It feels like Skype for Business is firmly in its twilight years now.
Earlier this month, Microsoft announced that from October 1, 2023, Teams Rooms will no longer support connections to the Skype for Business server. As described by Microsoft, a “small number of customers” that leverage on-premise configurations will be affected by this development.
The removal of Skype for Business support in Teams Rooms will mean certain meeting mode options will not be available, including Skype for Business only, Skype for Business and Microsoft Teams (default), Skype for Business (default) and Microsoft Teams. Additionally, all Skype for Business settings will be erased from the device settings and setup experience.
"This is another nail in the coffin for Skype for Business," Tom Arbuthnot, Microsoft Teams Expert and Co-Founder of Empowering.Cloud, told UC Today. "Obviously, Skype Business Online has all been depreciated and gone, but there is still a Skype Business server as the on-premises solution."
"Very little notice here," Arbuthnot continued, "this will be retired effective October 1 2023. I'm assuming Microsoft has already talked to or alerted customers."
The withdrawal of support for Skype for Business for Teams Rooms continues Microsoft's extended transition from Skype to Teams as its marquee business communications and collaboration platform — in 2018, Microsoft announced that Teams had achieved feature parity with Skype for Business.
In 2019, Microsoft decided to retire Skype for Business Online, with July 31, 2021, confirmed as the final cut-off date.
Four years ago, Microsoft presented Skype for Business Online users with a similar pitch as in 2023. Microsoft Teams was sold as the natural migration path for those with impacted services but also showcased improved performance and more innovative features.
In place of Teams Rooms being connected to the Skype for Business server, Team Rooms is shifting its support to the Exchange server, which is already used by the Teams Desktop.
"Microsoft Teams Rooms, which used to be Skype Room Systems (SRS) at the moment, can talk to both old-school Skype servers and Teams," Arbuthnot expanded. "They're now dropping that capability out of the Rooms systems to talk to the Skype servers, so they will only be Teams native."
