Microsoft will drop Skype for Business Online to ease the transition to Teams

Microsoft is slowly transitioning its business customers away from Skype to move over to Teams. The company will be closing Skype for Business Online on July 31, 2021. As you can tell, the change isn’t happening immediately. But new users who log on after September 1^st won’t be able to access Skype for Business Online. Instead, they’ll be redirected to Teams. Microsoft won’t be making changes to the Skype version used by consumers or the Skype Business server edition either.

"Over the last two years, we’ve worked closely with customers to refine Teams, and we now feel we’re at the point that we can confidently recommend it as an upgrade to all Skype for Business Online customers," James Skay, senior marketing manager for Skype for Business, wrote in a blog post. "Customers who have already made the move tell us that Teams not only has helped them improve collaboration generally, it has also provided a rare opportunity to rethink the way work gets done in their organizations."

Skype now supports group calls of up to 50 people

Skype is catching up with its competitors by expanding the capacity of group calls to 50 people instead of 25. The service has been testing it out this feature since last month, but now it’s rolling out to all users. Skype is also adding a notification feature for these calls. Instead of it ringing your device, you could get a notification prompt for a group call. It’s also still possible to call people individually to join said group. Or if you have a call with less than 25 members, you can call everyone, if the notifications aren’t enough to get them to jump into the conversation.

Skype for Desktop lets you blur your background for video calls

If you don’t want your messy bedroom or office to be the focal point of a video call, you might be able to address that soon. Microsoft recently released a new Skype Insider Preview build that will let you blur your background during video calls. This can be enabled during a call in two ways. One is you right click your own video, or you can find it through the new on-hover video settings. Version 8.37.76 is coming to Windows, Mac, and Linux.

Source: MSPoweruser

Skype calling comes to Alexa

Microsoft and Amazon continue to build on its partnership. This time, Microsoft is bringing Skype calling to Amazon Alexa-enabled devices. The Echo range can use Skype’s basic calling feature. And if you have the Echo Show, you’ll even get video calling support. On top of this, you can also use SkypeOut to call mobile phones and landlines. You just need to say things like “Alexa, call Stephen on Skype” to activate the call.

Source: The Verge