The Future of Converged Communications – Leon Wright, Global Lead at Microsoft

Leon Wright, Global Lead for Converged Communications at Microsoft, discusses how AI is transforming Teams Phone, telco partnerships and customer engagement.

• How AI is driving renewed interest in Teams Phone and enabling new productivity use cases
• The evolving roles of SIs and telcos in delivering scale and strategic value
• Why partners integrating AI into Converged Comms are seeing 20%+ growth
• The convergence of Teams and Dynamics in Microsoft’s AI business solutions strategy
• Microsoft’s shift to transparent roadmap sharing and early partner feedback

Thanks to Pure IP, this episode’s sponsor, for their continued support of Empowering.Cloud.

Transcript

Leon Wright: Specifically customers in the service industry, they've got such opportunity to, to make huge gains. Uh, and, and we are seeing that we've got some customers that are really leaning in heavily and early. And, uh, and seeing the returns on that, Tom. So, um, I'm pretty excited and when you look at some of the stuff we've got coming up in the roadmap.

Tom Arbuthnot: Hi, and welcome back to the Teams Insider Podcast. This week we have Leon Wright. Leon works at Microsoft. He looks after Converged comms globally, looking after SI partners and telcos. We get into his thoughts of the coming financial year for Microsoft. Of course, AI's impact on Converged comms, where the opportunities are for partners to add value to customers, and also the relationship between the SIs and the telcos, and who's really driving Converged comms and that conversation.

Many thanks to Leon for jumping on the pod awesome conversation. Also, many thanks to BCM One Pure IP enterprise voice for all their support. Everything at Empowering.Cloud. On with the show. Hey everybody. Welcome back to the Teams Insider Podcast. A really exciting one this week. Uh, I spoke to Leon a couple of months ago at the bootcamp.

We're going to a really good conversation in one of the evenings around where the market is and what's going on, and I said we had to, had to get this on the podcast. So it's been a, a bit of a scheduling back and forth 'cause Leon's the other side of the world to me. Um, but we've got it in. So, uh, Leon, welcome.

Do you wanna just introduce yourself and your role? 

Leon Wright: Yeah. Thanks Tom. It's, it's, it's super to be here and, and great to chat to you again. And, uh, yeah, I just wanna thank you for your contribution also to our, uh, kickoff call. It was so nice to have you as part of it and have the MVP community represented.

So awesome to have you there. So see you. I

Tom Arbuthnot: appreciate the opportunity to share. It was, uh, fun to, fun to share with all the partners and then talk about what's coming up this year. 

Leon Wright: Yeah, it's, it's, and it's also nice to have that, um, just that voice outside of Microsoft that, you know, and I, I mean, the one thing that I always enjoy, Tom, is that the MVPs hold us to account.

Um, you know, and, and that's a good thing. We, we love that. That's where we from. I appreciate that. So that's good. Yeah. So just in terms of my role, so Leon Wright, for those that I haven't met, um, I have the wonderful opportunity to look after the Converged communications practice, um, that's globally across, uh, SIs and Telcos.

Um, and really when I wake up in the morning, it's how, how do we do awesome things with partners? How do we. Uh, drive opportunity for partners. Uh, you know, how do we make you more profitable? Uh, you know, just it's about creating opportunity. I think, as Satya always has said it better than anyone, is we build products that other people do magical things with.

Uh, and that's what partners do. They, they, they make us look good. 

Tom Arbuthnot: Yeah. And that's never been truer, I think, than Converged comms. 'cause Converged Comms can't exist without partners. Like some of the other workloads in Microsoft. Um, like, like there's a big partner ecosystem and, and, and then it gets kind of easier in the cloud and gets simpler.

Um, I think Converged Comms has gone on that same journey from OCS and Lync and Skype servers where we were running up, you know, hundreds of servers in big environments into cloud and business value. But, but Converged comms, both with like kind of the, the teams rooms, devices, the devices ecosystem, the carrier connectivity, and now with AI really needs partners to help drive the business value.

Leon Wright: Yeah, it's, it's, it's really important and, uh, you know, I think in every time you hear me talk, I'll say partners are our superpower. And that's truly where it happens. Um, I was chatting to to, to one of the, one of my partners, uh, a few weeks back. Um, someone, you know, one of the partners I really rely on a, you know, if, if this, it's the kind of partner that if they phone me and say, Hey Leon, there's something, I get straight into engineering 'cause I know something is wrong.

You know, it's just, it's, it's that level of trust. And, and we were talking about Converged communications all up. And, and what is interesting to, to the point you just made, Tom, is Converged communications is complex because it's not just the application, it's the application. It's, you know, you know, you gotta know application, you gotta know networking, you've gotta go mobile RAN.

You gotta know fiber optics. Gotta know. You gotta be able to take out a, a wire, a wire shock and do trace, you know, and for those of us, a bit gray like me, you know, you've, you've put a sniffer on the line before. So, you know, you gotta really understand the technology and, and I think that's what makes it really interesting and now overlying the, the new opportunities, that's when it's really gonna come to its own.

Tom Arbuthnot: Awesome. So we, we've just had, um, as we record Microsoft's end of last year, financial results as a storming year and very much. Powered by AI across the whole of Microsoft, like platform and product. And, and obviously that's in Converged comms too. So what's your take on kind of, uh, I, I guess Converged comms pre AI and now well, well integrated to ai.

Leon Wright: Uh, I see, I see possibly the biggest opportunity I've ever seen in my career happening right now. Um, not only across the segment, but in terms of Converged communications. Uh, you know when, when I look at it and I look at it from a Converged communications practice, and you know, we've got rooms, we've got places we've got, but, but let's just look at phone for a minute.

Is, uh, bringing the phone, the phone workload is the biggest workload behind Outlook. So behind email, it's, it's, it's the biggest workload. It's so, you know, bringing that legacy, um, workload or, or that's that big into the AI landscape and being addressable by AI so you can bring it into your productivity picture is absolutely critical.

Um, you know, if I, if I don't have my voice, uh, into actions. Within the AI real estate, uh, you know, then, then, you know, I dunno who Tom spoke to, I don't have a record of my calls. I don't know what I've promised to people, um, or other people in the, the company. There's no context and no history. It's just a dark hole.

So I think bringing that in into the overall opportunity just, just is phenomenal, Tom. It just, it fulfills that real estate and opens up so much professional services opportunity for our partners to go there and monetize. 

Tom Arbuthnot: Yeah, I, I've seen that, I mentioned it on the kickoff, like I'm seeing customers who have really got into Copilot and the, the AI journey and actually that has stimulated the, oh, well, let's get the phone conversation because we obviously want the meetings and calling data in the AI conversation, and we wanna have some of these things like, you know, intelligent, cool recap and insights into individual cool productivity and some of the stuff we're seeing now, the intelligent, you know.

Transfer notes, and I know there's more coming we can't talk about yet, but it's, it's kind of, it's, it's interesting to see it go kind of the other way. I was always out there driving the phone conversation. Now actually the AI conversation is driving the phone conversation. 

Leon Wright: It's, it's such an important point.

Um, um, is what, what I'm starting to see now is that pivot that the pendulum has truly swung. Okay. Last year was just a, you know, was was a year of just trying to get the, the channel sensitized around how important the AI was. Um, let me give you, let me give you a prime example. Um, we've got what we call our partner advisory councils, and this is partners that are, that, that are really special in the field that we invite and when we do at least three times a year.

We'll talk to them in Redmond, get their feedback. And it's, and it's, yeah, it's very straight feedback. It's, it's like you, the MVPs, it is, this is what we need to do. It's input into the product and, um. About more than a year ago when I stood there and I said to the, to the, and it, it's a combination of AI as telcos, it's, it's all the different partners.

And I said, so how, how important is AI in your voice journey and monetizing and driving your voice journey? And I got one or two putting up the hands and others, you know, not really. This is not. And uh, I did that eight months later and it was a hard yes. It was, we, we see it, we see how it's moving, and if anything's happened, we've seen, we've seen AI really start to play a, a significant role in Converged communications that's only going to, that, that is only accelerated.

You spoke about some of the stuff that, that, you know, that, that we're busy envisaging of how this is gonna really impact and, and make customers more, more, uh, more productive. And, uh, I'm really excited to see that happening in the next, next few months. Tom. 

Tom Arbuthnot: Awesome. So what is the, what is your perspective on the partner?

Obviously you have a, a very unique view of what's going on in terms of like how, uh, you know, we're over 20 million teams, phone seats, 320 million MAU for, uh, Teams in general. Like there's a combination. Obviously Microsoft have some direct touch with the enterprise accounts, but then there's telcos and SIs driving that conversation and those projects.

What's the mix of all those components? 

Leon Wright: Yeah, it's, it's, it's a, it's a really important question that you ask and, and one that, that I. Wake up every morning, just, just kind of weighing up and seeing, seeing how we manage this because the, the challenge and the opportunity is that, um, different organizations have got different balance sheets.

Um, and, uh, what, what we're gonna see and, and, uh, you know, to, to get a, for a telco to take on AI and build new practices. And that is really hard. And, and some will do it. Better than others. 'cause they, they're structured in, in a different way. But generally it's hard because your p and l is structured towards something different, whereas an SI is a lot more agile and the ability to, to move and, and do that.

So the way that that, that I generally look at it, Tom, and it's, it's, it's, it's, it's just, I suppose Leon's view is that, I'm not saying this is the way it does work, but, um, the way I look at it is. Uh, the SIs, uh, and let's take voice. The sis got a, got got behind, uh, team's voice. They drove teams' voice when there was a high level of complexity.

So, you know, so we got that first wave. The SIs drive it, drive it, drive it, um, until we, until we get to a point that it, it's commoditized and really simplified. And then you'll see the telcos come on and we drive scale, but as we drive scale, profitability and professional services will drop off. Okay, so we started 

Tom Arbuthnot: Yeah, because it got it, got it, got it.

Got simpler in the cloud. We got things like OC like, and, and everybody knew what they were doing. I think so, yeah. The, the, like my olden days of Lync and Skype projects where it was like. Eight weeks designed to do this global infrastructure. There's none of that anymore because it's just a lot easier to do at scale.

Leon Wright: Correct. And, and as, as you see, the, the telcos have, have come up and they've taken that on and, and you're seeing, starting to see the, the step change in terms of velocity and scale now and then the SIs drop off 'cause they're looking for more profitable, more challenging, more complex, um, stuff to go. And it's, it's the way their business is structured, um, you know, it's just the way that they're wired.

So they're gonna look for different stuff. So they went off and did stuff. Now we've got Converged Comms and we've got AI coming into Converged Comms. And we are seeing now the, the SI is starting to step up again and starting to lead that fray in terms of how does AI get enabled in Converged communications.

Um, and I and I, and I, I think we're gonna constantly see that way. You know, the wave is gonna be ai, the next wave is gonna be agents the next, and, and we are gonna, you know, that's how we're gonna continue. And I think it's, it's always, and, and it's a good thing. It's just creating that momentum.

And it's good for customers because the more we, the more we do it, and the quicker we're able to condense those curves, the, the, you know, the cheaper it becomes and more impactful it becomes for customers. So I think it's a, it's, it's a win all run. But how do we, how do we enable and how do we. Um, help the channel, take us on, learn those new skills, um, and what and how do you monetize it?

I think that's what, what we're grasping with right now, you know? 

Tom Arbuthnot: Yeah. I, I love that you brought that up because that was gonna be one of my questions. 'cause that is where the, the rubber meets the road for partners really, isn't it? Like we all, we're all excited about technology, but we also have teams to, to, uh, fund and bills to pay and, and profit to make.

So yeah. Where's, where's that opportunity? 

Leon Wright: And I think we've already, we've already put done some really good work on that. So there was a few, a few SIs um, and, and telcos that I worked with early on last year. And then it just kind of, it, it took them close and said, Hey, this is, this is the AI strategy we have.

This is where we are going. And the, the, the, the partners that really embraced that and took the AI and took their, the AI practice and built it into Converged communication. So they did, they, they had their normal AI practice and their Copilot work that they did, but they then wrapped. The Copilot component in Converged Communications, and they merged those two.

So when you're going and you're doing an engagement, um, of, for organization and the AI strategy, you're pulling Converged comms through, and in the workshop you're doing consulting for Converged comms and partners that have done, that have grown their Converged comms in, in, in the year behind us now have grown their Converged comms practices by more than 20%, all of them.

So you can see the monetization. Um, and I suppose more, more importantly than that, uh, is. The discussion has changed, and, and I know you referenced this in, in your, uh, in, in your session too, Tom, but it, it, it, it changes it from a managed services opportunity to, to really sticky strategic engagement. 

Tom Arbuthnot: Yeah, I, I think it's, it's so much easier.

I, I spend a lot of time, not as much you, but a decent amount of time talking to telcos and partners and it, it's, it's such a more business impacting conversation to come in and talk about integrating AI and how you engage your customers and that business value conversation as opposed to how many phones, how many rooms, like how do we optimize PSTN costs?

Like, that's obviously part of the conversation, but the, the way more impactful part, if you wanna get the business. Side of the conversation because the, the, the whole world is being impacted by ai. So the business generally is aware they need to be doing something and then that's the conversation they want to have.

Leon Wright: Yeah. Uh, and I think there's, you know, uh, the partner ecosystem we have is, is, is just, we are blessed to have the best in the world. Um, and when you combine the, the, the, the SIs and you look at, specifically look at the telcos, they have the biggest opportunity to, to transform economies. Um, you know, these, the.

The, the, the big telcos globally can transform the way businesses are, are working and operating. I mean, take these small business footprint that they have and, and, and the end and the direct connection to those small businesses. And if you're able to take the, the AI value proposition package it, um, put it in in, in a tangible use case and drive it into that mid-market SMB, um, you can, you can change economies.

It's, it's, uh, and it's gonna happen. 

Tom Arbuthnot: Yeah, it often it's SMB and mid-market that can actually move faster on this stuff, right? They're not so tied down with lots of, lots of layers of management and scale and, and kind of change process. And actually AI can, it can bring them real tangible value in terms of saving time, increasing efficiency, better customer engagement.

Leon Wright: Yeah. And I think the, the, so, so that's the opportunity, Tom. But this is also what, what keeps me awake at night is, um. Enterprises have still got the opportunity to, to bounce things around, test, you know, and have that opportunity to do that. You can't do that in a small business. When you take it and you drop it down, it's gotta show instant.

It's gotta be quantifiable and it's gotta show instant value from day one. So I think there, there's less room to, to experiment and to try things and, and, and we've very quickly gotta try and get to that market with, with, with real value. Um, 

Tom Arbuthnot: yeah, no, definitely. Um, well we've had the like, uh, MCAPS kickoff and the kind of, uh, you know, sense of direction for the partners from that point of view.

And one of the interesting things was this new AI business solutions kind of concept of bringing together the M365 conversation and the dynamics conversation. And obviously for our audience, there's the Dynamics 365 contact center and a lot of the AI conversation happening in Dynamics though. Um, how does it change things, if anything, that those two kind of.

Business areas are in the same AI business solutions kind of strategy Now. 

Leon Wright: I think what it does is it just, it's good for the market and it's good for customers. Tom, what it does is bring the product, the products together, it brings our go to market together. Um, and let, let me just selfishly talk, I mean obviously Dynamics is a much bigger, a bigger business, but let's just talk about where it touches my business.

Tom Arbuthnot: Is I, yeah, that's kind of what I wanna get into as 

Leon Wright: well. Yeah. Yeah. I've been working very closely with the Dynamics team for more than 18 months now in terms of getting close on, you know, the contact center solutions. On the Teams phone extensibility, how are we gonna go to market? And um, you know, one of the things that, that, that you and I also chatted about, I'm gonna digress just a little bit here.

If you, if you'll gimme the latitude, is please. You know, we always had contact center up here and this was the, the intelligence set here. And calling was always just the, you know, 'cause the dial tone and, and we chatted and there was. You know, it's kind of, that's what it was. Um, but very quickly, and this is one of the things that AI is changing, is you've got not only additional intelligence in the CRM and and and that contact center environment that is just exploding in terms of the, the opportunity there.

But what you're seeing is that intelligence is moving down into standard stock, standard calling. So it's not just enterprise calling anymore. Those features that you used to see in high end contact centers are now coming right down into calling. So the opportunity, um, for. A player like me to be productive, um, you know, with a normal calling stack and, and the tools that I now have at my fingertips is just unprecedented to what we've had before.

So, you know, I think that the, the, the impact that that's gonna have Tom and the collaboration is you're gonna see the two products start to get closer and closer. Um, and the integration. You've seen, you know, our ecosystem partners, our extensibility partners, just that's gonna allow, obviously, the intelligence, but it's also gonna allow you to leverage that base.

You spoke about the, the, the 20 million plus users we have out there. How do you take that base and how do you use that base, uh, for contact center and start leveraging that infrastructure opportunity? It's there. So I think it's, uh, you know, it allows. Us to scale better, it offers better opportunity, uh, and it's an easier experience for customers also, other than the efficiencies we, we drive internally by doing what we've done, um, it enables us to, to much better approach the market, uh, Tom and partners.

Tom Arbuthnot: Yeah, that's, that's really helpful to understand. I think you're right. It's kind of a continuum now of like you got Teams core. You've Teams, Premium, adding extra value and kind of AI goodness and Queues app obviously in this world. Very interesting. You've got the great ecosystem contact centers, and then Unify certification and Dynamics, and it kind of feels like everything is kind of starting to.

Overlap as in like there, there, there's actually quite a lot of AI value in the box that previously would've been gated by a $150 contact center license. It's like, well, no, actually now we can get knowledge workers, AI summaries, recaps. We can push that information to CRM, we can do some clever analysis on it.

It's, it's nice to see the value coming down the down the stack. 

Leon Wright: Yeah. Uh, you know, I think customers and specifically customers in the service industry, um, you know, have got, have got such opportunity to, to make huge gains. Uh, and, and we are seeing that we've got some customers that are really leaning in heavily and early and, uh, and seeing the returns on that, Tom.

So, um, I'm pretty excited. And when you look at some of the stuff we've got coming up in the roadmap Yeah. And you said something interesting, Tom, is you said, um, well, let me not quote you. To me, it's, it's, it's built in, not bolt on. Um, that, that, that is really important, um, is in terms of not only managing the, the capabilities and features that you're gonna surface ongoing, but also managing the security around that, um, you know, is, is gonna be super important and increasingly so, you know, the opportunity to manage things like fraud, things like, you know, these, these are things that are becoming really important.

Tom Arbuthnot: Yeah, it's funny in, in the, uh, kind of the instant messaging days, you know, uh, it was like our workload didn't have a lot of static data, so it was fairly transient, so we didn't have big conversations about data and archiving and security, that data, and again, now it's flipped on its head, like nearly everything is recording or transcribed.

So suddenly there's a lot of business data that's being used in all sorts of ways that you, you're right, it needs to be considered from a data and safety and security point of view. 

Leon Wright: Yeah. And I suppose the best, the best testament that, uh, Tom is, is you and I. Um, I, I don't think I could work without Copilot anymore.

It's become, it's become so integral to, to how I work the, the way I work, the, um, the way I share. Um, and it's become like a, it is become a really important tool that, that I use daily. Um, yeah. So it's, it's, uh, it's very, very powerful. Um, yeah. 

Tom Arbuthnot: Awesome. And the last thing I wanted to touch on was, um, like we talked about the SIs, we talked about the telcos like partnership between those groups.

'cause you, at the bootcamp when you did your kind of, uh, keynote kickoff there, you talked about partnerships across different technology areas and different types of partners. Can you just speak to that a little bit? 

Leon Wright: Yeah. What we are seeing, uh, Tom, and, and, and I'm, I'm gonna talk across Converged comms and Copilot.

Now, we started off this journey, uh, what, three years ago where you, you, you would've seen and you were, you were, part of that is, is, is pulling how we pulled the, you know, we had the, the, the, the rooms partners, and then we had the teams phone partners and how we started to pull those two communities together.

Okay. And to cross pollinate across those communities. Uh, and we've purposefully done that over the last two, two years, more than two, two and a half years. And, and we're starting to see the benefits of that. Um, and, and it's, it's for multiple reasons. Um, we've got a, a very high attach rate from phone to rooms and rooms to phone.

And when customers buy, it's about the customer's buying experience. When you buy, you don't buy rooms and phone. You buy Converged Comms. So how do we make it a better journey for the customer? How do we make it, you know, the day two managed services, how, how do we improve that whole buying experience? So that was bringing the two communities together.

And what we saw was there's some partners that, you know, some of our partners that are just hardcore rooms, phone infras, our rooms, infrastructure partners and others that are phone and, and that's, that's, that was their swim lane. Um, and they've part, and the P2P motion has been great because they've partnered up.

Uh, so instead of a customer having to go to multiple partners, they, they working together, align their strategy, delivering together in customers. And, um, what we're finding is they're passing off opportunities to each other. Also, you know, if I'm a rooms partner and I, and I go and visit a customer and there's a phone opportunity and I'm saying, Hey Tom, I've just been at.

Joe's auto spares. And you know what? There's a phone opportunity there, mate. Let me introduce you and vice versa. So that P2P motion is critical. Um, and when you look across phone and rooms, now there's a third leg almost is these infrastructure partners, um, are busy building that AI capacity. And, and some of them are, are incredible and have done that already, but there's some that haven't.

And you know, it's expensive, it's expensive skills, and they're not readily available. So what I've also been consciously doing is making sure that I'm introducing. Um, those, those partners that have that appetite to some of the Copilot partners. So that you, so that you start creating not only the infrastructure P2P, but also the the, the AI P2P.

And then as they, they connect and they deliver together, and then it's almost like a, I'm gonna use a mentored install mythology. You know, as they see it, they learn it, and you get to build a practice and capability around it. Um, in, in, in a way that, that suits your balance sheet, you know, and you, you can start to, and it's good for people also because you're not ripping and replacing you.

You, you're building and you're incubating and you're growing people that, that, and that sits at the core of, of us as Microsoft. How do we grow people? So, you know, that's why this is so important. That's a model that, that, that works for the balance sheet. It works for the people. Uh, you know, and it's, it's, it's, it's just, it drives growth.

Tom. 

Tom Arbuthnot: Yeah, I love you referencing the balancing conversation there. 'cause that's so, so practical to the conversations I'm having with partners, which is like, I, I a hundred percent saw that too. Like some of the bigger players, like particularly the bigger rooms partners have brought voice in-house now, but they still sub some of it when it's like complex and there's these, you know, specialist partners still around who are just, you know, can deal with all the crazy long tail of the, of the voice stuff that's complicated.

Low SBC on site and lift phones and modems and all that fun stuff. Um. Uh, I, I feel like it's a bigger jump. From, uh, rooms to phone or phone to rooms versus own all rooms to Copilot. So, uh, obviously there's a, there's some partners, as you said, that will skill up there, but I think it's a great partner opportunity and it's a partner opportunity that you're probably never going to overlap.

Uh, with that partner as well. But also so much of the AI conversation is a cx is a customer engagement conversation. That actually, again, the, I, I can't see an AI conversation that doesn't touch on customer engagement, customer contact center, which, which helps the, the, the phone and, uh, rooms partner potentially as well.

Leon Wright: Yeah, a hundred percent. And you know, I think the, what we're gonna see is there's this, I see it as two steps. The first step is, is that, that they're wonderful. I mean, they're incredible infrastructure partners today, okay. Across phone rooms and, and premium and, and places and all of that. So the next step is how do we, uh, how do we enable, and I'm, I'm calling it a go back motion.

Tom, you know, you, you might have. 200,000 seats of Teams phone out there, and you've done an incredible job and it's working like a Swiss watch, but isn't AI enabled? Okay. You need to go back to that real estate and you've gotta go and enable that and help those customers move and transition up and, and do that first part of the AI journey.

And when I say first part of the AI journey, that is a part that I mean is built in. Go and do transcription, do translation, do query, do. Do all that stuff. That's kind of just commodity AI that sits in the world. 

Tom Arbuthnot: It's kind of a good news story as well. 'cause you're like, well you invested in this platform, I told you it was gonna evolve, and now hey, I'm back.

Look, there's a whole bunch of value we can get out of this investment you made. Um, like you say right out of the box before you even talk about, uh, premium and TPE and contact center, everything else. 

Leon Wright: Yeah. So, you know, it's, it's, it's like an immediate, it's a, it's a whole new, um. Opportunity to, to your point, to just become more productive for customers.

It's an opportunity to be more impactful and drive more monetary value for partners, um, and skill up. And then once you've done that, there's another step is I've now gone and, you know, uh, AI enabled tom.com and all your rooms and your phone and whatnot, and we've now at the point that we say, okay, that's running.

Then you say, Hey Leon, but I've got this service team out there that is just, you know, really bling. Tom, let's get into the agent world. Then we start building agents for you. And then we start getting into, into, into how do we support your business process by developing, using all the, the beautiful infrastructure we've just built.

But drop an agent on top of that and start to leverage the agentic solutions on top of that. Um, you know. Frontline workers comes to mind there. There's just a whole bunch of opportunity. But I see that as the next phase that's gonna, that'll take a little bit longer. There's some of my partners that are doing an incredible job today doing that.

Um, but, uh, but that's gonna take a bit longer. But you know, there's, there's so much on, on the buffet right now. Yeah. Uh, yeah. 

Tom Arbuthnot: Awesome. Well, thanks Leon for giving us some really good insight. It's, it's nice to talk right at the start of the new FY and kind of get a feel for where the lining's ahead. I'm really excited for some of the, the, the roadmap stuff that's coming in, just how much we saw AI impact last year and how that innovation will continue to accelerate embedding.

So I think it's gonna be an exciting year from Converged comms. 

Leon Wright: Yeah, it is. Tom, and I suppose what I would also just share with you is, one of the things that, that we trying to do and you told, you spoke about the bootcamp that, that we did is. Yeah, the old, the old way we did engineering. Um, you know, and I've, I've been in multi, I've been in telcos, I've been in Cisco, I've been in Microsoft, you know, yeah.

I've worked in multiple organizations and, and pretty much from an engineering perspective, they're all wide the same way. You know, we go out, we build a product, we get it perfect, then we test it, and then we go, then we release it and don't you dare talk about a feature that we haven't got on in backlog and it's confirmed.

Those days are gone, Tom, we, we can't do that anymore. Um, what I'm, what I'm doing at the moment, and this was a, this was a, a bit of a leap of faith that we took. Last year in our, in our NDA communities and, and we speak very freely about what we are doing. Um, you know, what are the, what are the features? We are coming up and I'm very transparent when I stand up there, I say, Hey guys, we are gonna share this.

Um, and I'm not saying that everything's gonna hit the board and stick. Okay. We, we might have an 80%, might have a 70, we might have a 90, I don't know. But I'd rather tell you high and early what we are doing, what we are thinking, um, and get your inputs too, um, than, yeah, than not tell you and, and, and surprise you later on.

And we are sharing high and early and that's been really successful for us. Um, and I'm gonna continue to double down on this. 

Tom Arbuthnot: I really appreciate that. Yeah. I really appreciate the engagement we get from everyone across Converged Comms, the kind of engineering and commercial side. And you say it's a, there's a lot of feedback taken from, from partners and customers around what's important to them and what the direction should be, and you see that bear out in the product over time.

Leon Wright: Yeah, we, we really value the, the community Tom. Um, you know, feedback is a gift, eh, it's, uh, it's, we take, we really take that as a gift. So yeah, please give it free. 

Tom Arbuthnot: All right, well thanks for joining the Pod, Leon, and we'll definitely have you on again, uh, maybe midyear or something, see where, where we are, and, uh, yeah, appreciate all the, all the engagement and support as well.

Leon Wright: Lovely to be here, Tom. Thanks for all you do for the community.