Microsoft Launches Skype For Business

On Thursday, the 14th of May 2015, Microsoft Malaysia officially launched Skype for Business, giving businesses in Malaysia the familiar experience of Skype with enterprise-grade security, compliance, and control of Microsoft Lync. Microsoft is convinced that this combination of Skype and Lync will deliver an incredibly useful and trusted communications and collaboration platform for people working together.

Rukmani Subramaniam, Chief Marketing and Operations Officer of Microsoft Malaysia began the Skype for Business launch by talking about the Microsoft Innovation agenda, and how Skype for Business factors into it.

Ivan Gomez, Microsoft Office Marketing Director, then explained how Skype for Business combines the enterprise capabilities of Microsoft Lync with Skype to deliver secure communications and collaborative tools while reducing costs. He then demonstrated the collaborative and communications capabilities of Skype for Business with Rukmani Subramaniam. Take a look at his full presentation and their joint demo session :

How to integrate cloud storage services with Microsoft Office 2013 & Office 365

The Press Release

KUALA LUMPUR, 14 May 2015 — Microsoft Malaysia (“Microsoft”) launched the new Skype for Business in Kuala Lumpur today – a powerful communications and collaboration tool which will help businesses reinvent the way people communicate in the modern workplace, by providing a whole host of features including instant messaging, voice, video calls, online meetings and even presence – knowing when your contact is available to chat or not.

Rukmani Subramanian, Chief Marketing and Operations Officer, Microsoft Malaysia, said that in this new, digitized era, technology plays an integral role, especially with the younger workforce. “We need to start equipping this generation with the right tools to collaborate, communicate and be productive. Today we’re seeing that the right tool for this era comes in the form of socially networked communications – which is an effective way of exchanging information today.”

“Skype for Business plays an integral role as it’s the right tool for people to connect freely and seamlessly, which is at the core of our mission to reinvent productivity – to get everyone and every organization to do more and to achieve more. We are excited to introduce Skype for Business – bringing together the familiar experience of Skype with the security and IT control you can trust from Microsoft – giving businesses a powerful and secure communications tool that their users will love,” she said.

Connecting people everywhere to achieve more, together

As the dynamics of where people work change, so will the dynamics of how they meet. People should be able to communicate and collaborate without borders or barriers. Microsoft’s approach is putting people at the center of the communications experience.

For the past 10 years, Microsoft has invested in the transformation of business with Microsoft Lync – simplifying and unifying all of the different tools people use to communicate for work. Similarly a decade ago, Skype broke down the distance barrier by bringing people together from all over the world – more than 350 million people use Skype to connect with friends and family – forever changing the way people shared their lives.

Today marks an extension to Microsoft’s vision to connect people everywhere to do more and achieve more together, as Lync evolves to Skype for Business.

Skype for Business lets enterprises broadcast meetings up to 10,000 people real-time and supports dynamic playback – allowing users to connect to a multitude of people with voice or video capabilities, bringing customers and partners closer than ever. It is deeply integrated with Microsoft Office, enabling coworkers to instantly do work – see their contacts’ online statuses, schedule meetings in Outlook, take notes in OneNote, and start conversations from Office apps.

Skype for Business also provides the security and IT control businesses have come to expect from Microsoft – allowing IT Professionals to rest easy knowing their end-users are supported by a secure platform that they manage and control. Skype for Business also provides an added advantage as users are familiar and comfortable with the similar Skype experience, making adoption faster and easier within businesses.

Microsoft customers already benefiting from unified communications and collaboration

Over the last decade, Microsoft’s unified communications and collaboration platform has helped organizations realize dramatic improvements in end-user productivity, more seamless connections with the people that matter most to their business, and significant cost savings.  There is a desire for businesses to reimagine productivity not only as individuals, but also as companies, in order to remain successful.

An example is Integreon, a global legal outsourcer, who chose Microsoft’s partner, British Telecom (“BT”) to provide a cloud-based Microsoft Lync solution, complemented with audio bridging, to enable collaboration among its 2,200 associates around the globe, supporting more than 250 law firms and multinationals. The BT-Microsoft solution has enabled Integreon to break down organizational silos, allowing people in remote locations to work seamlessly and reducing the need for business travel. It has helped the company save money, speed up decision making and improve sustainability.

Integreon also uses the solution in its corporate social responsibility program in India, which deploys the BT cloud-based Microsoft Lync platform to provide vocational training for the hearing impaired through teaching lip-reading and signing over video. For those students who have special needs, the BT-Microsoft solution has pushed the boundaries and opened up a whole new world of possibilities.

Another example of an organization reaping the benefits of Microsoft’s unified platform for communications and collaboration is Hewlett-Packard (HP). HP has roughly 400,000 people that use Lync for online meetings – giving the company back 500,000 minutes of productivity every month.

“At Microsoft, we understand that businesses not only need to keep pace with changes to the landscape, but to also find ways to invest into the future where they can anticipate and take advantage of these changes. With the best of Lync, and the best of Skype, we believe that Skype for Business will again transform the way people communicate by giving organizations reach to hundreds of millions of Skype users outside the walls of their business. Our ambition is simple: to create the most loved and trusted communications platform for people to do things together,” concluded Rukmani.

The new TrueCrypt - VeraCrypt or CipherShed?

Support Tech ARP!

If you like our work, you can help support out work by visiting our sponsors, participate in the Tech ARP Forums, or even donate to our fund. Any help you can render is greatly appreciated!

Questions & Comments

If you have a question or comment on this editorial, please feel free to post them here!