On this episode of Collaboration Cafe, the Collab Collective’s Craig Durr talks with Tom Arbuthnot, Co-founder of Empowering.Cloud, while navigating a rainy day in London. Over coffee and a traditional Sunday roast, they explore Tom’s path from Cisco networking to Microsoft MVP and his role shaping Teams discourse today.
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Craig Durr: Hey everybody, this is Craig Durr, Chief Analyst from The Collab Collective, and welcome to another edition of the Collaboration Café. Where am I today? It's cold, it's overcast, and it’s wet—so yes, I must be in London. I'm here to meet with a good friend, Tom Arbuthnot, the co-founder of Empowering.Cloud. Tom offered to buy me a cup of coffee and then take me to try something called a Sunday roast. I’m not quite sure what it is, but I’m looking forward to finding out. Along the way, we’ll talk about ...
Tom Arbuthnot: Hi Craig, how’s it going?
Craig Durr: I’m good, thanks. Thanks for having me, and for arranging this traditional London weather.
Tom Arbuthnot: Yeah, proper London—cold and rainy. How are you feeling after ISE?
Craig Durr: I’m beat. That show takes a lot out of you. For you especially—creating content, visiting every booth, diving into new devices.
Tom Arbuthnot: ISE has become a huge Microsoft event. All the Microsoft people are there, and all the OEMs. I get to meet everyone in about a week—it’s intense but efficient.
Craig Durr: I noticed you shared some great insights about the MDEP program and had a deep dive with Josh Blalock on a new device. But today, we’re talking about you. Let’s start with your origin story. How did you get into this space?
Tom Arbuthnot: After my business degree, I wanted to stay in tech, so I joined a Cisco partner and started with Cisco networking—CCNA, then moved into Cisco voice. That’s what pulled me into UC. My foundation was voice, specifically with Call Manager back when it ran on Windows.
Craig Durr: You were always voice-focused?
Tom Arbuthnot: Absolutely. Then Exchange Unified Messaging came into play, and I started integrating Exchange and OCS. That’s when I saw Microsoft’s trajectory. I didn’t come from a classic Microsoft background. I was more from the voice world that slowly merged with Microsoft tech—OCS, then Lync, and eventually Skype for Business.
Craig Durr: Fun fact—I was at Microsoft then, on the Exchange team. It was chaotic with all the internal politics and separate product groups trying to unify under a single vision.
Tom Arbuthnot: Yeah, there’s always been politics in tech. But Microsoft started to unify their communication story, and it made sense. Initially, companies used OCS for conferencing to save costs, then got confident enough to switch their phone systems too.
Craig Durr: That was the age of “big iron in the closet” moving to cloud conferencing.
Tom Arbuthnot: Exactly. We had big enterprises doing millions of minutes of conferencing. And once they trusted that, voice was next.
Craig Durr: Let’s talk about what’s next—Sunday roast. As the token American here, I have to ask: what is that?
Tom Arbuthnot: It’s a UK tradition. You go to a pub or have it at home. It’s a full meal—meat, gravy, Yorkshire pudding. A comfort-food classic.
Craig Durr: Sounds amazing. But first—coffee, right?
Tom Arbuthnot: Yes, coffee first, then we cab it over.
Craig Durr: This cab is impressive—electric and classic.
Tom Arbuthnot: All London cabs have to learn “The Knowledge”—the entire street map of London by heart. You can just give them a landmark and they’ll know exactly where to go.
Craig Durr: Back to your story—you became an MVP during that Microsoft evolution. That’s a big deal. But there's a mystique to it. How did it happen for you?
Tom Arbuthnot: MVP is Microsoft’s way of recognizing those who give back to the community. It’s not something you chase; it’s something you earn by creating content, helping others, contributing value. It started for me with blogging, then running the Microsoft UC User Group London. That was around 2011 and it's still going.
Craig Durr: I know that group. I also know Adam Jacobs—you guys were connected on that, right?
Tom Arbuthnot: Yes, Adam and I started that together. He’s now at Microsoft in the U.S. A lot of our MVP community was built around shared knowledge. Unlike Cisco, where people hoarded knowledge, the Microsoft world was about sharing everything.
Craig Durr: And then came the podcast, blogging, and newsletter?
Tom Arbuthnot: Yes, we started with the UC Architects podcast. Then the blog, then the newsletter. I was writing on trains, Sunday nights with wine—it was constant. But the blog was the anchor.
Craig Durr: Let’s go back to that old-school pub vibe.
Tom Arbuthnot: Exactly. A pub can be drinks, food, even coffee. It’s a social hub. That’s what inspired the idea for Empowering.Cloud. I was doing strategic consulting, but I wanted to scale the insights I was giving big clients. So I approached a few sponsors to see if they’d support a community-first model—and they did.
Craig Durr: That’s tricky. Avoiding “pay to play” is essential. You wanted to create a truly independent and educational platform.
Tom Arbuthnot: Right. No sponsored content, no awards-for-dollars. All free access, and sponsors can’t influence editorial. That’s what makes it work. We’ve since added an enterprise product that summarizes Microsoft changes for IT teams—called Change Feed.
Craig Durr: So Empowering.Cloud is now a team of eight?
Tom Arbuthnot: Yes, four of us on community and research, and four on the Change Feed and product side.
Craig Durr: What’s your formula for good content?
Tom Arbuthnot: Answer the questions people actually want answers to. Too often, vendors push what they want to say, not what users need to hear. My job is to cut through that—especially for IT decision makers. They care about rollout complexity, manageability, long-term viability—not just flashy features.
Craig Durr: I break it down into execs, managers, and admins. Each has unique concerns. Keeping all three happy is critical in buying decisions.
Tom Arbuthnot: Absolutely. And too often, the admin voice is overlooked, even though they influence procurement heavily.
Craig Durr: Let’s hit on MDEP. There were new announcements at ISE, but the average buyer doesn’t know if MDEP is a good or bad thing. What’s your take?
Tom Arbuthnot: MDEP is Microsoft’s Android. They maintain it, push security patches, and handle OS updates. That’s different from OEMs who manage their own Android variants. Some OEMs are great at it; others, not so much. Newer vendors like Jabra benefit because they don’t have legacy systems to maintain.
Craig Durr: But will non-MDEP devices fall behind in features?
Tom Arbuthnot: That’s the unknown. Android is open source, so technically OEMs can match features. But Microsoft may tighten certification requirements to MDEP-only. Already, new OEMs must use it.
Craig Durr: Interoperability was another topic—Zoom, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams. Will we ever get real cross-platform support?
Tom Arbuthnot: Direct Guest Join didn’t get the buy-in it needed. Pexip is doing good work as a bridge, but customers haven’t made interop a priority. Most pick a primary platform and stick with it.
Craig Durr: Next time we meet will be Enterprise Connect. I’m hosting a panel on demystifying interoperability.
Tom Arbuthnot: And I’m doing one on MDEP. So yes, let’s grab another coffee—or maybe a coffee martini.