Microsoft is hosting an event in New York at 11 a.m. Eastern on November 2 where chief executive Satya Nadella and Office corporate vice president Kirk Koenigsbauer will speak. The event, according to the invite, is to “discuss the changing nature of collaboration and how we can empower every team to achieve more”.
There is of course no more hint. The event will obviously revolve around the Office suite. Interestingly, the company has also sent out invites for a watch party in San Francisco.
The November 2 event could be squarely focused on Microsoft’s business and enterprise offerings. But since it deems the presence of Satya Nadella himself, this could be a big announcement. Microsoft has been very focused on its connected enterprise offerings lately. A major Office 365 update could be on cards.
Before November 2nd, there is another Microsoft event lined up on October 26th, which is more of a consumer-focused event. A Surface all-in-one PC is likely on the agenda, with exciting additional updates to the Xbox and Windows 10 updates.
[UPDATE 1:30 P.M]: Due to the scarcity of deeds about the November 2 event, we contacted Microsoft to learn more about what one can expect to debut at this event. Nick Jackson, a Microsoft spokesperson replied back with the following statement:
At this event, Microsoft will be sharing how we can empower today’s increasingly dynamic teams to achieve more. I cannot share anything more.
This message is still quite cryptic, but laying emphasis on ’empowering dynamic teams’ definitely points towards improvements coming to the Office suite. But, this has piqued our interest further beyond Office and we think Redmond could debut its Slack competitor, called Skype Teams, at the event.
Though Microsoft’s tools all revolve around collaboration and sharing, the company still doesn’t have an active communication app for enterprise teams in its arsenal. It had tried to buy out Slack but failed. Thus, it seems that the company has been working on its own team chat app and we’ll get a first glimpse of the same at the event.
