Details about Skype for Business, set to release early to mid 2015, are still far and few between. I for one, am not convinced there will be anything revolutionary or overly beneficial about using this new “premium” enterprise software platform (ie., paid platform).
Check out their promo video and decide for yourself:
Of course, the commercial tells us nothing about any of the changes to come. It looks like the regular old Skype to me, with a few extra toggles thrown in to dress up the conferencing screen a bit. I’m unsure about the pricing too, since the link on the Skype for Business homepage goes to the current Skype premium pricing page (see here).
How can anyone consider switching over in the new year, with a yet still unsure release date, when we don’t even know an approximate price per month/use to expect?
My personal experience with both platforms has been rather underwhelming. They market Lync as an enterprise solution, yet the video resolution and VOIP call quality haven’t made any major leaps and bounds improvements since it replaced the old Messenger platform. Yes, it’s improved over time, but so has computer and phone technology and average bandwidth among users. Yet the quality one can expect is still buggy and unreliable. I see this often with with high-level podcasts using Skype or Lync too; crackling and lagging galore!
Microsoft would probably blame the user’s bandwidth when annoying interruptions occur, but I’ve tested this myself and ISP bandwidth is rarely the cause when call quality and frame rates go to crap with either of these products.
So, I’m not terribly hopeful that simply integrating two buggy video conferencing / VOIP / messaging platforms together will necessarily “revolutionize” the way businesses communicate.
What do you guys think? Please share your experiences with either or both of these Microsoft products.
This video goes through some of the “proposed” features to expect, though nothing is written in stone yet:
