11th MVP Award Rewarded

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I am actually on vacation, but as I sit here under the summer sun, toes in the pool and a cold drink within reach, I have been waiting for that email confirming that I’ve been awarded my 11th Microsoft MVP Award! As last year, I am being awarded in both the Teams and Copilot category. To say I’m humbled would be an understatement. Being part of the global Microsoft MVP community for over a decade now has been an incredible journey, filled with learning, sharing, speaking, and connecting with passionate technologists from every corner of the world. What is the Microsoft MVP Award? The Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP) award is given to technology experts who share their knowledge and real-world expertise with communities. With fewer than 4,000 MVPs worldwide, it’s an honor to be part of such a vibrant and dedicated group. MVPs contribute through speaking engagements, writing, open-source contributions, and helping others online and offline. You can learn more about the progra...

Skype for Business Cloud Connector Edition in now available

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Back in December 2015, Microsoft announced the availability of (among other things) Cloud-PBX. This was in effect only available for US customers, where O365 has native support for dial-in and dial-out. Or for customers which already have a Skype for Business on premises in hybrid mode.

To speed up the process of offering Cloud-PBX to countries where O365 does not yet have native dialing capabilities, and/or do not have their own on premises Skype for Business deployment, Microsoft have developed the Skype for Business Cloud Connector Edition.

The Skype for Business Cloud Connector Edition (CCE) is a collection of VM's through which you may connect O365 to your local PBX or SIP trunk, and thus have users in O365 have Enterprise Voice capability.

The CCE has been released for general availability as of today (Monday April 11 - 9A,M,)


If you already have a Local Skype for Business deployment in hybrid mode (or are about to turn on the hybrid feature), you do not need to deploy the CCE as you may use the hybrid deployment in the same way. In fact, you can't have both a hybrid deployment and a CCE running of the same tenant.