Microsoft’s Enterprise Video Sharing Service Goes Mainstream

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Way back in July of 2016, Microsoft announced a new service designed to make the sharing process of corporate video, easier. The platform, called Stream, is finally reaching general availability today, nearly a year after it was initially announced.

The corporate videos that we all love have existed for decades and are nothing new but what has historically been a challenge is sharing them internally in a way that is secure and offers a high level of collaboration. The Stream service offers a single destination for all of your video to make discoverability easier and to offer a unified solution for hosting the content as well.

The basic premise behind the tool is that in a controlled environment, employees can easily upload, share and discover internal videos through one site. The goal of the service is to take the ‘work’ out of sharing video internally and make it accessible to all employees while also maintaining the high levels of security that the enterprise demands.

This new feature will be included in Office Enterprise (K1, K2, E1, E3, E5), Education (and plus), and is rolling out today to customers in every market around the globe. If you don’t see the feature in your Office app launcher, it should appear in the near future.

As part of the announcement today, Microsoft will begin transitioning Office 365 Video to Stream which will be a complicated process. Microsoft outlines the process here and it is worth reading as the transition has potential implications on how you currently use Office 365 Video inside your company.

Additionally, if you are not an Office 365 customer, Microsoft is offering a stand-alone version of the service that you can try it out today, for free.