What's Going On With Microsoft?
About this episode
SEPTEMBER 20, 2019
Microsoft redesigns the To-Do app, which may convince Wunderlist users to switch over. Teams can now make you translucent to show off whiteboards in meetings. A mini speaker was also patented for the chat software to be used with Cortana as a productivity aid. Microsoft updates its automotive strategy and launches an autonomous driving program for startups and the HoloLens 2 gets a September Launch window with a starting price of $3,500! In this episode of the GEEK FREAKS PODCAST, Ron, Jacob, and Derik share their thoughts on the most recent news from Microsoft for the month of September 2019.
MEET THE GEEK FREAKS
RON HARRIS
VICE PRESIDENT
- 15 years in the industry.
- Enjoys spending time with his family, riding his Harley, and finding time to sleep.
- Fun fact: Ron broke both of his arms.
- He's a simple person, enjoys work, but also enjoys being alone reading a book or learning something new. Loves candy DOTs!
Jacob Stiel
SERVICE DESK TECHNICIAN
- Finishing Associates Degree in Computer Science from Kalamazoo Valley Community College
- Background in Carrier Ethernet Engineering and Diagnostics, LAN/WAN Engineering and Diagnostics, and General Computer Repair
- Big fan of being a gigantic geek in all aspects of my life. I play games of all types, video, board, tabletop, and card games. Music is my escape, I like it all, love some of it.
- In my free time you can find me spending time with my family (wife, dogs, and cats), playing games, reading, or listening to music.
Derik Berwald
SERVICE DESK TECHNCIAN
- Associates in Computer Science from Muskegon Community College.
- Certified in Office 365.
- Has experience in computer programming.
- Likes to play video games and watch television shows.
VIEW TRANSCRIPT >
Transcript - #7
What’s Going on With Microsoft?
Ron
Welcome to the Geek Freaks Podcast! This episode is about Microsoft and their new applications and hardware and some of the redesigns that are coming up. Today’s guests are Derik Berwald and Jacob Stiel. How’s it going fellas?
Jacob
Fantastic, how about yourself?
Derik
Not bad.
Ron
Not bad. Before we get started, I need to make sure you guys hit subscribe on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Breaker, TuneIn, and Castbox, Stitcher, YouTube, and all other podcast listening platforms that you may be tuning in from.
Jacob
Everybody.
Ron
Everybody. I’m gonna click it, you should.
Jacob
Already did.
Ron
Oh yeah, okay I don’t click it on all that, I don’t have all that.
Jacob
Oh.
Ron
That’s a lot.
Jacob
Fair.
Ron
Do you have all that?
Derik
I don’t know what half that stuff is.
Ron
Well…
Jacob
I have Spotify.
Ron
That’s what people listen too.
Jacob
That’s fair.
Ron
So, uh first off, how’s everybody going?
Derik
Good.
Jacob
Fantastic.
Ron
Yeah.
Jacob
Yeah.
Ron
It’s Tuesday.
Jacob
Yeah.
Ron
I was going to say the week’s almost over. That’s a lie.
Jacob
No, the week has very much just begun.
Ron
That’s also true. Um, so the first article is about the redesign to the To-Do app, so I use To-Do. I use Wunderlist too, which is what they basically backhanded To-Do off of.
Jacob
Mhm.
Ron
So, uh Microsoft’s newly redesigned To-Dos adds new features in hopes to convince Wunderlist users to switch over. The new app has a reduced header size and is more colorful. There are also more personalization options that allow users to set custom backgrounds. Oh and because of the hot new trend right now, dark mode is also available, right. So…
Jacob
Derik loves that one.
Ron
You use dark mode on everything?
Derik
Everything.
Jacob
Yeah, everything.
Ron
So, from a feature’s standpoint they are adding tighter integration with its services, so messaging from Microsoft based on email accounts like Outlook and Hotmail can be flagged as a task. Uh Outlook Planner can be used to populate the assigned to me list and the excellent launcher for Android also gains a To-Do integration.
Jacob
Yeah, it’s definitely following the same path as all the other like Microsoft Suite applications, right? So, they are just trying to integrate everything.
Derik
Yup.
Jacob
It’s uh… and it looks exactly like Teams. Looks exactly like, not so much Outlook, but every other application they have. Looks just like it.
Ron
I have it on my…I took it off actually. Because the problem I had with it was I didn’t…that my To-Dos from my personal To-Dos from our Planner stuff show up on that To-Do list that’s not defaulted.
Jacob
Gotcha.
Ron
Probably sure I could’ve defaulted it.
Jacob
Okay.
Ron
Um, but I’m not really…I’m more of a hand-written list guy.
Jacob
Yeah.
Ron
Than I am something else like…
Jacob
I keep notepads. So, like a notepad document just on my desktop for pretty much everything I do.
Ron
I think a lot of people do that. I think more people do that than I don’t know. I mean you could probably get used…we’re getting used to using Planner.
Jacob
Yeah.
Ron
I get tasks assigned to me, but they don’t show up on the To-Dos app, so I don’t know I think the Wunderlist acquisition was probably not so…I mean they did get it for the technology I’m assuming, but it sounds like he wants to buy the company back.
Jacob
Yeah, it takes a competitor out of the market. That’s ultimately what they did. Same thing they did with Skype because they were working on Teams and they wanted a competitor out of the market.
Ron
Did they develop teams or was teams purchased?
Jacob
Teams I don’t know if it was developed, but I think the backend was pulled from Skype.
Derik, I don’t know if you know anything more.
Derik
Probably, I would imagine it was.
Jacob
Yeah, it seems like it was because um…
Ron
Because that’s all back ended by SharePoint.
Jacob
Yeah. Yeah, it all boils back into their 365 life, right.
Ron
Ecosystem, yeah.
Jacob
Yeah, so everything that you do ultimately is shown on Office 365, so I think that’s kind of where it is back ending into. They are trying to build out 365 as the ultimate suite and they are doing a good job for what it’s worth.
Ron
No, I think it’s kind of a one-stop shop for what they are trying to do. It’s just confusing cause there are a lot of apps.
Jacob
Oh my god, so many.
Ron
I mean we are a partner and I think we only use like 5 or 6 of their actual apps.
Jacob
Yeah.
Ron
And we have access to a billion of them.
Jacob
Yeah, absolutely. So, seeing that Wunderlist is changing, or To-Do is changing to look more like everything else and integrate more seamlessly it makes sense. I’m not surprised.
Ron
No, I’m not surprised either. It’s kind of weird they are going to kill off Wunderlist as a tool because I feel like that’s got more…
Jacob
Does it though?
Ron
Yeah, I mean I think so. Maybe not from a user standpoint, but more of what’s been around. A lot of people use Wunderlist.
Jacob
Yeah, I think it’s just like Skype they are trying to…they are just going to try to move everybody to To-Do. So, I bet what happens is, just like with Skype or Skype for Business primarily is they do a forced migration at some point. Where Skype for Business at some point your computer goes Okay and now you have Teams. And it just installs Teams, I bet you it does the same thing with Wunderlist to To-Do.
Ron
Yeah, probably.
Jacob
Yeah, it’s just an evolution.
Ron
Probably comes in an update.
Jacob
Yeah, more than likely.
Ron
So, they are also getting on the bandwagon of Google Home and Amazon Echo.
Jacob
Yup.
Ron
I think that’s what the name of the product is. So, they newly designed a…I guess it’s not newly, it’s been in the works for a couple of years. They want to add it to Teams, so they can do conference calls and all that kind of stuff. They want to with Teams they are trying to get more productivity suite based on and I want to say Teams is based on was a Skype replacement, but now they are trying to do much more with it. Like the whiteboarding and screensharing and recording and I didn’t know we were interviewing people with Teams.
Jacob
Mhm.
Ron
And that’s simple now, we can do it from a web browser. You don’t have to Skype installed or Teams installed to be able to do it anymore which is really cool. But we recorded a candidate interview so we could send it to Bill.
Jacob
Yeah.
Ron
And it went into Microsoft Stream. Which is another application they have which is like their YouTube thing.
Jacob
That’s a new for me.
Derik
Yup. I’ve heard of it.
Ron
I think it’s called Stream. Just here’s your link, I copied the link and sent it to Bill and now it’s living in our stream account.
Jacob
That’s crazy. You know I don’t think we’ve explored what Teams can truly do fully.
Derik
No.
Jacob
It’s becoming kind of like the dashboard for a business world kind of thing and this is just kind of I want to say conference phone replacement. Just like you said this is going to be a conference phone replacement is ultimately what it is going to be. It’s um…I’m waiting to see their forebay into VoIP world, actual VoIP world. So, now your phones are based off of Microsoft Teams.
Ron
Well, I think they have been doing that with Skype, right. We can get PPT numbers or whatever…
Jacob
Oh, actual PBX numbers?
Ron
Yeah.
Jacob
So DDIs from them.
Ron
I think it’s $20, I don’t know. I know my wife uses it at work pretty extensively for conferences and they can do like 200 people on it.
Jacob Okay.
Ron
And I know that is going to come into Teams because I’ve had people ask me about it and I was doing some research on it. So that is coming or it’s there already. So I think it’s pretty wild to think that they are now decking it out to be a phone system, conference center, uh persistent chat is the best…the reason we got it is because I didn’t want to do Slack because I wanted to do what we were going to be supporting.
Jacob
Sure, sure.
Ron
Because Teams…Teams is way better than Skype.
Jacob
Oh, hands down.
Derik
Hands down.
Jacob
Yeah. There’s zero question about that. It is a much better version of what was a bad-ish program. I mean it worked for businesses, it did. But it was weird because Skype evolved to Link, and then people didn’t use Link. And then it became Teams.
Ron
Or was it the other way around?
Jacob
I can’t remember.
Ron
I think it was Link to Skype when they bought Skype.
Derik
Yeah, so it was like Skype was consumer, Link was business…
Jacob
Yeah, yeah.
Derik
And then it kind of went to everything is just there is Skype, Skype for Business and then they were like okay let’s do Teams now.
Jacob
Yeah, it’s weird.
Ron
So, you think they mangled Skype in the backend and then just left the underlying technology…I don’t know. I don’t see them, either they acquired Teams, or I don’t see them really starting from the ground up if they own Skype.
Jacob
I think they just pulled the backend and said let’s make it prettier and functional.
Ron
Teams is way cool.
Jacob
Yeah.
Ron
I get a phone app, you got a desktop app.
Jacob
I like it.
Ron
I think you can get it form the web too.
Derik
Yeah.
Jacob
Yeah, you absolutely can. That’s how when I’m working from home I typically do it.
Ron
Very cool.
Jacob
Yeah it is. And now like that is probably going to be like their first foray into a true desk phone replacement, is what they are going to is this new speaker.
Ron
And this says it’s got Cortana in it.
Jacob
Mhm. Well, there was specifically a something mentioned about them moving away from the Cortana assistant platform and moving into the Teams platform. So, I think its maybe Cortana, the same way Siri is on Apple. So, you can use it, but it’s not…
Ron
A full-fledged super package.
Jacob
Yeah, yeah like hey Cortana instead of just a voice activated thing more than anything.
Ron
Yeah, and I think I think you’re right. It will give them the ability…it would be nice if we did conference calls that we could use Teams. Right now, we have to use our computers and hook up the Yheti to it blah blah blah. I mean they have those Surface TVs…I don’t know what it’s called is it the Surface TV?
Jacob
Yeah, I haven’t looked into it that much.
Ron
Kind of want to look it up now. So, it’s like their big conference room replacement they sell it it’s like 80 inches.
Jacob
Oh, that thing has to be a million dollars.
Ron
It is not cheap.
Jacob
[Laughs] I mean if Microsoft is selling it I gotta imagine it is at least Apple prices.
Derik
Yup. But if you think about most of the competition it is actually good for conferencing they are probably about the same price. Like Zoom rooms aren’t a cheap set up either.
Jacob
No. Nope, they are not.
Ron
Holy, smoke-oley.
Jacob
Yeah?
Ron
It’s called a Surface Hub.
Jacob
K.
Ron
It’s basically a computer on steroids and it has Teams built into it, so you can share screens. Um I can’t see the MSRP on it, but the 55” is going for $9,537.
Jacob
Good God.
Ron
It’s all touch screen though, I’ll give you that.
Jacob
That’s nice, I guess.
Ron
8 gigs of memory, 120 gigs of SSD. So, I mean they are trying.
Jacob
Yeah, Microsoft has been big tech, right. For a long time, but now they are becoming big tech that is not just an operating system.
Ron
Well and I think that was the whole thing with the new CEO, right. They bought GitHub or whatever so they could have more of an open ecosystem because they saw how successful the Linux community was doing it.
Jacob
Yup.
Ron
And I think that was a smarter move.
Jacob
Absolutely. Absolutely.
Ron
And I think by giving away Windows 10 for free that was kind of their first foray. We can do more with the other stuff that we have. Because they have a ton of products.
Jacob
So many. So, so many. It’s insane how many products they have.
Ron
Yeah, and the other big change too, it’s the next article. Microsoft Teams can now make you translucent to show off whiteboards in meetings.
Jacob
Yeah.
Ron
So, my face…I haven’t used it, what was the general understanding there.
Derik
Um I watched the demonstration. Basically, it will, anything you draw on the whiteboard it will kind of outline it and then do like an overlay and you’ll look like you are transparent. It’s pretty cool looking, but I just feel like that is just one more thing in meetings that is going to break.
Ron
Well it was like the blur. The background thing in Teams, when you are doing a meeting in Teams you can blur out the background I though that was pretty interesting.
Jacob
Yeah, so the last thing I saw that had this similar technology. I don’t know if you’ve seen the Chevy truck commercial that’s out there. So, Chevy has this new Silverado that does basically the same thing. So, it is composite imaging an overlay, right. So that’s exactly what this does.
Ron
Oh, yeah. You can see the trailer disappear, the invisible trailer.
Jacob
All it does is it takes images and overlays them on top of each other to create a new image, right. So, that’s what this is doing. It’s going okay I see a picture of a whiteboard lets put that in the background and then this person is on top of it or translucent.
Ron
So, they are literally making it be there end all for communication.
Jacob
Yeah, they are trying real real hard.
Ron
And I don’t blame them. The consolidation of Skype they are going to what that’s next month they are forcing everybody off Skype. Or maybe it’s next year, I don’t know.
Jacob
Yeah, yeah. It’s pretty soon. I don’t remember the exact date. But it’s very soon.
Ron
So, the other thing they have been working on is the Halo Lens. Now this has been around for a while, I’ve never seen it in the wild besides at the E3 stuff and consumer shows.
Jacob
Yeah, so TeamViewer just released a very similar product. TeamViewer Assist. It’s essentially, I mean it’s kind of like FaceTime, but interactive. More interactive I guess is the way to put it.
Ron
Is it a physical headset like the Halo Lens?
Jacob
So, TeamViewer Assist is not, but it’s the same technology. So, its I connect you, I see through your eyes and I do stuff like on the screen and you can see what I’m doing. It looks like I’m interacting with whatever you are doing. TeamViewer Assist does the same thing, so its I put the program on my desktop, you call me with your phone, you show me the image, and I interact with said image.
Ron
So, better for mobile support?
Jacob
Yeah.
Ron
Because I can’t understand…like we do a lot of remote support now and I don’t think that is any different than what we do now, right.
Derik
Nope.
Jacob
Pretty much. Except for now instead of going what do you see in fRont of you? People can actually pull up…it’s just like FaceTime, but TeamViewer.
Ron
I gotcha.
Jacob
But plus, I can interact with the screen. Yeah, it’s ultimately FaceTime. Basically, what this is, it’s kind of…
Ron
VR, right?
Jacob
Yeah so, it’s I can see all around me, but at the same time it’s just interactive stuff more than anything.
Ron
Holy $3,500 and it gets released in September.
Jacob
Yeah.
Ron
That’s crazy.
Jacob
Yeah, I won’t be buying that.
Ron
No, well it’s being only limited to institutional use or the enterprise. So, I know a certain medical company around here does VR for operating rooms.
Jacob
They absolutely do.
Ron
So that would probably be a…
Jacob
That’s a competitor.
Ron
Is that the steam one?
Jacob
The Oculus?
Ron
Yeah. Oh no that’s Facebook isn’t it? One of them, somebody owns somebody now.
Jacob
Steam has one and Facebook has one.
Derik
I think Facebook owns Oculus now.
Ron
Yeah, cause they were in trouble or something. They hired the dude away…they hired a dude from…I don’t know anyway.
Jacob
So, the Microsoft one is going to be a competitor to a lot of the big ones out there. And I think the thing is it has all the integrations. So now you can have a person who looks like they are in the room with you or thinks they are in the room with you in a meeting. All of those holo-lens meetings think of the last episode of the last Avengers movie where they are all on a well holo-lens thing, it’s becoming reality.
Ron
I know it’s weird.
Jacob
Yeah.
Ron
It’s weird to think that they’ve been…so I mean this is the second one. The first one wasn’t very good.
Jacob
No.
Ron
I mean you could see your work desk and manipulate your desktop and stuff.
Jacob
Yeah.
Ron
But yeah that will be interesting to see…I know Cisco tried to do it a while ago.
Jacob
Yeah, they did, and it did not gain traction.
Ron
No, I don’t think there is ever going to be another replacement for an actual meeting.
Jacob
No, no no. Having somebody in fRont of you feels so much more personable and intimate…yeah that’s prolly the right word…
Ron
So, I think long story short Microsoft is making a lot of moves.
Jacob
Yeah, yeah. And they are moving into that autonomous car space too.
Ron
Oh yeah. I skipped right over that.
Jacob
Yeah, everybody is though.
Ron
So, what is…it’s not just car-play…it’s the whole damn car.
Jacob
Yeah. Yeah, take over the car.
Ron
I don’t know if I would want to buy a car with Microsoft technology. I feel like they’ve had a car with Microsoft technology in it before, not to this level I’m sure.
Jacob
Hmm, I don’t know. I mean I think there are cars for the ability to have Microsoft radio and stuff like that, but I don’t think there’s been any that have been fully autonomous and have full control of your vehicle including like air vents and things like that. Fear is the ability to be hacked. So, while Microsoft’s protections are good, they are not great. Nobody’s protections are great.
Derik
No, no. There is always going to be someone that finds a hole.
Jacob
Yeah, yeah and Jeep has the…I mean Jeep didn’t even have the autonomous car and people were hacking it. Literally, like you were driving down the road, I’m gonna hack your car and just shut off your transmission.
Ron
And that was all done thorough like the same technology On-Star uses and stuff right.
Jacob
Yeah, yeah.
Ron
So, the plug for this just so I can kind of catch everybody up to speed is that Microsoft is at the Frankfurt motor show for the first time and the company is expanding its automotive strategy. Microsoft updates its automotive strategy which now clearly outlines the core principles that govern Microsoft’s decision related to vehicles. Additionally, the new partners were announced for Microsoft’s connected vehicle program. The new program was launched to help start-ups make autonomous vehicles.
Jacob
Yeah.
Ron
So, is it the underlying AI that they are doing then?
Jacob
I think so. I think it is their competitor for self-driving cars.
Ron
Has anybody partnered with them yet, like any manufacturers?
Jacob
I didn’t catch that part yet.
Ron
Because it says that the partners have been announced. So, I just wondered if it’s been like AI start-ups or actual...
Jacob
I didn’t see anything specifically, um but that might have just been my missing it. I know that there are several manufacturers out there that are already developing their own self-driving cars including BMW.
Ron
Didn’t BMW or Porsche just drop one last week.
Jacob
BMW, I think was in the stage where they were ready to drop one. So, they had their own little car show a month-and-a-half ago give or take. And they had a bunch of influencers like YouTube influencers and stuff come out and they got to ride in a self-driving car, like legit 100% self-driving car. And the technology is fascinating, absolutely fascinating. But…
Ron
I think it’s…
Jacob
Scary.
Ron
We were talking about it this weekend and I think it’s going to be fantastic. But I have friends that are like it’s stupid, but this is literally what we have been clamoring for, for years. Because I want to be able to do more with my time.
Jacob
Yeah.
Ron
You have a 45-minute commute and now you can answer emails and you can do all this other stuff. Wow.
Jacob
Yeah. It’s suddenly. So, it does what remote work is lacking and that’s the travel time. So, if you’re traveling, say you are going across the country. You can work while you’re in an airport, you can do a lot of that, but you still have your drive time to and from the airport and anywhere else that takes away from your productivity. Now, if I have a drive time of two hours, I don’t feel so bad about a drive time of two hours. I’m like well okay in those two hours I can still be productive. Now, I can technically be working through that time. So, it takes away the commute stress I think and that’s what we are moving towards. Plus, it increases safety so much.
Ron
Well and I think that’s what we also spoke on that because somebody said well, they’ve been in car accident and people have died, but think about how many people are in non-automated cars that die every day.
Jacob
Yeah.
Ron
Just because it’s new technology it’s scrutinized more which it should be. Wild to think that’s coming and it’s wild to think how many players are now involved. Microsoft is doing it and I’m sure Apple is going to have something to do with it.
Jacob
I think they do.
Ron
If they haven’t already.
Derik
Yeah, I’m sure they are in there somewhere. I’m sure Google is. I know Tesla has been really heavy into it. Um and I think once they get the self-driving cars perfected you know next is going to be airplanes.
Ron
Semis. Airplanes. Yeah, I think a lot of the world is going to be automated. And it’s a good and bad thing, it’s going to mean a lot of people’s jobs are disappearing or changing. I don’t think you are going to get away from like planes having pilots set in them, but I think the job and responsibility becomes lesser. Same with semis, I don’t think you get rid of the trucking industry completely autonomous. I think there still needs to be somebody behind the wheel to get it out of certain situations.
Jacob
Yeah.
Ron
It’s crazy to think what’s going to happen.
Jacob
I was going to say planes for the most part are already self-flying. I know a lot of people in the airline industry, pilots are there more than anything for peace of mind in case something goes wrong. They literally put in a plan and the plane flies itself.
Derik
Yeah.
Ron
That’s crazy.
Jacob
Yeah, 100% flies itself. I think the only thing they really have to get involved in is takeoff and landing that’s about it.
Derik
Yeah. And I think a lot of planes will land themselves now.
Jacob
Yeah, just human intervention for any weird crosswinds and things like that, but for the most part it’s already done. This is just applying it to a more mass trans of systems, so you’re just applying it to there’s hundreds of cars in fRont of you and behind you. As opposed to one hundred airplanes in the air.
Ron
Yeah.
Jacob
In the entire country, ya know.
Ron
And you think about what else they are doing with the hyperloop…I mean everything is changing right, everything is going to be different. But I think to get back to the topic of Microsoft everything is going to be continuously changing and I think they finally have a CEO that believes in evolution of things and not like this is our word, this is what it does. You know what I mean?
Jacob
Yeah.
Ron
I mean now you can share documents…now they are competing with Google on collaborativity…
Jacob
Collaboration.
Ron
Collaboration.
Jacob
Ah there it is,
Ron
That’s not what a word, I didn’t say a real word. So, I think it’s great and I think it’s only going to make other things better, make people’s lives better.
Jacob
I trust Microsoft a lot more than I used to, and I think that’s the right direction if the people like us trust you more.
Ron
And I think it’s a lot better from our standpoint like now that they are starting to kill some of their lines off with like operating systems and this and that.
Jacob
Yup.
Ron
I think it’s making our lives a little bit better too. So, anyway I appreciate it guys. Derik thanks for chiming in there the little bit that you did bubba and no problem Jacob, as always.
Jacob
Yes, absolutely.
Ron
Definitely a man of few words. Thanks for listening to the Geek Freaks Podcast! Make sure to hit the subscribe button on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Breaker, TuneIn, Castbox, Stitcher, and YouTube and all other podcast listening platforms. If you enjoyed this episode, please let us know in the comments and share it with your friends. You can help the Geek Freaks Podcast grow by leaving us a review. It really helps our podcast a lot. Until next time, see ya later.
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