Earlier this month we attended Mitel Next, the virtual conference for Mitel, its resellers and supplier channels. The event is a great opportunity for the Mitel community to watch the latest keynotes and participate in a range of interactive breakout session.

I’d love to tell you about everything we saw, but a lot of it is subject to change and remains confidential at this stage. Besides, you know what happens to snitches!

Despite that, there are some things that we can talk about. First, it was great to see some consistent messaging coming to the fore. It’s been a slightly confusing 12 months for customers and service providers alike, with an apparent lack of focus from Mitel. Now it looks like they are committed to solutions where they excel; with the emphasis on hybrid cloud solutions that offer essential flexibility, security and scalability. A move to a complete UCaaS/CCaaS public cloud offering isn’t going to suit every customer, and protecting a long-term investment can be valuable.

MiVoice Business

Over the next 12 months, Mitel are going to make the 6900 series handsets available as wireless.  No more having to plug your handset directly into your home broadband, and fewer trailing wires! They are also planning to allow, in some instances, an MBG to be deployed on the same machine as MiVoice Business to reduce overheads.  It’s good to see Mitel thinking about our carbon footprint.

Mitel is planning an updated interface for the Operator console, which is currently slated for V10. The aim here is to simplify management, so it will include a customer portal for settings, accessed via a Cloudlink gateway.

Contact Centre

There will be a refreshed user experience for agents with the web RTC softphone. Initially, agents will be required to log in to their softphone via a separate web browser. However, in phase two, they will be able to  log in using Single Sign On from the web ignite screen using a single client.

There will also be an overhaul of reporting (to be known as Insights), increased API integrations, Single Sign-On, Social Media integration enhancements and Live Listening on call recording later this year. You’ll need to audit your Contact Centre too, as concurrent agent licences will be enforced from version 9.4

MiCollab

We were briefed at the Mitel Next event on the roadmap for MiCollab and there are a number of items of interest. The main one being a Mitel telephony client for integration with Microsoft Teams. The intent is for it to work with Teams (using Mitel Assistant, which is available in the Microsoft App Store) without needing the additional licencing add-ons from Microsoft. It’s expected to be available before the end of Q2 this year.

Further down the line, Mitel is looking at Presence integration with Microsoft Teams, using the Microsoft Graph API and Cloudlink integration. Essentially, it will sit in the tray and be a background client (rather than a full softphone client) but will offer mid-call features if needed via a pop out.   In-call features will be available through this expanded window without needing to close down the Teams app.

Other things we saw were an updated UI for softphone and smartphone clients and simplified deployment for the engineers.

No good event would be complete without some financial incentives. Look out for some substantial promotions for any customer looking to migrate to Mitel Cloud. Anyone moving this year will benefit from the offer for the entire lifetime of the contract.

4Sight is a Mitel Platinum Partner and #1 Service Provider. With over 25 years’ experience, and an unmatched reputation for service excellence, we help customers across the UK to maximise the returns on their investment in communications, collaboration and mobile technologies.

If you would like to know more about the Mitel roadmap, or how to make the most of your current Mitel solution, give us a call on +44 (0)20 3668 0444 or email in info@4sightcomms.com