Skype for Business Update

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Tim Tetrick

Hello Partners,

With all the changes and excitement around Skype for Business recently, I wanted to take a moment and provide an update on the current status of Skype for Business and also talk about some of the exciting new features we can look forward to this year.

As I’m sure you’ve probably heard by now, Microsoft Lync is becoming Skype for Business.  This change means a new client, server, and online service. 

Skype for Business client – last month we released the new Skype for Business client for Windows desktop as part of the April Office update, and expect that even more customers will automatically upgrade from Lync to Skype for Business with the May Office update.  If you or your customers are using Lync today and have not yet adopted the Skype for Business client, now is the time to take action to ensure that end users are aware and ready for the change.  If required, administrators can control when the updated experience is rolled out to their users - visit this page to learn more.

Skype for Business Online – last month we also announced that Skype for Business Online had started rolling out to Office 365 customers worldwide.  The roll out is expected to be complete by the end of May.  Stay tuned to your Office 365 Admin Portal for the change.  This update also includes a brand new Skype for Business Online Service Description.

Skype for Business Server – today we announced that Skype for Business Server is now generally available.  See today’s Office Blog post for more info.

As mentioned above, there are also some exciting new capabilities we can look forward to this year with Skype for Business.

As announced last month, we will offer enterprise voice and audio conferencing in Office 365, starting with a technical preview in the U.S. this summer, as well as enterprise-grade PSTN connectivity, beginning in the U.S. later this year, followed by a global roll out.

We also announced today that later this year we will deliver the ability to broadcast Skype for Business meetings to up to 10,000 people at a time. We also showed two new features coming this summer to Skype for Business: pre-loaded meeting attachments, which speeds meeting start times by having meeting content automatically show up at the start of a call; and in-call co-authoring, which makes it easy to initiate a co-authoring session so multiple people can work together on a single document right from within a meeting.

Thanks for reading!