Microsoft has started rolling out Skype for Business to Office 365 customers, with all users epected to make the transition from Lync by the end of May.
The company first announced plans to replace the Lync unified communications platform with an enterprise version of Skype and launched a technical preview earlier this year.
Skype for Business’s interface is heavily inspired by its consumer counterpart and features like instant messaging, presence and voice calls are built into Office 365 software.
Microsoft’s decision to replace Lync is motivated by a desire to offer a unified experience across its enterprise and consumer software portfolios.
Skype for Business offers the same icons, layouts and contact lists as its consumer counterpart to help users feel more familiar with the platform, but for companies that need a little more time to adjust, administrators will still be able to switch between the Skype and Lync interfaces for the time being.
Microsoft acquired Skype for $8.5 billion (£5.1 billion) in 2011 and has worked to integrate Voice over-IP (VoIP) and video communications features into a number of its products. Skype ultimately replaced MSN Messenger in April 2013.
The firm also plans to create a consumer-facing online version of Skype using the Web Real Time Communications (WebRTC) standard which eliminates the need to download a client.
What do you know about Skype? Find out with our quiz!
Fourth quarter results beat Wall Street expectations, as overall sales rise 6 percent, but EU…
Hate speech non-profit that defeated Elon Musk's lawsuit, warns X's Community Notes is failing to…
Good luck. Russia demands Google pay a fine worth more than the world's total GDP,…
Google Cloud signs up Spotify, Paramount Global as early customers of its first ARM-based cloud…
Facebook parent Meta warns of 'significant acceleration' in expenditures on AI infrastructure as revenue, profits…
Microsoft says Azure cloud revenues up 33 percent for September quarter as capital expenditures surge…
