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Skype for Business Online ends July 2021

Skype for Business has been a successful business communication tool for many years, both in an on-premises as a cloud based solution. Now Microsoft Teams is gaining customers for online communication and collaboration, Microsoft has announced that they will stop the Skype for Business Online service July 31, 2021. Time to plan your migration to Microsoft Teams.

Up till then
You can keep using the Skype for Business online service, as a standalone plan or as part of your Office 365 subscription. Though you can still add users to the Skype for Business Online service, all Office 365 and Microsoft 365 subscription users do get Microsoft Teams as a default since September 2019. July 2021 sound like ‘far away’, but modernizing your business communication tool does take time and we advise to start early.
After July 31, 2021 the Skype for Business Online service will no longer be available. The Skype for Business Server, on-premise Skype for Business use and consumer Skype will remain available.

The difference with Teams
Microsoft Teams offers everything you are used to within Skype for Business, but with some useful extra’s. To start, Teams is not only a communications tool, but a collaboration tool as well. Users can create their own workspace for collaboration with people in their teams. In that respect, it replaces some of the SharePoint online capabilities, like sharing documents, co-creating files and online collaboration.
Teams has a full integration with your (cloud) Office Apps and even integrates with third party Apps and solutions. Above all, Teams has proper end-to-end security as a default.

Stakeholders
Where Skype for Business was the more internal focused communications solution, Teams is the modernized equivalent which also works perfectly for communication and collaboration with people from outside your organization, like customers, suppliers and other stakeholders.

Help
Might you need any help preparing for migration or want to know what Microsoft subscription would fulfill your needs for communication and collaboration? Please do contact one of our consultants to help you.

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