit organizations, and financial services. The new financial cloud responds to the fact that 81% of consumers in Capgemini’s 2021 World Retail Banking Report stated that convenient access and flexible banking will inspire them to switch to a new era of financial service providers.

As customers continue to participate digitally, continued attention to ensure data connectivity, ecosystem interoperability, and actionable insights is the key to retaining customers and winning new customers. In addition, employees need to have the right tools and change management in the process to adapt to the current environment to serve customers and support each other and their respective departments. The dates of the other new clouds are still not mentioned.

Box gets tighter with Slack and Zoom

Elsewhere, San Francisco-based Box announced new major integrations with Microsoft and Slack, as well as a series of product updates, including new, artificial intelligence-driven malware protection. Box introduced these updates during its annual BoxWorks conference.

One of the main upgrades is the enhanced Box for Microsoft Office integration, which allows real-time co-authoring on the Office desktop and mobile applications (including Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint), and all edits are automatically saved to Box.

As a complement to the existing web-based Office Online integration, users will now be able to collaborate on documents across desktop, web, and mobile devices simultaneously

There is also an updated Box for Microsoft Teams integration that allows customers to use Box as a storage option in Teams by default, helping to minimize content fragmentation. Box and Microsoft have tens of thousands of joint customers, and this enhancement will expand the ability to unify content in Box under consistent security, compliance, and governance policies.

The enhanced Microsoft Office integration Box is expected to be launched in early 2022, and the Teams integration is expected to be launched by the end of this year

Box also announced a deep integration with Slack, which will make Box a content layer in the Slack environment. New enhancements will enable federated users to:

• Upload files directly to Box through the Slack interface, and use Box as the content layer in Slack.
• Keep Box’s security and compliance with any content, even if the file is uploaded via Slack.
• Simplify the way they use Box in Slack by simplifying the content flow and unifying content in Slack and other apps.

These new features in the Box for Slack integration are expected to be launched later this year and will be included in the core Box product.

Finally, there is a new Box app for Zoom in other announcements. This in-product integration was announced in September, making it easier for customers to collaborate safely and effectively across distributed teams. Zoom’s Box app allows customers to access their Box content without leaving the Zoom platform, creating a more seamless experience between the two platforms. The Box app for Zoom is available in the Zoom app market today.

ServiceNow partners with Celonis

Also this week, ServiceNow, located in Santa Clara, California, developed a cloud computing platform to help companies manage the digital workflow of business operations. The company is establishing a strategic partnership with the German software company Celonis, a data processing provider based in New York City. Relationship and Germany, enabling users to identify workflows that can be automated

The partnership includes ServiceNow’s unspecified investment in Celonis and the integration of ServiceNow’s workflow platform with Celonis’ execution management system, which processes data to solve problems and automate decision-making.

Celonis, a competitor of the German business software company SAP, raised US$1 billion from investors in June, making the company’s post-financing valuation more than US$11 billion

ServiceNow is led by CEO Bill McDermott, who led SAP for ten years before 2019. McDermott compares Celonis’ work to X-rays, showing what is damaged and what needs to be changed: “ServiceNow will build a new process on this basis.

Avocor provides one-click video conferencing

Finally, this week, Avocor in Wilsonville, Oregon announced the release of Avocor GroupShare, its new subscription-based meeting user interface that helps teams manage video calls easily and quickly.

Avocor’s GroupShare supports one-click launching of meetings from Avocor’s interactive displays, personal mobile devices or PCs; secure access to documents via cloud drives; room calendars; secure wireless screen sharing; one-click launching of multiple UC software programs, including Zoom, Microsoft Teams, WebEx, and Google Meet.

It also provides a version for Microsoft that includes Avocor GroupShare for Microsoft 365, which is pre-configured for Microsoft enterprise customers.It has Microsoft Office 365 authentication and room resource calendar integration, one-click access to Microsoft 365 personal calendar, OneDrive access and secure wireless screen sharing

These versions were released after a similar version released earlier this month, which was accompanied by the announcement of a global partnership with Google Workspace and two new all-in-one video conferencing and digital whiteboard devices-Google Meet Series The introduction of One Desk 27 and Board 65-to create meeting assets on the desktop and shared meeting spaces. The GroupShare subscription costs $595 per year and is now available to any new or existing Avocor monitor customer.