News You can Use: February 2021

This newsletter contains a few items of interest that have caught my eye in the Modern EUC and Workforce Transformation space in the last week or so.

This month’s highlighted items:

• The FIRST big news that caught my eyer since the last newsletter is the Microsoft announcement that the April patch release of Windows 10 will  remove Microsoft Edge Legacy out of the operating system.   The only supported Microsoft Internet browser will be The New Microsoft Edge  (Chromium-based)   You can read full article at:  RIP Microsoft Edge Legacy

• The SECOND announcement made by Microsoft, this month is that the next version of Windows 10 Enterprise LTSC will be released int the second half of this calendar year (2H21) and will carry a 5-year support lifecycle, instead of the 10-year lifecycle supported with previous version.      Full Microsoft announcement post here.

• The THIRD announcementcame on February 17, 2020, relates the release of Windows 10 21H1 feature update to Windows Insiders Beta channel and the fact that it confirmed that this feature update will be delivered as an enablement package, allowing  Windows 10 2004 and 20H2 users to install the feature update very quickly. Announcement here

• Two additional articles describing a couple of upcoming products  (hopefully more info after the soon to come virtual Microsoft Ignite 2021 )   in the Microsoft lineup that provide options in helping organizations with their client management complexity:
  • Windows 10X  All Stars are aligning –   
  • Microsoft Cloud PC coming soon

• Over the past year or so, many organizations have focused on addressing the challenges of managing Windows 10 devices for remote workers. Organizations that have already moved their Windows devices management to into MDM tools are now looking to bring other OS platforms like into existing tools and take advantage of a holistic, single pane view of the end-user computing environment.    If you are licensed for Microsoft Intune, then why not take advantage of it to manage all of your non-Windows devices.  Check out the full Blog post here

• Security threads are real and constant to every organization no matter how small or big they are.  This weekend I just came across one of the best “easy-to-read” research survey I have seen regarding current state of securing data on the cloud. According to a survey by Netwrix, available for free,  organizations experienced an average of 2.8 cloud security incidents in the past 12 months.     Some very interesting data can be found there.    Full blog post here

• As firms seek to better manage complexity and adopt modern collaboration and workplace for on-site, at-home, and on-the-road workers, the conversations about managed services is a common one.     A great blog post with link to on-demand webinar on Dell Technologies Manage Services offerings:

• A great article by my co-worked and friend, Mustafa Hamid , 4 Takeaways from a Panel Discussion on Azure Active Directory was published to Dell Technology Infocus blog post.   It talks about Active Directory, where are we headed,  the relevance of third-party tools (Ping, Okta, etc), and  the importance of Azure Active Directory   Check it out!

• Microsoft Stream is changing! –  Launched in 2016, Microsoft Stream is a web app for creating, editing, managing, and discovering videos and playback videos. It was loosely connected to other Microsoft 365 apps and service, and videos were stored separately from it.  In September 22, 2020, Microsoft published a blog post titled New Vision for Microsoft Stream.   The Microsoft Stream (Classic) is changing and the new Microsoft Stream has made video files another document type in the Office suite.     Check out the blog post here

• The impact of Artificial Intelligence (AI) on the global workforce will continue at least through this decade. From 2016-2019 73% of jobs had their skills change entirely (Gartner) By 2030 AI will affect 85% of all jobs (Dell/IFTF).  By 2030 AI will increase the global economy by $15.7T (PwC)  Read more!

• Check out the new Microsoft Teams enablebled Dell Video Conferencing Monitors – C3422WE, C2722DE & C2422HE —   Making collaboration easy.

• For a bit deeper dive into the technical side:
  • Are you using Windows Virtual Desktop?    Do you want to know more about how to manage images?   I found this current and on-going video series playlists on YouTube by Jim Boyle of Microsoft Germany excellent! – Thank you Jim!
    
    
  • OneDrive is OneDrive is more than just another network drive with or without a drive letter. It is Microsoft’s foundation for collaboration. I just read an excellent series of 9 blog posts by Hans Brender (aka: Mr.OneDrive | MVP on Twitter) on OneDrive Basics.  Blog post to the series here

More Modern Device Management resources can be found at:

• Dell’s InFocus Workforce Transformation Series
• Modern EUC Blog (Twitter @moderneuc)
• Modern Deployment Blog by Nathan Bridges

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Disclaimer: Opinions are my own and not the views of my employer. Information is made  available for educational, recreational, marketing and informational purposes only and is provided as-is with no explicit or implied warranties. ModernEUC.com is not associated, endorsed or sponsored by Dell Technologies.

You can also check out the archive of past newsletters here

If you have any articles you want me to consider including in future blog posts just ping me on Twitter: @moderneuc with some details!