What Goodwill actually said
Goodwill says he has spent 15 years in the Microsoft partner ecosystem and three decades in voice and data. He has sold and deployed Lync 2010, Skype for Business and Teams. At the time of the interview he was about a week into his TTEC Digital role.
His main point is about planning. In the Lync and Skype for Business era, upgrades arrived in phases, and partners had time to learn each one before the next landed. Now, he says, updates arrive so thick and fast that building a go-to-market is very difficult. Keeping clients current is hard too.
The practical consequence is a project that runs six, 12 or 18 months and meets new product changes before it ends. In his words, you may need to rethink it.
His answer has three parts:
- Agility in how partners work with customers.
- Close relationships with the vendor.
- A consultative stance. He wants partners asking what isn't working and how they can help, not pitching something new.
That is his view of good partner practice. Microsoft doesn't require it, and nobody has independently validated it as an industry-wide shift.
The roadmap change behind the quote
Goodwill says Dynamics 365's twice-yearly release waves have given way to a single AI roadmap. Microsoft Learn confirms the mechanism. Release plans will no longer be published starting in September 2026, and new Dynamics 365, Power Platform and Dataverse capabilities go to the AI at Work roadmap from that month. Existing release plans stay available for historical reference until further notice.
Administrator-focused coverage adds more detail:
- Release Planner is due to retire on November 15, 2026.
- Microsoft is retiring the twice-yearly release wave communication model in favor of continuous roadmap disclosure and change communications.
- Entries move through three states: In Development, Rolling Out and Launched.
- Existing items with a public preview or general availability date of June 1, 2026 or later migrate to the new roadmap during the fall.
- Message Center remains the authoritative source for tenant-specific change notifications. The roadmap covers public plans and status. The two are complementary, not interchangeable.
One caveat matters. One commentator argues that product update schedules are unchanged, and only the way Microsoft communicates them has changed. That is a reasonable reading. The evidence shows a change in disclosure, not an end to product updates. It also shows the old checkpoint is gone. The release wave gave customers a built-in planning checkpoint that no longer exists, so they now have to build their own.
The old model carried its own warning, too. Microsoft's 2026 wave 1 plan said Personalised saved views won't carry over to the AI at Work roadmap, so export anything you need before November 15.
3. Subscribe. Set up filtered roadmap views for the apps you use. The ERP Software Blog suggests subscribing to RSS updates.
4. Schedule a review. Hold a regular roadmap review with the owners of the affected processes. Advantage's guidance suggests monthly or quarterly.
5. Separate planned from shipped. Treat "In Development" as a signal, not a delivery commitment.
The Teams contact centre spectrum
Goodwill's UCX session was a rewrite of last year's because the Microsoft CX portfolio changed so much. He describes a spectrum of options:
- A basic attendant console.
- Teams Phone Agent, which he calls Microsoft's AI receptionist.
- The Queues app, which UC Today says went live in October 2024 as part of Teams Premium.
- Certified third-party contact centre vendors.
- Dynamics 365 Contact Center.
His conclusion is that no one solution fits everyone. Needs run from something light to something fully configurable at global scale.
Microsoft Learn adds detail on Teams Phone Agent. The "what's new" log on its setup page lists general availability to all customers on September 30, 2026. That same entry lists Teams admin center configuration for Bookings appointments, automatic recording and maximum call length. A later entry says it now supports 42 voices, including 33 new ones.
The setup page also lists practical limits administrators should know about:
- Teams Phone Agent is not supported for use in India.
- It is delivered through usage-based billing with Copilot Credits. Without configured spending policies or sufficient credits, it works as an Auto Attendant.
- The default call length is 4 minutes.
- Assigning an Automatic Recording template during creation fails. The workaround is to save the agent first, then edit it.
- Microsoft warns of a time-zone change for Alberta and British Columbia customers when North American Daylight Savings Time ends on November 1, 2026.
That list is the useful reminder here. "Generally available" doesn't mean "simple to deploy". The usage-based billing requirement alone could surprise a team that assumed it was just another phone feature.
Teams consolidation, AI agents and the Phone numbers
Goodwill spent 15 years as a comms engineer watching hardware shrink and consolidate. He sees software following suit, with Teams pulling more applications into one interface. He says that cuts application-switching and gives people time back. He also says he has personally gained time from agents, and he frames AI as helping humans rather than displacing them. He adds that adoption is uneven across sectors, because some industries face constraints on implementation.
These are personal observations, not measured productivity findings. Consolidation also has a flip side. More in one interface means more dependence on one vendor's cadence, which is exactly the problem he describes.
UC Today also says Teams Phone passed 26 million PSTN users at the start of 2026, up 30 percent in under two years. That figure is UC Today's reporting, and the interview doesn't point to a primary Microsoft source. It counts PSTN users specifically, not all Teams users or all Teams Phone licences.
Ignite is the next test
Microsoft Ignite runs November 17 to 20, 2026, in San Francisco, according to UC Today. Goodwill expects new announcements and says the portfolio will look different again by December. That is a prediction. It isn't a confirmed roadmap. Still, given that Release Planner retires on November 15, partners will probably walk into Ignite with the new roadmap already their main reference point. That timing is my inference.
Bottom line
Goodwill's complaint is anecdotal, but the evidence behind it is solid. Microsoft has retired fixed release waves for Dynamics 365, Power Platform and Dataverse in favour of a continuous roadmap. Meanwhile, its Teams contact centre options are widening. For IT leaders, treat every roadmap as provisional and build your own review rhythm. For partners, the advantage goes to whoever tracks the changes best and asks customers what's broken before pitching what's new.