Microsoft announced that it is kicking off the public preview of Skype for Business for Mac. Commercial customers can request an invite here. Invites will be issued to IT admins first, and will be expanded to everyone else in the coming weeks.
This is being rolled out in three phases. In phase one, users will see meetings for today and tomorrow based on their Outlook calendar, displayed in the Skype for Business client. You’ll be able to join any meeting with a click and get full screen video, content viewing, in-meeting chat, and the ability to invite others.
In Phase two, Microsoft will add instant messaging, presence and contacts. This will happen in the next preview release in early summer. Phase three will add telephony and related features later in the summer.
Once an IT admin downloads the preview client, they can manage its distribution to users within their organization.
Microsoft announced its first geographic expansion of Skype for Business Cloud PBX and PSTN services.
It has a new initiative called Project Rigel to bring Skype Meeting from Microsoft Surface Hub to nearly any meeting room with a display or projector.
“The addition of unified management, reporting, and analytics tools for the Microsoft communications cloud to give IT professionals a single interface for managing there Skype for Business deployments,” a spokesperson for Microsoft says.
There’s a new Cloud Connector Edition of Skype for Business Server that enables customers to connect existing phone lines and numbers to Office 365 “by delivering hybrid capabilities as optimized, pre-configured virtual machine images.”
As part of the geographic expansion, 32 countries will now be able to use PSTN Conferencing as a purchase for their Office 365 subscription.
Microsoft announced that it has acquired management, reporting, and analytics technology from Event Zero in order to enhance Skype for Business Online. More specifically, it has acquired the tech assets from the UC Commander product suite.
The company says the acquisition will enable it to expand and improve the built-in management tools for Skype for Business.
“Our goal is to make the Skype for Business management tools as powerful and easy-to-use for IT professionals as Skype is for end users,” says Skype for Business Corporate Vice President of Engineering Zig Serafin. “Today, customers of our calling and conferencing services can use the Office 365 administration center to acquire and assign phone numbers to their users in minutes, view reports of audio and video conferencing usage, and quickly access aggregated call quality information using our Call Quality Dashboard. In the future, using the technology acquired today, we will be able to add strong diagnostics and troubleshooting capabilities with even more extensive reporting and analytics for online audio, video conferencing and media streams — all within a unified management and admin system.”
“We plan to extend the platform to complement partner solutions and integrate their monitoring, reporting and analytics capabilities with Skype for Business Online management tools,” Serafin adds. “For example, partners will be able to more easily connect on-premises deployments they manage with Office 365 services, including hybrid deployments, provisioning of phones and other endpoints.”
Event Zero will continue to service its own customers and partners.
The acquisition follows last month’s announcement that Microsoft acquired technology from mobile communications app Talko to bring it to Skype for Business.
Microsoft announced that it has acquired technology from mobile communications app Talko to bring it to Skype. Specifically, it will become part of Skype for Business.
In addition to the tech, the Skype team is getting Talko employees.
“Together, the new technology and talent will help us deliver great new features and capabilities in both Skype and Skype for Business,” says Gurdeep Singh Pall, Corporate Vice President at Skype. “I welcome the new team members and am excited about how Talko will fuel more innovation at Microsoft, whether it is enhancing the way family members stay in touch with Skype or building on the new Skype for Business services within Office 365.”
“This is another example of our company ambition to reinvent productivity and business processes,” Pall adds. “We continue to invest in new technologies to empower people to more effectively communicate and collaborate across their personal and professional lives.”
Talko says on its site, “As part of the Skype team, we’ll leverage Talko’s technology and the many things we’ve learned during its design and development. We’ll strive to deliver the best of our product’s innovations far more broadly than on our current path.”
Talko was launched in 2014. The service will sunset over the next few months. Past conversations can be exported.
Microsoft announced on Monday that it is giving Office 365-using organizations new communications services for voice, video, and meetings to replace their legacy systems with services built on the Skype for Business experience.
New services include PSTN Conferencing, Skype Meeting Broadcast, Cloud PBX, and PSTN Calling.
“PSTN Conferencing provides the flexibility to dial in to a meeting from a traditional phone, in addition to the existing ability to join a meeting with a single click on your PC or mobile device,” says Kirk Koenigsbauer, corporate vice-president for Microsoft Office. “Skype Meeting Broadcast makes it easier than ever to produce large virtual meetings for up to 10,000 meeting attendees, who can join from virtually any browser or device (see it in action). Now Skype for Business truly is a single platform for every type of meeting.”
“Cloud PBX enables companies to eliminate separate PBX systems and transition to the cloud with Office 365 as the central location to manage users for communication and with PSTN Calling, Office 365 customers can also subscribe to Microsoft managed calling plans and phone numbers, starting in the U.S. with more markets coming later,” he adds.
The company also announced new security and analytics functionality for Office 365.
With Delve Analytics, users can access dashboards for insights on time and relationships, and with Power BI, they can visualize and analyze data. A new Customer Lockbox features lets customers get new approval rights, transparency, and control over cloud data.
There is also advanced eDiscovery, which uses machine learning, predictive coding, and text analytics to reduce costs and issues with sorting through large quantities of data.
Finally, there’s now advanced threat protection to protect against unknown malware/viruses.
Back in November, Microsoft announced that Lync would become Skype for Business, and that it would come with a new client experience, new server release, and updates in Office 365. While Lync already gave users instant messaging and Skype audio calling, the new offering would add video calling and the Skype user directory, so you can call any Skype user from any device. Microsoft is now talking about the next steps in the transition.
Earlier this week, the company unveiled a technical preview of the Skype for Business client, so businesses can start trying it out and preparing for potential deployment. The Skype for Business client, Skype for Business Server, and the new service in Office 365 will all start rolling out next month. Here’s a look at Microsoft’s “vision for the future” of Skype for Business:
Skype for Business combines the Skype interface with an expanded set of Lync features. You can video call anyone with a Skype ID, and productivity tools like email, calendar, and document collaboration are integrated.
“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,” says Zig Serafin, corporate vice president for the Skype for Business team. “This means Office 365 can be used for all your conversations—written, audio and video. The Office 365 Skype for Business voice and video services are based on an intelligent real time network, spanning Microsoft’s global datacenters, to deliver secure, high quality voice and video traffic at the speed of light across the globe. Our strategic partners AT&T, BT, Colt, Equinix, Level 3 Communications, Orange Business Services, TATA Communications, Telstra, Verizon and Vodafone, will deliver direct connections to Office 365 Skype for Business customers through Azure ExpressRoute for Office 365. These investments will benefit our on-premises customers as well as those using our cloud. We are enabling cloud plus on-premises hybrid options so that you can rely on our cloud when you need it without having to give up what you want to manage on-premises.”
The company also announced Skype Room Systems, which utilizes a series of devices Microsoft has partnered with Polycom for. The two companies announced an expanded relationship, which will see Polycom solutions built for Skype for Business. These come under the banner “Polycom Roundtable”. The first device is the RoundTable 100.
You can find more about the partnership and additional solutions on the horizon here.
“With Skype Room Systems, you can bring your meeting rooms into the digital world, helping your ideas move fluidly and letting remote participants feel engaged in the conversation,” MIcrosoft says. “Our solutions are designed for doing great things together, all within a consistent Skype experience.”
Microsoft also has a new large-screen device called Surface Hub, which is designed specifically for Skype for Business.
“It delivers digital white boarding based on OneNote, the ability for multiple people to share and edit content to the screen from any device, and support for Windows 10 apps, all which help make meetings more engaging and productive,” explains Serafin.
According to Microsoft, 79% of enterprises in the U.S. are currently using or planning to deploy Lync for telephony, and Skype sees 50 billion minutes of traffic per month. Over 50% of Skype users are using video.
Microsoft announced that the next version of Lync will actually be Skype for Business, which the company says brings together “the familiar experience and user love of Skype with the enterprise security, compliance, and control from Lync to create the most loved and trusted communications platform for doing things together.”
Skype for Business will come with a new client experience, new server release, and updates to the service in Office 365.
“We believe that Skype for Business will again transform the way people communicate by giving organizations reach to hundreds of millions of Skype users outside the walls of their business,” Microsoft says. “We’re really excited about how Skype for Business takes advantage of the strengths of both Skype and Lync. For example, as you can see in the screenshots, we’re adopting the familiar Skype icons for calling, adding video and ending a call. We’ve added the call monitor from Skype, which keeps an active call visible in a small window even when a user moves focus to another application.”
“At the same time, Skype for Business keeps and improves on all of the capabilities of Lync, including content sharing and telephony,” it adds. “For example, transferring a call now takes only one touch or click instead of three.”
While Lync already gives users instant messaging and Skype audio calling, the new offering will add video calling and the Skype user directory, so you can call any Skype user from any device.
Lync Server customers will be able to get the new stuff by updating from Lync Server 2013 to the new Skype for Business Server. Microsoft will automatically update Office 365.
The transition will take place in the first half of 2015.
