On the 31st of July, Microsoft announced that Skype for Business Online will be retired as of July 31st 2021. The replacement tool will mitigate users to Microsoft Teams as the new go to product for collaboration and meetings.
Retirement Plan – Why now?
Between now and July 31st 2021, users will experience no change in service and new users can still be added when needed. However, from the 1st of September 2019, all Office 365 customers were directed to Teams for chats, meetings and calls.
In 2017, Microsoft Teams launched as ‘the hub for teamwork’ in Microsoft 365. Teams combines chat, video, calling and document collaboration in one single integrated app – enabling you with an entirely new way of working.
Skype for Business has been Microsoft’s more popular tool for years before the introduction of Teams, however, due to it’s success it’s not surprising that Microsoft started pushing their users towards this tool.
Since its introduction, Microsoft have worked closely with customers to improve Teams and commented that:
“Over the last two years, we’ve worked closely with customers to refine Teams, and no we feel we’re at the point where we can confidently recommend it as an upgrade to all Skype for Business Online users” James Skay, a senior product marketing manager in the Intelligent Communications group at Microsoft, wrote in a blog post about Skype for Business’ retirement.
eams recently hit 13 million active users – just a few months succeeding the tool’s two year anniversary.
What is Microsoft doing to help customers migrate to Teams?
1. Shorter Retention Periods – new retention period options will allow customers to limit channel and chat retention periods to as short as 1 day and ensure that when data is deleted it is removed from all permanent storage locations in the Teams service. Shorter Retention Periods will be available in Teams by the end of this calendar year.
2. Teams and Skype Consumer Interop – interop between Teams and Skype will allow users on the two services to communicate using both chat and calling. Teams and Skype Interop will be available in the first quarter of 2020.
3. Contact Centre Integration and Compliance Recording – at this year’s Inspire event it was announced that Team partnerships with Five9, Genesys, and NICE to enable Contact Centre solutions – and with ASC, NICE and Verint to provide Compliance Recording. We’re also working with other Skype for Business Online certified partners to bring other Contact Centre and Compliance Recording solutions to market for Teams.
What’s new from Microsoft Ignite event?
Each year, Microsoft host this event and use the platform to share some of the most significant and newest updates from its product portfolio and offer insights to what’s to come for Microsoft users. In November, the newest features of Microsoft Teams were announced which highlighted the theme that the time is now for Teams!
Teams is Microsoft’s fasting growing app, therefore with the need to please their users, Microsoft want to meet these high expectations by promising to deliver a user experience like no other. This means they constantly have to update the app to make the best platform for productive teams.
Microsoft recognises that malicious content and security threats are still issues that many businesses face. Microsoft Teams uses rich security and compliance features from Office 365 such as Office 365 Advanced Threat Protection and Office 365 Retention policies to protect users and offer complete control of how their data is protected. Retention policies can offer protection in Teams for up to 7 years and has the ability to remove content for as little as one day for organisations who have to remove content regularly.
Teams can also help with keeping sensitive information safe through Office 365 Data Loss Prevention (DLP) policies to ensure sharing sensitive information is done correctly. DLP will detect when specific content types – like credit card numbers or bank details – are sent in a direct chat or channel conversations and blocks it from being viewed by all recipients. This is seen to be a significantly increased level of protection as part of the Office 365 Suite, especially organisations that would’ve previously needed substantial investment in DLP technology.
Ignite revealed a host of new capabilities around Teams Room Systems. This is essentially a certified room video and audio conferencing solutions in partnership with selected AV vendors to provide simplified one touch conferencing and collaboration solutions. Your teams admin console includes managing each room device directly, rooms management service monitors conferencing hardware in Teams Room will automatically detect faults and sends an engineer out where faults cannot be resolved remotely.
The most anticipated announcement from this event is the introduction of Private Channels. This will resolve a host of issues regarding content management and security within Teams while offering greater flexibility in user and content management. The Teams experience is becoming more streamlined with the ability to pop out chats in different windows, meaning that meeting or file co-authoring is easier if you need to communicate with colleagues outside to that activity.
Summary
Skype for Business has been a valuable tool for millions of people around the world since its introduction in 2014 by combining instant messaging, calling and video into a single app, the product established an exciting, new vision for business communications. However, Microsoft Teams is seen to be the next chapter in that vision. And the time for teams is now.