Resources Blogs Say Goodbye to Skype for Business and Say Hello to Microsoft Teams

Say Goodbye to Skype for Business and Say Hello to Microsoft Teams

Post Date: 12/18/2017

Ready for the next step? Reference our recent blog post “Quick Guide: How to Plan an Upgrade From Skype to Microsoft Teams” for help.

In with the new (Microsoft Teams) and out with the old (Skype for Business)

Oh it’s happening sweetheart. So much for the Skype for Business era. The go-to conference calling and video chat option for many organizations isn’t long for this world. In September, it was announced that Microsoft Teams would become Microsoft’s flagship voice and video communication offering. That transition began on December 13.

For more information on Microsoft Teams, check out some of our other blogs below.

This is big news for folks like us here at AvePoint and for business around the globe. Never does a day go by where we don’t instant message or voice chat on Skype for Business, and we’ve been preparing for the switch by getting to know Teams very well as a company over the past year. Recently, Eweek’s Pedro Hernandez reached out to us for an article to get some insight on what this means for folks across the enterprise collaboration landscape.

John Peluso, AvePoint Public Sector CTO, offered these remarks on Microsoft’s efforts to unify their voice, video, and conference call platform.

“Microsoft is on a journey of trying to unify the communication experience of Office 365 users,” Peluso stated in an email to Eweek. “In the beginning, Skype for Business was the access point for all UC communications—including voice, IM and video. When chat was introduced in Microsoft Teams, it meant that users did not have to leave the Teams interface to initiate or respond to instant messages.”

Meeting in Skype for Business

Say goodbye to meetings that look like this

The redundancy to which Peluso is referring essentially made Skype for Business obselete and paved the way for Teams to become the de facto king of everyday communications among enterprises.

“The evolution of video calls and scheduled voice/video meetings in Teams helped keep users in the Teams interface for the majority of their internal communications,” Peluso continued.

Meeting in Microsoft Teams

And say hello to meetings that look like this

“However, for organizations that leverage the cloud PBX capabilities of Office 365, users were forced back into the Skype for Business interface to initiate or respond to calls.

By now bringing the voice calling experience into Teams, we’re one step closer to the goal of a single interface that can support all of my internal and external communications.

However, this is just a step on the journey that Microsoft detailed in its roadmap for Teams just after the Ignite conference in September.

There are a currently a few “gotchas” that could impact your users in certain scenarios, so organizations should carefully research the current limitations of calling in Teams before enabling these features.”

Now that Teams’ new calling capabilities have been released, with hold/resume, call history, speed dial, transfers, call forwarding, and more, Microsoft’s transition from Skype for Business to Microsoft Teams is really taking shape.

Check out our Office 365 Groups Playbook below to learn how to get the most out of your Office 365 Groups!