If you look after meeting rooms on Microsoft Teams, the last week of September was one where the important news arrived as admin notices rather than keynotes. Microsoft wrapped up its move of Android device management out of the Teams Admin Center, Neat and Shure both shipped new devices built on Microsoft's Android platform, and a couple of Teams deadlines landed quietly on the calendar.
Away from Microsoft, Zoom used an education launch to put native Zoom Rooms on Cisco hardware into its pitch, a week before I head to Austin for WebexOne. And in our interview this week, Zoom's Linda Lian told me why AI sales tools are about to become an IT governance problem, which is a conversation I expect to keep having through October.
Editor's Pick: Teams Android Device Management Moves to the Pro Management Portal
The Teams Admin Center is no longer where Android meeting devices are run. Microsoft began a phased removal of device management from the admin centre in the first week of September and expected it to complete by the end of the month across all clouds. Inventory, updates, health monitoring and settings for Teams Rooms on Android, Teams phones, panels and SIP phones now sit in the Teams Rooms Pro Management Portal instead.
The timing matters because of what else has changed around it. Earlier in September, Microsoft confirmed in writing that all newly certified Android devices for Teams will ship on the Microsoft Device Ecosystem Platform (MDEP), and Android 10 and 11 devices lost their Teams certification on 3 September with one year of support left and no upgrade path. This week the vendors started shipping into that model. On 28 September, Neat confirmed Teams certification for Neat Board 32, Neat Pad Pro and Neat Pad Gen 2, marking its entry into MDEP. Diana Vank, Principal Lead Manager at Microsoft, says:
Neat continues to be one of our fastest-growing hardware partners, and certifying the Neat Board 32, Neat Pad Pro, and Neat Pad Gen 2 as schedulers for Microsoft Teams is an exciting milestone for our joint ecosystem.
Put the three changes together and Microsoft now controls the Android operating layer on new Teams devices, the portal those devices are managed from, and the timetable for retiring the old ones. For buyers, device choice is shifting from camera and audio specs towards how cleanly a device sits inside that single management plane. For IT teams, the practical risk is in the stragglers. Devices need the Pro Management Portal network endpoints, including Azure IoT Hub, opened on firewalls and proxies, and devices running an older Admin Agent or left signed out need manual attention before they will onboard. Our Cisco vs Microsoft Teams Rooms explainer sets out how the room management fight between the two platforms is shaping up.
Zoom Brings Native Zoom Rooms to Cisco Devices a Week Before WebexOne
Zoom's big announcement on 29 September was about higher education, but one line in it matters well beyond campuses. Alongside Zoom Classroom, the company said native Zoom Rooms are expected to run on a wide range of compatible Cisco devices, with more hardware support on the way. It builds on the Cisco Devices for Zoom Rooms launch at InfoComm in June, when Cisco's Espen Løberg and Zoom's Jeff Smith explained to UC Today why certified hardware matters for the agentic workplace.
Zoom is selling Cisco hardware as a way for institutions to get more from equipment they already own, six days before Cisco opens WebexOne in Austin. Estates running both platforms want one set of room devices, and a Cisco room that can run Zoom natively also makes Cisco hardware easier to keep on the shortlist in organisations that have standardised elsewhere. The question for WebexOne is how far Cisco takes that multi-platform story, and whether its own device announcements lean further into running every major meeting platform. Our earlier analysis of the Cisco and Zoom partnership covers what it means for multi-platform room estates.
Zoom Revenue Accelerator: Why AI Sales Tools Are Now an IT Governance Issue
My interview this week with Linda Lian, who leads Common Room and Zoom Revenue Accelerator, was meant to be about Zoom's new revenue OS, which launched on 15 September with Engage, Forecast and a new ZRA Elite tier. Lian says customers typically connect around 12 separate tools to give sellers the context they need, and that adding an AI co-pilot to each one has made the problem worse.
The part that should interest collaboration and IT leaders came next. Sales teams are already using AI co-pilots and MCP connections whether or not IT has approved them, which puts contact permissions and privacy rules in tools nobody manages centrally. Lian says:
