Microsoft has announced that its communications platform known as Lync has now joined the growing Skype family and will now be known as Skype for Business.
Whilst retaining the same Skype consumer experience that people around the world know and love, the new Skype for Business will be the communications and collaboration platform that brings together an experience inspired by Skype with enterprise-grade security, compliance, control and ezxcellent collaborative capabilities.
Consumers will still be able to use Skype the way they always have - with the same user account, contacts, user interface and functionalities that they have always used. But now, Skype for Business will be built right into Microsoft Office, so initiating chats, calls and meetings is about to become an integrated experience within the Office 365 platform.
Offering features including presence, IM, voice and video calls, and online meetings, Skype for Business will bring a new client experience across mobile, tablets and desktops, a new server release and updates to the service in Office 365 under the Skype for Business name.
"Skype is a household name and that's how it will always be. And now, when it comes to communication, will be delivering the same familiar experience and user love of Skype with the additional enterprise security, compliance, and control from Lync that business organisations would want. End users get a familiar Skype experience that is as easy to use at work as it is at home. Organizations gain reach into a network of hundreds of millions of Skype users across the globe. And, IT remains confident they are providing secure, reliable, high-quality communications to their organizations," explained a spokesperson for Microsoft.
The new Skype for Business Server will be available for download from VLSC on May 1. Microsoft will start releasing the new Skype for Business service to Office 365 customers in late April, and will roll it out to all customers by the end of May. By then, the Lync Online service will be automatically updated to Skype for Business online.
The Skype for Business client will work on Lync 2010, Lync Server 2013, Lync Online and Skype for Business Server. If the client preview is used with Lync Server 2010, only features supported by Lync Server 2010 will be supported.
Skype consumer clients will maintain the same communications calling capabilities that they have today, but will not have access to the full Lync feature set available in Skype for Business. In addition, Skype consumer clients do not provide administrators with the security, compliance, and control features available to enterprises who use Skype for Business.
Skype was launched in 2003 and was acquired by Microsoft in 2011 for $8.5billion. Over 300 million use Skype regularly and 4.9 million users use it on a daily basis counting over 1.4trillion minutes of Skype video and voice calls.