Skype Online is dead! Long live Microsoft Teams!

Yesterday Microsoft announced the end date for Skype for Business Online, which will be officially retired on the 31st of July 2021. This gives you two years to plan and execute your move from Skype for Business Online to Teams-only.

What you need to know

• After 31st July 2021 all access to and support for Skype for Business Online will end.
• Consumer Skype and Skype for Business Server are unaffected by this announcement.
• Organisations with hybrid server and online Skype for Business configurations will need to transition online users to Microsoft Teams to maintain cloud-based access and functionality.
• From September 1st this year all new customers will be directly onboarded to Microsoft Teams, with no access to Skype for Business Online.

What does this mean for you?

• You don't need to panic - you effectively have 24 months to plan your move to Microsoft Teams.
• This means for existing Skype for Business Online customers, it will continue to be business as usual for the time being.
• We would recommend that you start to plan your move to Teams-only now - this will allow plenty of time to effectively manage the business change and drive successful end-user adoption.
• Planning your Teams deployment now will give you time to get your governance defined and configured ahead of widespread deployment.
• If you are at the start of your Microsoft 365 transformation and planning to roll out Skype for Business Online, we recommend you rethink your approach and consider rolling out Microsoft Teams instead to avoid having to migrate your user base again within the next two years.

Transforming Teamwork at the City of London Corporation

At Agilisys, we have extensive experience of deploying Microsoft Teams - click here to read about our experience at the City of London, and how Teams is transforming ways of working within the organisation.

The Economic Impact of Microsoft Teams

Microsoft Teams was released in February 2017 and since that time has proven to be the fastest growing business application released by Microsoft, with over 500k organisations, more than 91% of the Fortune 500 and recently surpassing Slack with more than 13 million active daily users. It reached feature parity with Skype for Business Online some time ago and has now surpassed the functionality which Skype can deliver, with a feature-rich roadmap published by Microsoft. Teams is the future - it provides a single pane of glass view into teamwork, bringing together communications, content and collaboration.

Earlier this year Microsoft commissioned a total economic impact of Microsoft Teams report which was delivered by Forrestor Consulting. The numbers make for compelling viewing, and support the business case for moving to Teams sooner rather than later. Click this link to read more about the financial and productivity benefits of a move to Teams.

SharePoint 2010 goes end of life in October 2020

For those of you who are still on SharePoint 2010, this platform is end of life in October 2020. Migrating your old on-premise data into Teams-enabled SharePoint sites has the potential to transform how your employees work and collaborate with each other, and combining this with a move from Skype for Business Online to Microsoft Teams will deliver significant business benefits to your organisation.

Microsoft Teams Governance

Planning and designing your governance and security framework upfront is key to safe and successful adoption - this is true for all Microsoft 365 and doesn't just apply to Teams. We can work with you to leverage the enterprise mobility and security controls included within your Microsoft 365 licencing to deploy Teams safely and securely, ensuring that you have the right governance guardrails in place for safe adoption. This includes defining your key use-cases and policies, naming conventions, information and threat protection, conditional access, secure external / guest access and more.

What next?

If you would like to know more about planning your move to Microsoft Teams or you are interested in a Teams readiness assessment, please get in touch.

We can help you move from Skype for Business Online to Teams-only, and can also help migrate from legacy content sources such as SharePoint on-premise, fileshares or other document management systems into Teams-enabled SharePoint sites. Additionally, we can also support your migration or deployment of Teams telephony.