Airbnb’s founder talks new features, get the 4-1-1 on Microsoft Viva, and learn how ‘data recover...

Do you ever feel overwhelmed by the ever-changing world of technology? Tech It Out can help make some sense of it all. Breaking down geek speak into street speak. Technology columnist, author, and TV personality Mark Saltzman covers consumer technology each week for every listener. Mark tackles the latest news, reviews, and how-tos to help you understand what's hot, what's not, and why.

Hey everyone, welcome to Tech It Out. This is episode 245. Hope you're all doing great on this mid-May show. Thank you for tuning in and be sure to leave a star review or a comment if you like, should you be listening to the podcast version of Tech It Out. It's really easy to just click a star rating or leave a couple of words there on your favorite platform. Those reviews and ratings go a long way. Hey, we do have a great show planned for you this hour. We're going to start off with what to do if your laptop doesn't turn on or your external hard drive isn't working and you think about all those important files you've got on there, including irreplaceable photos and home movies. Well, we'll talk with one of those data recovery services in a moment. After that, we'll catch up with one of the co-founders of Airbnb about what's new with that mega popular service. And finally, we get the skinny on Microsoft Viva. It's a new employee experience and engagement platform. All of this and more on an all-new Tech It Out powered by ASUS for those in search of incredible. I'll tell you more about ASUS shortly, but let's officially kick off the show with our first interview. It's the worst feeling. You're working away on your computer and something goes wrong. I don't know, hard drive malfunction, nasty virus, a power surge after a storm, or maybe a laptop is lost or stolen, and then you realize that all the files that you have on there that you haven't backed up in a while are gone. And that could be irreplaceable photos and home movies as well or important work documents. And so on this show, I preach about regular backups. But say you want to retrieve info from a dead laptop or an external hard drive that will no longer turn on. Well, we're now going to learn about data recovery services with a company called, yep, datarecovery.com. We're joined by Justin Mlelen, general manager of datarecovery.com. Welcome to the show, Justin. Good to chat with you.

Hey, thanks Mark for having me on. I really appreciate it.

Sure. Hey, why don't we just start off at a high level. Talk to us about the company, datarecovery.com. You've been around for a while, right? And you're based in Toronto.

Yeah, that's right. I'm talking to you from our Toronto location. We do have four labs in North America, one in Toronto, one in Arizona, one in California, and one in Illinois.

Awesome.

And the company has been around for a long time. We've been around since '97. We started out recovering floppy disks and zip drives back in the day.

Well, happy 25th anniversary to you, by the way.

Yeah, thank you, sir.

So, what would you say separates your services at datarecovery.com from other data recovery companies? And let's also clarify what exactly it is that you do when you talk about recovering data off of a drive, even legacy ones that you've mentioned.

Yeah, for sure. So one of the main differences I think with our company and some of our competitors or other data recovery companies is that we do have those four real physical labs in North America. Like I mentioned, a lot of our competitors, they have what we call a Regis office or a drop ship point where you might go in and they claim to have a location in every major city, but all you're doing is going there, bringing your device and someone's just shipping it out immediately, right? So you can trust when you come to one of our locations. And our slogan is real people, real labs, real engineers. And that's what we have at each location is we've built out these locations to have clean room labs, to have engineers on site, and to have all the equipment we need to get the recovery done locally, right? Which is a major benefit for the time it takes to get the recoveries done.

Got it. So people come to you, they either bring the broken external hard drive or the laptop physically to one of your locations or they ship it in. And we'll get to more of that in a moment. So they don't have to be living in Toronto or in Illinois or California or Arizona for example. But what you do essentially is that you connect that inoperable drive to I'm assuming another computer and then you use like special software in order to try to retrieve the data off of that drive that no longer works. Is that fair?

Yeah, that's right. So, I mean, anyone can come into any of our locations. We're open from 9 to 4, Monday to Friday in person. We'll create a ticket for you. We'll set everything up. We'll do a free evaluation on your device and then we can offer a quote for recovery. Now, if you're not local, if you're in the States, you'll be receiving a free UPS express air label into our nearest lab. And yeah, once we get the devices in, our main goal is to complete the free evaluation and then offer a quote for recovery and determine if the data is going to be recoverable or not. There are some drives that do arrive that are not recoverable. It's very rare, but for the most part, we're able to get back almost anything off any type of device that stores data, right?

Awesome. And that so that could be an external hard drive. It could be a solid state drive, which is increasingly popular. What about something like a memory card or a USB flash drive? Even those?

Yep. Anything that holds data that you can think of from a cell phone, camcorder, SD card, micro SD card, USB flash drive, SSD, hard drive, server. We even do cryptocurrency recovery. We do password recovery. And we even work on ransomware cases as well.

All right. So that's when someone locks down your computer because you, you know, accidentally clicked on a file like an attachment or a link and then they say, 'Haha, we got you.' Unless you give us, you know, Bitcoin or something, we're not going to let you have access to your files. So that's when you would unplug the computer and bring it to someone like you and then you may be able to get rid of that ransomware so that you can access those important files.

Yep, that's correct. Yeah, definitely. I've seen just recently some Fortune 500 companies have been hit. Yeah, ransomware, it's very difficult to work with these threat actors. They've stepped up the encryption on this stuff. So, they are tough, but there's definitely a way to retrieve data and typically depending on what's been infected and who's been infected, the ransoms could reach into the hundreds of thousands of dollars actually.

Wow. All right. So, talk to us, Justin, about the first thing you should do once you realize your drive isn't working. So again, that could be an external drive like where it's usually you plug it into your computer and it's recognized and it's not for whatever reason or let's say your laptop or desktop won't turn on.

So the very first thing that I would suggest is if you plug in a hard drive or you try to turn on your laptop or your desktop and it's not booting up. If you hear any abnormal sounds such as clicking, ticking, beeping, or scratching, power it down or disconnect the drive immediately because that can be causing further damage. And depending on the time that you've spent with the drive powered on in that condition, it can actually destroy your platter surface, making the recovery impossible. So really, the first step is I would say to power it down and call datarecovery.com so we can take a look and do a free evaluation for you.

Got it. We're chatting with Justin Mlelen, GM of datarecovery.com. We're learning about their data recovery services for all kinds of external drives as well as computers themselves. They're based in Toronto, but they will accept drives, I'm sure, shipped from anywhere, and there are also three facilities in the US as well. So, with that in mind, walk us through the process. So, again, you talked about a free quote so long as you can access datarecovery.com on some device. You can reach out that way or you can call a phone number.

Yeah, that's correct, Mark. Yeah. So, if you have a way to get on to datarecovery.com from a different computer or your cell phone, there is a link at the top says get a free quote. You can submit your information that way and we'll give you a call back very quickly or you can dial the number. It's 1-800-237-4200. Again, that's 1-800-237-4200. We'll gladly take the call and go through the procedures with you to get the ball rolling on recovery. We do offer the free shipping into any of our labs throughout North America or of course if you're local you can drop it off in person.

Okay, awesome. And then how long does the process typically take and also for cost? Is there like a starting price that people should be aware of? I know that data recovery services can be a bit expensive.

Yeah, that's right, Mark. So, it really depends on the situation. The very first thing is to get the device into our lab for the free evaluation. Once we receive the device, typically an evaluation report will be sent out either same day or next business day. So, it's very quick turnaround time for the evaluation so you can have an idea about what's going on with your drive. There'll also be an estimate on a turnaround time for the actual recovery along with a full detailed report as well as the recoverability and the cost. Some cases are a couple hundred dollars. And you know, unfortunately, some of the heavily damaged ones could even go up to a couple of thousand dollars. But it really depends on the damage. You know, it's much like calling your mechanic and asking him how much it's going to cost to fix your car. It's not starting. Well, he needs to take a look at your car and we need to take a look at your drive.

And I know you also have a no data, no charge policy, right? You only charge for the recovery once the work is complete and the data has been successfully recovered. If the data is not recovered, there's no charge, which is really great. And if you make a partial recovery, then you only bill on the percentage of the data that was recovered. So all of that, that's great stuff.

Yeah, that's correct, Mark.

And then before we wrap up, Justin, any good practices you could suggest to minimizing things happening to your computers or your external drives?

Yeah, well like you said in the beginning, Mark, and as you preach, you know, data backup is very, very important. It's always the best practice to have your data stored in two separate locations or more at any time. That means that if your internal drive on your laptop has important data on it and you copied over to your external drive, you have to also leave it on your laptop drive. Because a lot of people make the mistake where they buy an external hard drive, they put all their critical data on the drive and then they erase it from their laptop and they call that a backup. But considering that that's your only source of data, it's no longer a backup, right? So yeah, and obviously nowadays we have the services available for cloud storage at a consumer level. You know, iCloud, Google Drive, Dropbox, OneDrive, any of these services you can upload data to as well. Some people do have concerns about privacy. So, if that's the case, then you're the kind of person that's going to want to maybe have two external hard drives with your data on it.

Yeah. And like you said, keep them in separate locations, too. And just in case of fire or flood, you've got access to a safety deposit box at a bank or something, then you can also throw a drive in there with all your precious family memories and important documents and all that and just leave it there.

Yeah. Or one at home and one at work in a secure location. That's always a best practice as well. You're right.

Okay, great. And then I'm assuming it's simply datarecovery.com to learn more.

Yep. datarecovery.com or give us a call 1-800-237-4200.

Thank you so much for your time, Justin. Justin Mlelen has been our guest, general manager of datarecovery.com. Thank you.

Thanks again, Mark, for having me on.

When we return on Tech It Out, we catch up with one of the co-founders of Airbnb to discuss some of the latest features that were unveiled this week. Stay with us. We'll be right back.

Listen to Tech It Out whenever you want. Find the Tech It Out podcast in iTunes or wherever you get your podcasts.

Welcome back to Tech It Out, powered by ASUS for those in search of incredible. ASUS creates technology for today and tomorrow's smart life. And that includes its line of award-winning laptops and desktops. Accessories like monitors, keyboards, and mice. Mobile tech like smartphones, tablets, and smartwatches, and much more. For those in search of incredible, visit asus.com/usradio for more info. That's asus.com/usradio. Question for you. What's only 14 years old yet has served up more than 400 million guests around the globe? The answer, of course, is Airbnb. And last week, the company made a few big announcements tied to some new features. Joining us on the line to chat is Nathan Blecharczyk. He's co-founder and chief strategy officer at Airbnb. Welcome to the show, Nathan. Good to chat with you.

Before we chat about what's new with Airbnb, let's please just bring everybody all up to speed. Remind our listeners if you can what the platform is all about.

It's awesome. Congrats on your successes today. So how would you say Airbnb compares to other similar let's say services like I don't know, Vrbo or other places where you can book accommodations?

Yeah. I'm going to ask you more about AirCover for guests in a couple of moments, as well as something called split stays, but it's great about, you know, it seems like it offers more peace of mind for those who are booking accommodations. How has the pandemic changed your business at all, Nathan?

Oh, wow. And so, you know, I think this ability to work remotely has meant that living, working, and traveling have all blurred together, meaning people can work from anywhere, not just their own home, but any home. And people have really leaned into that opportunity to travel more and in this case, use Airbnb to get off into the countryside and explore some new destinations.

Well, I think there's three elements to it. One is, yeah, absolutely you can have your own space and that's been, you know, particularly appealing during the pandemic. But two, if you're going for a longer period of time, it's more affordable to stay in a home than a hotel. And you can also have your own kitchen so you can make your own meals. You know, these are things that are more important when you're staying for like a week or longer.

That was going to be the third thing. Yes, you're right.

Yeah, absolutely. Over the course of the last couple years, we've seen that people are more flexible in terms of when they travel or even where they're traveling to. They're not going to the same top 10 destinations all around the world. They've been going more nearby. And more than ever, people just want to have experiences, right? So, if you show them a great experience, they're going to be open-minded about when they do that and where they go to do that. And so now when you go open up our app, we're going to immediately start showing you amazing homes that are these incredible experiences. Even before you type in a destination, even before you type in dates, these homes, they are organized into categories. We have 50 different categories representing different styles of homes. So for example, you can search by farms, vineyards, historical homes. You can do it by location, right? So maybe you want to do kind of beachfront homes, tropical locations, or by activity, skiing for example, or golfing, right? For example, if you want to go to a national park, maybe you don't care which national park in particular you're going to, but we can show you all the homes all across the United States or all across Canada or anywhere in the world for that matter where we have homes in the national park or close by. So, it's a whole new way to find the hidden gems on Airbnb because we have 6 million homes and so many of them are outside of the top destinations. This functionality is really meant to surface some of these unique properties.

Split stays allows you to when you're staying for a week or longer on Airbnb, it shows you different ways in which you can stay in two homes instead of one. Why would you want to do that? We'll learn when we return on Tech It Out.

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Breaking down geek speak into street speak. This is Tech It Out. Tech It Out with technology columnist, author, and TV personality Mark Saltzman.

Welcome back to Tech It Out. We are chatting with Nathan Blecharczyk, co-founder and chief strategy officer at Airbnb. Just before the break, Nathan, you were telling us about split stays. Can you please elaborate what this new feature is all about?

Yeah, of course. Location. Yes. The net result of this is that as a consumer, as a traveler, you get many more options to choose from, right? We see on average you get 40% more options to choose from. And when you have more options, it means you can find a place that's even better suited for your needs.

Yeah, this is really the biggest upgrade to our customer service offering in the last decade. And this is included free of charge with every stay. And basically, it means that should anything as unlikely as it is happen to your booking either before you arrive or once you arrive, we've got your back. If something is not as described when you show up and it's a real problem for you, we can find you a comparable or better place and we'll do that kind of proactively, giving you options. Of course, if you prefer to have your money back, we can do that, too. But this represents a very streamlined way to help guests both before and during their trip. And again, it's included free of charge. It's accessible through the app and also the phone line, of course, as well.

Well, honestly, that split stay feature is something that I was very close to because it's a problem that I've experienced myself so many times. As I alluded to earlier, you know, I like to get away sometimes for two weeks with the family. Often times that overlaps with a holiday or a school break period. You have to plan really far in advance to get the best places. And too often I'm a little too last minute. By splitting stays though, I've had really I've come across much more amazing homes that way. Of course, before I had to basically manually type in different permutations of dates in order to find these homes. Now, this all happens automatically through the split stays feature. We're suggesting all these, you know, different combinations of places you can stay at to have a great stay. So, this is going to be really useful for me.

Yeah, absolutely. So, if you'd like to host on the platform, and I encourage everyone to check it out, because more than ever, people want to travel. It's a great opportunity to make some extra money from your space. And so, first of all, you set your own availability. So, whether when you want it to be available, whether it's a one-time thing or an ongoing thing, you can define that however you like. Second, you set the price. We can give you suggestions if you like and you can easily kind of ballpark other listings in your area.

So, you have complete flexibility in terms of how you define your availability and how you define your price.

And then finally, in terms of the kind of business model, Airbnb has a service fee that guests pay. It varies a little bit. That's on top of whatever price you set. Okay.

Yeah. That's awesome. All right. And then finally, the best place to learn more, would you recommend a website or just to download the app?

All right. And then of course you can just go to the app store for iPhone and iPad or the Google Play Store for Android devices and just type Airbnb. One word. There you go. Thanks so much for your time, Nathan. Really, really great to chat with you and congrats on these new features recently unveiled. Exciting times.

You are listening to Tech It Out. I'm your host, Mark Saltzman. Thank you for tuning in. We're going to chat with Microsoft after our next break to learn all about the Viva platform for businesses. I know a lot of people who tune in to the program, they run a small business or they work for a bigger SMB, small to medium-sized business or enterprise level. So, we're going to learn all about the Viva platform and how it keeps employees productive and happy and healthy and all that. So, cool stuff. But first, I did want to remind you that if you're on social media, drop by and say hi. Let me know what you're up to, what you think of the show. If you have suggestions for an upcoming guest or topic, anything you don't like about Tech It Out, I'm all ears. You can hit me up on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, and YouTube. It's Mark Saltzman. Mark with a C, Saltzman with a Z. I also write a tech tip of the day if you like to learn little easy ways to get more out of your tech, saving you time or money or aggravation. I write these quite a bit and I often shoot a video along with it. For example, last week I talked about how if your friends come over and they want to use your Wi-Fi network or you have kids whose friends come over and they want to get online that it's smart to set up a guest network to segregate it from your main one. It's just a little bit extra secure. And instead of having to give out the SSID or the wireless network name as well as the password all the time that there is a free website that I'll tell you about in a moment that lets you type in the guest network name and password and then it creates a QR code that your guests can scan with their phones to grant them access immediately to that network. So really convenient and it's fun to print it out and you can put it on a little card or in a frame somewhere in your home that you can tell your guests to always scan or some people get creative and they do like needle point and stuff and they make like a QR code embroidered, you know. But the website is simply qifi.org. So qifi.org and that website is called the PureJS WiFi QR Code Generator. So it's an easy and fun way to create a cool QR code for your guests. So, you just have to type in your Wi-Fi credentials into a little online form. So, it's those kinds of tech tips of the day that I write on social media or I shoot videos about. So, again, it's Mark Saltzman, Mark with a C, Saltzman with a Z. We'll be right back when we learn about Microsoft Viva when we return. Stay with us.

Breaking down geek speak into street speak. Tech It Out. Hosted by Mark Saltzman.

Welcome back to Tech It Out. Hope you're having a great day so far. You likely know this show is powered by ASUS for those in search of incredible. ASUS creates technology for today and tomorrow's smart life. And that includes its line of award-winning laptops. In fact, there's five different brands of ASUS laptops. There's the top-of-the-line ZenBooks, which have a lot of innovation, a lot of technology under the hood, cutting edge stuff. Then there's the VivoBooks, which are really great sort of all-around day-to-day kind of laptops with lots of colors to choose from and some serious power, too. There's the StudioBooks for content creators, ExpertBooks for more of a business-grade laptop with long battery life and tough security. And then Chromebooks where they're often less money, great for students or just for basic tasks. And it runs on the Chrome operating system from Google. So check out asus.com/usradio for more. That's asus.com/usradio. Of course, you've heard of Microsoft's many productivity offerings like Microsoft 365, which includes Outlook for email and calendar and such. There's PowerPoint, Word, Excel, Teams for communication and collaboration, OneNote, OneDrive, and the list goes on and on. But you may not be aware yet of Microsoft Viva built as an employee experience platform that brings together multiple elements as we're going to hear now with Seth Patton, general manager in the modern work organization within Microsoft. Welcome to the show, Seth. Thanks for your time.

Hi Mark, great to be here.

Yeah, thanks. So why don't we dive right in at a high level. What is Microsoft Viva all about?

Well, first of all, I think it's important just to acknowledge that we're all experiencing a pretty significant workforce transition right now. You know, coming out of the pandemic and with a shift to hybrid work, employee expectations have really changed. People are really re-evaluating their, you know, priorities about why, where, and how they work. So, for example, we just had a recent Work Trend Index survey. And in that, 53% of employees say that they're more likely to prioritize health and well-being over work. 18% of those respondents reported that they had left their jobs in the last year and 43% are considering leaving their current employer in the coming year. And we've been referring to this as the Great Reshuffle. So people aren't just choosing a job anymore based on location and a paycheck. They want things like purpose, flexibility, growth, and development. They want a culture where they feel like they belong to. In short, they want a better employee experience. And in this environment to attract and retain talent, it's become more critical than ever for leaders to really prioritize that employee experience like never before. And it also has to be a great experience regardless of where people choose to work from. And Microsoft Viva is really designed for this. It's the first digital employee experience built for this hybrid world. It really is focused on helping organizations create a better employee experience by bringing together all those things an employee needs to be successful. Things like employee communications, learning and development, knowledge sharing, company resources, purpose and alignment along with personalized insights as well as recommendations that help improve your daily productivity and well-being. I would just the last point here I'd make is that Viva also importantly is a platform. So it integrates with a company's existing HR and employee experience tools and brings those into Viva as well. So employees have access to all those things they need to be successful right where they're already working in Microsoft Teams, Outlook, and Office.

Yeah. And speaking of Teams, correct me if I'm wrong, it sounds like a lot of what you've been chatting about this hybrid work environment, people, some may be in an office, some may be at home, different time zones and all that, that Teams already kind of facilitates this new work environment. How would you say Viva as a platform differs from Microsoft Teams?

You're right. Microsoft Teams has really become an important tool to help people adapt to this new world of hybrid work. It's really become that default place where our customers are working with each other throughout the day whether it's in meetings or chat, calling, collaborating on documents or projects. But beyond providing people with access to great collaboration and productivity tools, Microsoft is also committed to supporting the growth and development of employees. And that's really where Viva comes in. Viva builds on top of the productivity and collaboration capabilities in Teams by adding additional apps and insights that focus on employee growth and development as well as building culture and connection. So in this way employees can find what they need and learn new skills all in the flow of their work. And Microsoft Teams is actually just one of the applications that Viva integrates with.

If you can please explain to us Seth the four different components to Viva. You've already sort of hinted at a couple of these, but I believe it's learning, insights, topics, and connections.

Yeah, let's do that. Let's start with Viva Connections. So, Viva Connections really focuses on culture and employee communications. So, it provides this gateway or front door to your company's people, news, and resources. And it's a company-branded employee app which provides that single entry point for things like viewing town hall meetings, communities, news, all within a more personalized engaging app. So at Microsoft for example, Viva Connections is just our Microsoft app. That's what people refer to it and it's available for all employees right inside Microsoft Teams. So that's Viva Connections. The next one to talk about is Viva Learning. And Viva Learning is really focused on making learning more of a natural part of employees' daily work instead of some formal office room that you go to to get training where the curriculum is already outdated. The way learning is happening today is much more social, real-time, and it's much more focused on learning from your peers in addition to formal learning. So, Viva Learning really brings all of that learning that exists across your organization into Microsoft Teams and making it much more easy to discover learning, but also making it more social, more collaborative, like sharing learning recommendations or collaborating on learning right within a chat or a meeting. And importantly, it also integrates with learning that you may have from third-party content providers as well. A lot of organizations have learning from different providers and of course our own LinkedIn Learning but bringing that all together into one place that's personalized for an individual.

Got it. We're going to learn more about Microsoft Viva and employee experience platform when we return. We're going to learn about some of the different pillars that make up this platform, many of its features. So stick with us. We will be right back with more Tech It Out.

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We're chatting with Seth Patton, general manager in the modern work organization within Microsoft. We're learning about Microsoft Viva. Before the break, Seth, you were walking us through the four different pillars of this employee experience platform. Please continue.

Yeah. Well, you know, the third application is Viva Topics. And so, Viva Topics really focuses on using AI, artificial intelligence, to make sense of all that content and knowledge, the people that you have across your organization and then organizing that into what you can think of as a Wikipedia for your organization. So, enabling people to really quickly learn new topics or acronyms or share best practices. One of the things I love is finding experts not even know about a topic across an organization and then bringing that right into where you're working on creating a document or conducting a research project or even onboarding like many of us do all the time to a new team or a new team member and rather than having to go search for all of that, that knowledge finds you right where you need it.

And then finally insights is that like a dashboard for the employer to look at data from the organization.

Actually, insights is an app that includes data for different personas. And so, it is insights for individuals. So, all the employees in an organization to get personalized, privacy-protected insights to help my own productivity and well-being. But it also provides insights that are aggregated and de-identified to preserve that individual privacy for managers and leaders to get an understanding on trends and things that are happening across their organization. And then also take actions with the goal of helping improve productivity and well-being. So, for example, it includes popular features like a virtual commute to help people wind down the beginning and end of their day if they happen to be working from their remote or home office. Things like Headspace meditations, reminders to take breaks throughout the day, focus time for learning, praise for colleagues, and then most recently, we even added an inspiration library with access to thought leadership and best practices from Harvard Business Review, Thrive, and Microsoft as well. So now it provides managers and leaders this great set of resources for well-being trends, for productivity trends right inside Viva. So you can take action on those and then measure whether it's making a difference over time.

What kind of businesses best benefit from a platform like Viva? I mean it sounds pretty broad. But are there some verticals that you're finding that are adopting Viva over others?

Yeah, well you know it's across different verticals. Today we have it being used by more than 10 million monthly active users and a thousand paid customers. So customers like Unilever, Nationwide, PayPal, REI, they're using Viva to help address challenges like learning and knowledge sharing, employee burnout and retention, proving productivity of their workforce. And as you can imagine those are all things that are pretty important to most organizations across industries. But then of course we also have specific use cases, you know, like a customer like Bloom who is really focused on enabling their frontline workers and giving them that access regardless of where whether they're on the warehouse or on the go to all the things they need, company resources, etc., to do their job. We have organizations who are looking at specific sets of workers like maybe they want to focus primarily on enabling their sales force and really focusing on driving better experience for their sellers, which we know a better experience relates to higher productivity and higher sales.

Right. It sounds like it's more geared for enterprise companies opposed to small and medium-sized businesses. Is that fair?

You know, we have organizations really of all sizes that are using Viva and who care deeply about the employee experience, but I'd say it skews a little bit more towards larger organizations where that pain is just more acute.

Great. Yeah, I was going to say it looks like I'm looking at photos of it, Seth, and it's almost like a colorful canvas with those pinned photos and tasks and messages on like a board, if you will. All right. And just to clarify, so it works on mobile devices, so iOS and Android and tablets as well, I'm assuming, as well as Windows computers.

Yeah, it is available wherever Teams is available because it's just apps right within Teams. So you bet there's desktop version as well as on mobile.

And before we wrap up, Seth, how much does Viva cost?

We do provide starter capabilities with the base Microsoft 365 subscriptions. And then Viva's premium capabilities are purchased as an add-on to Microsoft 365. You can purchase individual modules. Those are $4 per user per month or it can be purchased as a full suite which of course provides the most value. And that Viva suite is currently being offered at the promotional price of $9 per user per month. Customers who purchase the suite subscription now importantly will get a new Viva module that is coming later this year focused on goal management and OKRs at no additional cost.

All right. viva.microsoft.com.

You got it. So again, viva.microsoft.com in your favorite web browser will take you to the official site to get more information.

Seth, it's been great chatting with you. Thanks so much for carving out some time to talk and I appreciate it very much. Have a great rest of your spring.

My pleasure. Thanks, Mark.

Speaking of computers, a huge thank you to Western Digital, the parent company of SanDisk and WD for their awesome external drives. Check out westerndigital.com for more. Thank you for tuning in to the program, everyone, and hope you have a great week ahead and I look forward to catching up with you next time for another episode of Tech It Out. Bye-bye for now.