Announced at Microsoft Ignite 2019 and currently, in preview, Microsoft is now offering a first-party remote “Managed Meeting Rooms” service. It includes:

• Access to online portal
• Customers interact with Microsoft via support tickets that are view-able in the portal
• Proactive Monitoring – Incident reporting e.g. device issues, sign in issues
• Microsoft Endpoint Management integration
• Inventory, health and compliance reporting along with insights, analytics and recommendations
• Remote Patching (Windows, MTR App and Certified Room devices, which firmware update via windows update)
• Online planning advice for your room spaces
• Usage Reporting
• Remote fixing issues where possible
• Coordination of “hands” to do anything on site – today coordinating customer staff but in future could be partners
• Not included: Anything “hands-on” that needs physical work/in-room work, like plugging in a cable, is not included. Microsoft will recommend partners but the customer will pay for these services directly to those partners or customer can select their own partner.

There is a special windows agent the service uses that installs on the MTR.

There are over 170 customers in the preview, which is currently managing over 2,000 meeting rooms. A cost of $50 per room per month was mentioned, but this is not yet finalised.

There was a breakout session on the service at Microsoft Ignite, Recording here.

If you’re interested in participating in the private preview, you can register your interest here.