Saturday, November 15, 2014

Skype for Business Announcement

There was a big announcement this week that Lync is being rebranded as Skype for Business. Please review the following announcement for the exact details - http://blogs.office.com/2014/11/11/introducing-skype-business/.

What are my takeaways?

  • In H1, Lync will transition its brand to Skype for Business.
  • Skype for Business will be available through Office 365 and/or customers can deploy Skype for Business on-premises. Customers who have Lync on-premises today, “No new hardware is required” is required to support this transition.
  • The user experience will begin to merge such that Skype for Business has a similar experience to Skype.

This is very similar and consistent change that Microsoft did to OneDrive and OneDrive for Business brands. These are very similar solution offerings however there is a different offering for consumers and business. As a result of this change there is a pretty common user experience between OneDrive and OneDrive for Business. OneDrive and OneDrive for Business are not the same implement. OneDrive for Business is specific to Office 365 only. OneDrive for Business has enhanced features to support enterprise business scenarios (supported through SharePoint Online). Customers who are 100% on-premises still have the ability to deploy OneDrive for Business within their SharePoint 2013 on-premises deployments.

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