What I am saying, however, is that it is solely a communications tool. By no means am I saying that Skype for Business is simple, or that it didn’t introduce new features and ways of working. What I’m referring to here is the difference between the initial migration and upgrade journey to Skype for Business from communications tools at the time, versus the move from Skype for Business to Microsoft Teams.

Having a Skype for Business replacement with a platform that provides similar functionality and a few more features is one thing, but replacing it with one that provides a considerably larger number of features is a much bigger deal. This means that Teams is giving Office 365 users access to SharePoint Online document libraries and site functionality, OneNote, Planner, and a whole bunch of other features. When you think about this in the context of the rest of the Office 365 stack, Microsoft Teams adds an extra layer of functionality on top of Office 365 Groups. What this effectively means is that Teams is a single pane of glass for people to communicate, collaborate, and ultimately work. You see, Microsoft Teams is not just a unified communication product it’s a collaboration tool, a window into other apps and services, (or, as it is being positioned by Microsoft, an “app hub”). However, this also presents a different challenge when it comes to Microsoft Teams. Ultimately cutting down the number of tools that do similar/the same things in Office 365 (now Microsoft 365), such as Skype and Teams, does indeed help to alleviate end user confusion. GET OUR NEWSLETTER: Subscribe here for weekly content from AvePoint In 2018, Microsoft boasted about the fact that Microsoft Teams is now at feature parity with Skype for Business Online–a very important milestone, as it means that organisations can comfortably switch from Skype to Teams without sacrificing features. Skype for Business Online will no longer be available and integration with third-party audio providers will cease. In July 2019, Microsoft officially announced the end-of-life for Skype for Business would be July 31, 2021.

When is Skype for Business Being Replaced by Microsoft Teams?

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