Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has announced that Skype for Business has gone into technical preview and will be available to customers as soon as April.
Skype for Business was previously sold at Microsoft Lync, and the technical preview lets Lync customers try the new product out and prepare for an upgrade.
Speaking at Convergence, Microsoft’s conference for business, Nadella encouraged companies to embrace the open exchange of information using intelligent, collaborative tools that enable people and organisations to achieve more.
Giovanni Mezgec, GM of Microsoft’s Skype for Business team, expands on the new Skype for Business offering.
“Based on the familiar Skype experience that more than 300-million people use every month to connect with friends and family, Skype for Business delivers an expanded Lync feature set and enterprise-grade security, compliance and control to IT,” he says.
“It also enables people to search for and connect with anyone in the Skype network – inside or outside their organization. And Skype for Business is built right into Office, so features like presence, IM, voice and video calls, and
online meetings are an integrated part of the Office experience.”
Mezgec says customers should start planning now for deploying Skype for Business, and Microsoft’s reseller partners are ready to help them make the move.
