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Microsoft Teams is Replacing Skype for Business To Put More Pressure on Slack (theverge.com)
An anonymous reader shares a report: Microsoft Teams isn't even a year old, but it's about to replace Skype for Business. At Microsoft's Ignite conference in Orlando, Florida today, the software giant is revealing that it plans to kill off Skype for Business in favor of Microsoft Teams. Skype for Business took over from Lync, Microsoft's previous business chat app, back in 2015. Microsoft's original Teams launch made it look obvious that Skype for Business would eventually disappear, given the fact that Teams integrates most of Skype's functionality already. Microsoft says it has been building a new Skype infrastructure that has been "evolving rapidly," and it will serve as the enterprise-grade service for voice, video, and meetings in Microsoft Teams. A new Skype for Business server will be available in the second half of 2018 for customers not ready to move to Teams, but Microsoft is pushing Office 365 users will to move over to Teams as the key communications client instead of relying on Skype for Business.
Replacing a fully functional product that a company probably spent a lot of money hiring people to implement and integrate with the company network with another product just seems moronic.
If I were a buisness that used Skype, I'd be pissed off and probably change to Slack, rather than change to Microsoft Teams.
Some people encrypt by using rot-13 twice. I prefer the more secure method of using rot-1 a total of twenty six times.
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...rebrand it "Microsoft Slack", and call it innovation. I guess that model doesn't work anymore, or they just don't have the cash/prestige/fear-factor to buy whatever they want anymore?
If you need a communication platform for your team that's open source, then Diaspora is surely the way to go. It's written in Ruby using Ruby on Rails, and the code is on GitHub, so it's using cutting edge technologies.
I wonder when Microsoft will figure out that changing the brand of their products every 2 years and killing off products just makes customers confused and kills any momentum they may have had previously.
To make it better, they add 15 license models making it impossible to know cost or how to pay.
Lync was pretty good. Then they replaced it with Skype - made it a little bad. Then Skype for Business; worse. Then MS Office 365 Skype for Business which is horrible. Can't wait to see what Teams will be like
An office suite program is integral to the efficient functioning of just about any business. So now, predictably, Microsoft is using its newest version of Office to leverage other applications into accepting more and more of its programs. Identify what "Teams" does that "Skype for Business" doesn't (especially with respect to how much of your business will reside on Microsoft servers after the change), and that is the amount by which Microsoft has increased its hold on your company. I have no idea what those differences might be, but I have little doubt they exist.
Companies that opted for Libre Office are starting to look smarter and smarter, while those that took the easy route and "upgraded" to Win 10 and Office 365 ("All Your Cloud Are Belong To Us") are probably going to regret their choice sooner or later.
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
MS has this way of seeing how far they can get away with intrusive, user-unfriendly products. From XP (via WGA) to Windows 8 (tiles aka ad server) to Windows 10 (which collects more data than ever before with very limited ability to protect your private). With the MS purchase of Skype (thanks owners for selling customers out), it's no exception. One day we will get wise and tell MS where to stick it and go to linux/macos. Until we do MS will keep doing this because by continuing to use them, especially when we have choices. (even switching from Windows 10 to 7 would send a message, and yes, folks you CAN either buy windows 7 or use the windows 10 pro downgrade rights), we are saying it's okay.
"Imagination is more important than knowledge" - Einstein
Even our Cisco chat tool is just XMPP underneath. It makes it easy to integrate into a host of services. IBM's "Sametime" is also in libpurple. I've used both and they're fairly good. At the minimum I can at least use my own chat client.
Remember when Microsoft bought Skype and people worried about the future of Skype as cross platform. Now Skype has been sucked in to Office365. Only Offrice365 is being extended.
Slack is basically IRC for business that just raised money at a $5 billion valuation.
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
Microsoft needs to make up its damn mind about this.
We support several flavors of Lync and are transitioning to Skype for Business and NOW they are going to change it again?
Or even... HOW this is pressure on Slack? The Article is the same title and they just mention that Slack was worried about Teams before. And now somehow the highlight of MS cannibalizing one of its own products (a 3rd time in this product) is Slack worrying more...
I've been using Teams for a little bit at two of my clients - and I have to say Microsoft REALLY needs to improve the efficiency of Teams before they go fully replacing Skype. As soon as I run the fat-client app whether on Windows or Mac, it's a resource suck as bad as anything I have seen. It's like a really sad, slow version of Google Wave.
Never have a philosophy which supports a lack of courage
I would say they should have named it 'Lync' again. Skype for business has been the most confusing thing to talk about, because it has *zero* to do with Skype, except in the minds of MS marketing people.
As a result you can't just say 'Skype' because people won't do the right thing, you always had to say 'Skype for Business' which is a misleading mouthful.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
They're not "replacing" anything. They're:
1) adding Teams functionality to Skype For Business, because SFB is a functional product and Teams is new functionality,
2) rebranding SFB as Teams, because SFB is a clunky name and everyone has hated the name since it replaced Lync, and
3) releasing a non-cloud server called Skype For Business Server, because there are large enterprises that want to host their own stuff for various legitimate reasons.
This announcement has the following impact on everyday users/IT workers:
- Current SFB users will be getting Teams functionality added to their client soon. At the same time, they will see a branding change.
- Current O365 users will get Teams (rebranded SFB) by default.
- Enterprises admins in critical industries or paranoid organizations will soon have the ability to take SFB/Teams out of the cloud and into the server room.
Slack can't touch any of these features, either because it doesn't apply or because they don't have the rest of what Microsoft offers. Only an idiot would dump this for Slack. And I say that as a daily SFB and Slack user. We probably won't be using Slack for much longer. It's already prohibitively annoying to admin for and we have already been looking for a replacement. Getting Teams for "free" with the stuff we already use (O365, SFB) is the final nail in the coffin.
MS has purchased / absorbed a competing / NIH product an later crippled / killed it? Hoping this does not become a trend.
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
Basically MS' IM product has been terrible all along, and MS kept thinking it was a marketing problem rather than a technical one.
The result is the same basic project being paraded under new name after new name. Going from OCS to Lync wasn't such a bad brand move, it was less of a mouthful. Going from Lync to 'Skype for business' was terrible, since it was clearly just Lync renamed to look like Skype, but no technical relationship between the two.
I would not count on MS suddenly 'getting it' and producing good product instead of branding exercise.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
We have O365 and Skype here at work and we prefer Slack to S4B in every way. In fact, we're evaluating other options for conferencing because S4B sucks when trying to operate with those who are not using S4B externally.
I fully understand why Microsoft is trying to go down this route, as evidenced by our lack of faith in their offerings; however, I am not certain it's going to do much to help them "win", especially when people are already paying for their O365 subscriptions and having to double up and use other software on top of it.
I fully understand why Microsoft is trying to go down this route
Yes, so do I. It is the latest of MS saying "Us Too!!!!!"
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
microsoft has a long history of this. I remember netmeeting. It was great and it worked great. They replaced it with something I have forgotten and in a couple of weeks everyone stop using it as it did not work. If they had built up netmeeting they might have never needed to buy Skype. Looks like they are repeating the same pattern decades later.
Have you ever used Skype for Business? It's a shitty app, and won't be missed in the slightest. If they just shut the entire fucking thing down today, I'd be thrilled.
It can't keep conversations synced across devices, if you've got multiple instances open (For example on your PC, a remote PC and your phone) it will randomly send a conversation to a device that you're not using and you won't see it until later, it freezes for about 30 seconds every time you get a new conversation, the audio cuts out constantly, when connected with bluetooth headset if and other app plays a sound Skype for business just completely shuts down all audio until the other sound is done.
The entire Lync/Skype for Business team should be fired.
When a large corporation has multiple products in one space, it usually means one of two things: either they are pursuing distinct niches, or they have no major strategy for that market.
It also means that the development talent is divided into separate groups.
If Microsoft is killing Skype for Business to focus on Teams, that means they have identified their business communication product as an important market. They are probably consolidating their dev talent, and they are probably going to integrate and promote the application more heavily.
With Slack being a relative newcomer, this could make it much harder to compete. I assume Microsoft will copy the most important features and court Slack customers immediately, which could kill the company if Microsoft does a good job.
I don't know why Slack is called out in particular. There are certainly other established apps like Webex and GoTo. Maybe Microsoft has a thing for Slack? I don't pay attention to corporate drama.
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According to the latest ruleset, this post should be modded as Vorpal Flamebait +5.
If I were a buisness that used Skype, I'd be pissed off and probably change to Slack
If I were a business that used Skype, I'd wait and see and assess what it means, before jumping the gate and racing off in some unknown direction powered entirely by my own lack of information.
Lync, then Skype, then Jabber, now Skype again. We also use Webex for meetings. I swear, it's always the corporate IT guys jockeying for something. Once they finally settle on something, then MS changes their direction.
Excel and other MS applications are getting slower and less stable.
This push to the cloud is getting quite annoying.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
Yep. We had Skype for Buisness, and a bunch of rogue Slack instances. Skype for Business is just so clunky in comparison. Finally management broke down and got a Slack license. I'm sure they'll move us to Teams eventually, I hope MS doesn't screw it up. Especially Mac and Android support. Not holding my breath.
Never let a lack of data get in the way of a good rant.
Basically you are saying Teams vs Slack is worse than Skype + Teams vs Slack. I get that. But MS was already an entrenched IM vendor in the business world. Their primary competitor was themselves with LCS, OCS, Lync, Skype, and Teams. And the article should have just said "MS Communicator, new year, new name."
MS (and other big guys) talks about SaaS but then do stuff like this where its the same service but the branding has changed because the underlying technology comes from a different repo, code base, or dev team. They should have left the name as Skype or Lync.
Time for a chat client name change!
* Messenger
* Communicator
* Lync
* Skype for Business (as opposed to "Skype for Pleasure"?)
... and those are just the ones that are still in my Applications folder! I think there were a couple besides those as well. And those are just corporate clients -- I'm not even talking about MSN Messenger, Windows Live Messenger, etc etc etc. And some were for both, before there was a big division between corporate and regular IM clients. ("MSN Messenger" came with Office X for Mac.)
Oh yeah, NetMeeting -- anyone else remember that?
And I'm sure I'm still forgetting one or two more.
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
Like Netmeeting, before Skype?
Nice copy pasta. Half of that shit is pure fabrication by the Kremlin, and the other half, this troll has to reach back hundreds of years to find a time when the US was as bad as Russia is now.
Russia has an even longer and bloodier history than the US. The czars were murderous hacks who considered their serf population as their own property. They brutalized all of their vassal states in the cold war. Stalin massacred hundreds of MILLIONS. Russia has the most blood on its hands, more than any other country EVER. Go back to your Kremlin masters and shove it.
Seems like every time Microsoft touches something, it gets worse. Adding Microsoft to just about anything seems to equate to adding malvertising bloatware, and create no way for any decent feedback. I suppose the only question I have, is "when do they screw this up so badly, they buy Slack and kill that?"
To be fair, Lync was a cool name. They should have kept it.
I'm not familiar with Teams, but Slack is dreadful in the area of resource usage as well.
It currently hogs 1.5GB of my memory, with just 4 teams (of which 1 is defunct and not used at all) and absolutely nothing fancy going on (one or two images shared each day is about it).
Microsoft replacing a bunch of their duplicate services with one service to rule them all... I just wish they would decide on one and stick with it for a while.
The constant renaming and shifting strategies from NetMeeting to Groove to Yammer to Lync to Skype to Teams is getting kind of annoying.
That and their general problems with naming products.. geesh..
I've worked at several places that tried to use Slack... Most ended up using it for cutesy-type office notifications because the always-on/always-in-your-face approach of Slack is worse for productivity than even open office spaces. Slack does nothing that e-mail doesn't do - other than notify you IMMEDIATELY whenever anyone adds to a thread. It breaks the whole concept of segmenting/compartmentalizing the efforts of your day. Of course, with modern "tools" needing hundreds of developers and engineers to accomplish what used to be done with just a dozen, it's no wonder Slack is leading the charge...
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
They're just copying Google's business model. Google Talk/Hangouts/Duo/Messages...
FWIW, Skype for Business probably had nothing to do with Skype from what I can figure out - it seems to be pretty much Lync with a revamped chat window. The code bases for Lync and Skype for Business probably overlap about 90%, compared to about 0% for Skype and Skype for Business.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
I use Skype and Teams in my job and I can tell you one thing; Skype will not be missed...
that's because Microsoft already killed skype. It hasn't been since just before Microsoft bought it. And yet somehow it got worse.
Just another second banana
Yup. It's that bad and there is like zero traffic on it with one team. Just to have a presence in memory drags the machine. They really do have performance issues with it they need to address before expecting corps to deploy it.
Even if they said "Just go virtual" you'd still hear an ESX farm scream in terror as a group of people logged into their virtual desktops in the morning!
Never have a philosophy which supports a lack of courage
Is that AI thing in Microsoft Teams safe for users who /mostly/ work in VPN protected environments and encrypt a fair amount of data, email etc.?
I work in an almost exclusively Microsoft shop and we've been using Slack for over a year to collaborate. Recently we tried Teams because it's nice to be able to use your Windows domain credentials for everything, instead of having yet another set just for Slack.
Teams didn't last one day, hell it didn't even last one HOUR, before we went back to Slack. Teams is so far behind in functionality - even basic functionality - that at this point it isn't even a competitor to Slack. For example, to upload a file in Slack, you drag and drop the file; in Teams, you not only have to have a fucking OneDrive account to upload a file, you also have to be on a Windows version newer than 7 (because 8 and up have the built-in OneDrive integration).
I'm about as pro-Microsoft as they get but Teams in its current incarnation is a terrible, terrible piece of software that MS should honestly be ashamed of. It does surpass Slack in one way though... it consistently uses a lot more memory to do nothing.
I would say they should have named it 'Lync' again. Skype for business has been the most confusing thing to talk about, because it has *zero* to do with Skype, except in the minds of MS marketing people.
As a result you can't just say 'Skype' because people won't do the right thing, you always had to say 'Skype for Business' which is a misleading mouthful.
I'm on a project now that involves a large S4B deployment and this is me at every single meeting. Skype for Business is stupid name so everyone just says Skype, then the discussion turns to original recipe Skype and some people already use 'Skype' so why are we deploying it again. Cue the explanations, rinse repeat for the last nine months...
Skype from what I can figure out - it seems to be pretty much Lync with a revamped chat window.
It's not even revamped, it's just Lync rebranded. It has nothing to do with original recipe Skype.
Hardly surprising given that Teams is an Electron application. This is also why #Slack is such a resource hog - it consumes about 1GB per Team because each team runs in its own extremely inefficient browser process.
I understand the desire for Write Once Run Anywhere but surely there are better platforms to use than Electron.
Shit, even the most recent executable is named "lync.exe". I'm pretty sure they just updated resources and released that.
Yeah good luck with that. Companies are the biggiest MS fanboys who killed the superior Novell Netware, Unix, and other products to one unifying Microsoft solution hoping it would cut down on costs and save them money.
Teams is Skype, Sharepoint, some chat application, and Slack?? I never even heard of it before. Has anyone else?
It is not from Microsoft so it will be ignored by the enterprise since MS has a similar option. Everyone uses Teams and Planner is the new rage so far this year
http://saveie6.com/
That's... what I just said. You'd have saved yourself some time if you read to the end of the paragraph!
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
15 mentions of Microsoft on the front page ..
> Replacing a fully functional product that a company probably spent a lot of money hiring people to implement and integrate with the company network with another product just seems moronic.
I don't know any decision that MS made that was not moronic.
They're surviving by luck and circumstances (Windows and some of its products like Office) are already so prevalent that they cannot basically fail, at least not easily because all the apps are made for it.
But their innovation and decisions are probably the stupidest, one can come up with.
Let's hope they die off in this lifetime, and stop making everybody's life miserable.
As a user of that crappy app, I welcome the change
I for one have a Skype for Business implementation that spans the globe. I have sites in Africa, UK, Brazil, Mexico, Germany Chile, and the US. All of my sites are tied together with Skype for Business. I have SIP trunks to every local PBX at every location so that I can call for free to any of these locations and they can call me. It is EXTREMELY cost effective and versatile. And it just WORKS.. So now they get teams.. It literally is copying a bunch of SKype for business features and really the only one that I see that is really different is the persistent conversation piece and maybe some scheduling. Why the HELL are they replacing SKype for Business with TEAMS when they already have a huge customer base using Skype for Business / Lync and they basically tell us that they will bring parts into Teams when it should be the other way around. They are going to release a piece of crap that is totally cloud dependent that won't have local PSTN support all the while basically ringing the death bell for Skype for Business. It is beyond Mind numbingly stupid. I can't as a technician in all honesty recommend a Microsoft product and have a company create an INFRASTRUCTURE around a product just to have them pull the plug on it for a FEATURE UPGRADE??? WTF????