TOP STORIES #92

First, a warm welcome to all the "newbies" who have joined this newsletter.

I hope you find this distillation of the volume of news out there (with some of my own opinions) of value.

This edition marks the start of the Christmas season, but the news does not stop. The industry players are busy preparing their announcements for the biggest consumer electronics show in the world, CES 2025, in Las Vegas. Of course, most of the news will "leak" before the show starts, so do not stop checking out TOP STORIES during the holiday season!

You can read the previous week's TOP STORIES #92 here.

If you would like colleagues to sign up they can click here.

Did you Know?

There is ONLY ONE certified Teams and Zoom phone partner in SA!

Finding that you have to renew your Microsoft agreement without Teams included, and now you have to pay extra for Teams?

This is actually a good thing, as it allows you to consider Zoom either as an alternative to Teams or to run alongside Teams in a hybrid environment.

For example, with Zoom, you get AI meeting summary capability for free - no need to pay more for CoPilot. With Galdon as your premium Zoom partner, you have the option to pay only for meeting organisers, so you can save SIGNIFICANT money by taking a hybrid approach to your collaboration and UC requirements - or migrating completely to Zoom and potentially saving even more!

However, if you are a Microsoft ME5 customer with Teams and Teams phone already bundled, Galdon Data, a premium certified partner, can help you squeeze every drop of value out of your Microsoft investment.

Galdon Data, a 25-year old division of the First Technology Group, is able to help you get the most out of Teams or Zoom or both, with capabilities that extend beyond meetings into Phone Systems and Contact Centres for both platforms. Galdon is also an expert in WhatsApp for Business so it may be useful to talk to them about how WhatsApp can be added to your portfolio of how you communicate with your customers and/or staff.

Even if you are happy with what you have, it is HIGHLY recommended that you contact your First Technology account manager to connect you with the UC experts in Galdon. They can advise you on Zoom, Teams, Contact Centres, and WhatsApp for business. No other company in South Africa has Experts in all these fields to give you the best advice for your business.

Hardware

Beyond Silicon, Beyond 2030

Intel will unveil next week its R&D on how it will continue to break barriers in scaling processors into the future.

This means using different materials from copper and different ways of interconnecting transistors. You can read more about Intel's research here.

Of course, to increase density and compute speed even further, other companies, such as LightMatter, are working on ways to use light to move data faster and in less space. There is a great YouTube video on this technology here.

With all these developments already underway, we can look forward to computing systems that will be so powerful in the 2030s that, compared with what we see today, they will seem like science fiction!

Microsoft

Outlook is Dead, Long Live Outlook!

I have been warning for more than a year that Microsoft is dead set on retiring Classic Outlook in favour of the New Outlook, even though it lacks support for PSTs and many other features we are used to in Classic Outlook.

It is confirmed that by April 2026, Microsoft will REALLY encourage you to switch to the New Outlook unless you have specifically elected not to. You can read more about this here.

April 2026 may seem far away, but a year passes in a blink so it is so important to engage with our messaging specialists now to start planning this migration and all the implications, some of which I have addressed in TOP STORIES #52.

PLEASE contact your First Technology Account manager to connect you with our specialists to discuss what this migration will entail. For certain parts of your business, such as marketing, accounts, R&D and others, the implications could be significant.

Recall finally coming to Intel and AMD PC's

This is still only for insiders, but you can now for the 1st time start experimenting with Recall on CoPilot+ plus PC's with the Intel Core Ultra (Lunar Lake) and AMD Ryzen AI processors. It is still very glitchy but still worthwhile testing out. You can read more here.

Other useful features, such as a natural language search of EVERYTHING on your computer, will be added, so next year, the number of requests for new computers from users wanting these new features will increase significantly. Please contact your First Technology Account manager, who will connect you with our hardware specialists to help you spec and then plan for the availability of these new "AI" CoPilot+ plus computers. Please ensure they have a minimum of 32 Gig RAM and 512 Gig of NVMe storage.

Security

Your AI Clone could target your family or work colleagues.

This would have been a crazy idea a few years back, but now the threat is so real the FBI is warning that to protect yourself - (read here), you need to have a secret word or passphrase that only you and those closest to you know.

If something feels "off," TRUST YOUR INSTINCT and ask for the passphrase. Be careful not to be tricked into revealing it or continue talking without the passphrase being provided!

Attacks are becoming more devious every day, and you need to be prepared for them as best you can. Please contact your First Technology account manager to connect you with our security specialists, who can review your staff's training and ensure it is up to date.

Cloud & AI

$200 a month?

With OpenAI announcing a "Pro" plan for $200 a month, it has left many in the industry puzzled. Is it an experiment on how much people are prepared to pay for a super-intelligent, less error-prone AI? Is it a marketing mistake?

Is this the price you will pay for access to an AGI? Does this create a new baseline that competitors will aspire to? Will we see a new version of CoPilot for that price? You can read more about this announcement here.

However this will end up, it is very important to start experimenting with AI to support you in whatever you do in your work or in your private life today.

PLEASE contact your First Technology account manager to connect you with our AI experts to get you started on your AI journey today - the longer you wait the more you will fall behind, and remember, ChatGPT has only just turned 3, so you still have time (but not much)

Microsoft moves to stop M365 Copilot from ‘oversharing’ data

As Microsoft pushes companies to adopt CoPilot, increasingly, a problem with CoPilot is that it is surfacing data that it is not supposed to, which is, ummm a BIG problem! Fortunately, Microsoft is very advanced in releasing tools to help companies ensure that data is appropriately categorised and protected, so this happens less often, like using Purview.

For some organizations, this has resulted in employees gaining access to confidential data in Copilot’s responses: payroll data, confidential legal files, even top-secret company strategy documents..... any information Copilot can access. You can read more about what Microsoft is doing here.

DO NOT DELAY! Start the process ASAP by engaging with our security specialists in First Technology to help you start securing your data as much as possible to be ready for AI.

If you do not start, you will increasingly fall behind.

Please contact your First Technology account manager to connect you with our teams to get you started on this journey.

What's up at FTG

Pure Storage event - Special Guest speaker - PSG Wealth

This is a special in-person event to start the new year that introduces the Pure Storage and First Technology partnership and takes you under the hood of the technology and how you can benefit from it and what the future looks like with Containers and Kubernetes.

When: 23 Jan 2025 at 8:00am

Where: Pencil Club, 1 Ncondo Pl, Umhlanga Ridge, Durban, 4320

There are limited seats, so please register ASAP

CoPilot Security Demo

BUI, FTG's security division, can present CoPilot for Security information-sharing sessions, workshops and demos.

In light of ongoing attacks that will only get sneakier, it is essential to contact your First Tech Group account manager to arrange to attend a session. You can also request a session here.

What does a World Class SoC look like and how does it work?

You are invited to book a tour of one of our SoC (Security Operations Center) nodes (and there are still parts we can't show you). You can book for the tour here.

BUI blog - 3rd Video Available

FTG's Azure and security division, BUI, has launched a blog focused on Security—what's new, what changed, and what you need to do to maintain a sound security posture. This one, however, is about a game that Dirk learnt about while attending Black Hat in Vegas.

All BUI videos have been moved to one YouTube channel, which you can find here.

The Security Blog Video #003 is now available to view here.

Movies

School holidays from 6 December to January 25! 50 Days!

Now Playing: Solo Leveling

Now Playing: Reawakening

Now Playing: HitPig

Now Playing: Lord of the Rings: The War of Rohirrim

Now Playing: Here

Now Playing: Niko Saves Christmas

13 December: Kraven The Hunter

13 December: Weekend In Taipei