Citrix Synergy always proves to be one of the most exciting points of the year because it provides opportunities for me to connect with customers and hear their stories.
However, it’s also an opportunity to see the latest and greatest innovations that help our customers on their digital transformation journey. As you saw during our Citrix Synergy keynote today, we highlighted a number of ways we’re partnering with Microsoft on delivering cool new technologies. One of those is HDX optimization for Microsoft Teams for Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops.
This exciting announcement builds upon the momentum from our Citrix HDX Realtime Optimization Pack for Skype for Business. That delivered a native-like experience for Skype for Business in virtual environments.
Through many of my customer conversations since the release of Skype RTOP, they emphasized just how important it was for them to deliver Skype for Business for their users, without impacting end-user experience or server load. Our successful collaboration with Microsoft for Skype RTOP helped optimize the delivery of Skype for Business for more than 700,000+ daily active users, with 25 percent of them Skype for Business Online users.
With more organizations implementing Office 365, which includes Microsoft Teams, organizations were asking when Citrix would optimize Microsoft Teams for virtual environments. Microsoft Teams comes with additional collaboration tools, app integration, and file storage capabilities. Any organization looking at improving employee productivity and collaboration as part of a workplace transformation initiative knew the role Citrix and Microsoft would play in today’s workplace.
Citrix HDX Optimization for Microsoft Teams
With the upcoming release of HDX optimization for Microsoft Teams, customers will get a fully native, fully featured Microsoft Teams experience within Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops. With a single point of authentication, this essentially also improves reliability and ease of use. The Citrix Workspace app has a built-in multi-platform HDX Media Engine that ensures optimized device and media handling, with audio, video, and screen sharing offloaded to the users device.
What This Means for You
With many customers on Office 365 or migrating to Office 365, one of the benefits of this feature release is the ability to take advantage of an intelligent communication solution, as Microsoft Teams is bundled into Office 365. With built-in tools within Microsoft Teams, people can work more efficiently and stay connected wherever they are, on any device, through centralized delivery optimized by Citrix. Not only are you giving your employees a solution that helps them be more productive, IT teams also get the added benefits of centralized management. Because information such as data and chat logs stays in a cloud environment and are not stored on native devices, you’re ensuring better control over sensitive information.
How Do I Get It?
The release of HDX-optimized Microsoft Teams will be available in the coming weeks. Our engineering teams are putting the final touches on the optimization, but you should expect it with our next Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops release. Customers will need to move onto that VDA once released, as well as a future release of the Microsoft Teams client.
We also currently have a private technical preview of HDX-optimized Microsoft Teams, which you can engage with your Microsoft account manager to access.
