What’s New May 2023

Last updated: 5th June 2023

Plenty of major updates this month including our upcoming Microsoft Campus Updates webinar featuring Veeam, our sponsorship & sessions at Wales’ National Eisteddfod Technology Village & all the latest Adobe AI releases, with Pugh publishing new blogs on Firefly & Substance 3D! Plus, SMART’s brand-new QX Pro & TeamWorks 5 are now available, Microsoft announce more Teams & Copilot AI updates, Andrea launch new education headsets & more!

Get up to date with Microsoft Campus & Veeam!

Join us for June’s Microsoft Campus Updates webinar where Pugh’s Microsoft expert Eifion Evans will bring you all the latest updates, including some very important Azure best practices to help keep your Microsoft environments secure.

We are also thrilled to be joined by Veeam who will be covering:

  • The new capabilities within Veeam’s latest Backup for Azure v5
  • How Azure backups integrate with Veeam’s multi-cloud Backup & Replication
  • Where all this fits within Veeam’s enterprise-grade Data Platform, with advanced monitoring and analytics

Register today to stay ahead of the curve and get the most out of your Microsoft investments!

Register Here

Pugh sponsor the National Eisteddfod 2023!

Pugh are proud to be sponsoring this year’s National Eisteddfod Technology VillageRegister for our sessions below!

Join us as we showcase how SMART and Microsoft integrate to help you develop a truly inclusive modern workplace!

  • Be one of the first to see the BRAND-NEW 75” SMART QX Pro interactive screen, iQ Pro and TeamWorks 5 collaboration software in action!
  • Discover how SMART solutions integrate with Microsoft 365 and Teams to offer seamless hybrid meeting experiences
  • Learn how to develop a truly inclusive workplace, ensuring that everybody is given the opportunity to contribute, collaborate and make a difference

Register Here

Join us for a fun-filled interactive session where we will be using Adobe’s brand-new creative generative AI tool Firefly to create some exciting images and graphics!

  • Teachers and Educators will gain inspiration on how to make lessons more interactive and engaging for their pupils!
  • Children will be encouraged to shout out their wildest imaginations to help us bring their creative ideas to life!
  • See how this all works on our 86” SMART 6000S – SMART’s most powerful interactive display for education!

Register here

Pugh & Adobe’s Elite creative partnership!

As an Education Elite Partner and Platinum Reseller, Pugh’s Business Development Director Mark Price and Marketing Manager Chris Jones recently attended Adobe’s Partner Connect and MAX London events where brand-new products and AI features were showcased, including:

  • NEW Adobe Express in public beta – This brand-new version of Express is coming soon to HE/FE and comes embedded with Firefly AI capabilities!
  • NEW Generative Recolor beta in Illustrator – Transform palettes and colours with one click using simple natural language text prompts and AI!
  • NEW Retype beta in Illustrator – Inspired by a font you’ve seen somewhere? Take a photo and Illustrator’s AI will detect and use it right within your work!

Adobe Firefly’s creative AI innovations!

Adobe are leading the way when it comes to Creative Generative AI. You can read all about Adobe’s AI innovations in Pugh’s latest blog on Firefly and Generative Fill!

Read BLOG

Adobe’s Oscar-winning Substance 3D!

Be sure to check out another of Pugh’s very latest blogs where we look at Adobe’s impressive Substance 3D collection of design tools and explore specific use cases within Product Design, Fashion, Architecture and Games Development HE/FE courses!

Read BLOG

BRAND NEW product releases from SMART!

SMART’s very latest major product announcements:

  • The highly anticipated SMART Board QX Pro Series for Business is now available to pre-order for shipping dates in July!
  • NEW TeamWorks 5 is now available for Business boards, including faster one-touch meeting launch and dynamic shared workspaces for remote and in-room participants to collaborate in real time!
  • iQ 3.14 is now available for Education boards, including NEW split-screen capability!

Join us as Wales’ National Eisteddfod to be one of the first to see SMART’s BRAND-NEW QX Pro interactive screen and TeamWorks 5 collaboration software in action!

Pugh at Microsoft’s exclusive security event!

Pugh’s Business Development Director Mark Price recently spent a week in Mallorca for Microsoft’s exclusive SMB Security Scholarship Program.

Pugh were very proud to qualify as one of the top 100 Microsoft SMB Security Partners, with Pugh receiving a tailored training experience around Microsoft Defender for Business, Microsoft 365 Business Premium and Microsoft’s BRAND-NEW Copilot AI.

32 BRAND NEW Microsoft Teams features!

This month features all the big announcements from Microsoft Build 2023, including:

  • Active speaker view in meetings – Larger area designated for the active speaker, with a higher resolution video to effortlessly track speakers
  • NEW meeting recap experience – Watch meeting recordings directly within Teams, as well as co-created meeting notes, transcripts and shared content
  • Teams Premium Intelligent Meeting Recap – AI-generated meeting notes, recommended tasks and personalised highlights, plus automated recording timelines and chapters!

Read More 

More exciting Microsoft AI announcements!

Introducing Microsoft 365 Copilot | Microsoft 365 Blog

Following all the recent M365 Copilot announcements, Microsoft have even more exciting AI updates, including:

  • Windows Copilot – Windows 11 is the first PC platform to announce centralised AI assistance to help people easily take action and get things done!
  • AI in Bing & Edge – Bing AI has now moved from Limited Preview to Open Preview, allowing more people to try it out, with Edge now becoming your copilot for the web!
  • Bing Image Creator – Create images in Bing by simply typing the words that describe the picture you want to generate!

Read More

REMINDER: Microsoft Teams Rooms changes!

This is a reminder that after July 1st 2023, Teams Rooms devices logged in with resource accounts must have one of the following licenses assigned:

  • Microsoft Teams Rooms Pro
  • Microsoft Teams Rooms Basic
  • Microsoft Teams Rooms Standard (legacy)
  • Microsoft Teams Rooms Premium (legacy)

If you currently have M365 or O365 user licenses assigned to Teams Rooms meeting devices (e.g., E1/E3), they will need replacing prior to this date or they will be blocked from signing in.

Watch the recording of Pugh’s May Microsoft Campus Updates webinar for more details!

Watch Recording 

Introducing the NEW Andrea headset range!

Andrea have launched their BRAND-NEW AC Series headsets – a low-cost headset range perfect for education!

  • AC-155 USB Stereo USB Computer Headset – On-the-ear computer headset with noise cancelling microphone and USB-C & USB-A connections
  • AC-155 Stereo Computer Headset – On-the-ear computer headset with noise cancelling microphone and single plug & C-200 jack connections
  • AC-125 Stereo On Ear Headphone – Cost-effective on-the-ear headset with heavy duty cable perfect within education

Get in touch on 01974 200 201 / sales@pugh.co.uk for more information and to order!

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