This translates to a 100% sales focus on selling and encouraging organisations to use Skype Online…not hybrid and not on-premise. How much Cloud is CloudĬhanges in the way Microsoft sales teams are “compensated” have also changed this year with them being paid directly on the usage of Microsoft Cloud Services such as Skype for Business Online. In addition, businesses will finally be able to have inbound calls simultaneously ring multiple or groups of users in order to provide “basic call contact centre-like service”. Press 1 for sales…etc.” auto-attendant service. Microsoft said that by the end of 2016 (late November was touted), organisations will have an easy way to use the Skype Online service to provide a “Thank you for calling our company. These capabilities replace and extend the Response Group service that is part of Skype for Business on-premises and the Microsoft Exchange Unified Messaging Auto Attendant (that’s a mouthful). Microsoft also showcased the new Cloud PBX Attendant and Cloud PBX Call Queues – both key features that were AWOL from the initial Skype for Business Online offering. As development and global localisation continues, PSTN Calling allows Microsoft to be your business’s telephony carrier and provide phone numbers ( DIDs) in specific geographies which is currently: USA as of December 2015, UK and Puerto Rico as of July 2016, and now Spain and France which are in “preview”. During the keynote, the Skype team showed off the latest “soon-to-be-available” Skype for Business Online PSTN Calling features.

The opening Skype for Business delivered by Gurdeep Singh Pall (corporate VP of Skype) made it clear that for Microsoft, Skype for Business is all about Cloud.

Skype for Business Online – It’s all about Cloud. Whilst Ignite focused on the entire Microsoft Technology Stack, this blog summarises the ‘key announcements and my personal thoughts about how these impact Skype for Business – Microsoft’s Cloud PBX Platform. Last week, 20,000 people flocked to Atlanta for Microsoft’s annual “unified enterprise technology conference”, Ignite which brought together several previously separate events including the Exchange, SharePoint, Lync and TechEd conferences.

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