After announcing last year that Microsoft Teams would soon replace Skype for Business as the single hub for teamwork in Office 365, Microsoft published a frequently updated Capabilities Roadmap to help companies plan their transition. And while the current version of the roadmap states that some calling features won’t be added to Teams until Q4 2018, different company officials stated this week at Inspire that Teams has now reached feature parity with Skype for Business Online.
Announced by @lorivwright at #Msinspire2018 – @MicrosoftTeams now has complete feature parity with Skype for Business pic.twitter.com/ajBCRp8MLs
— Justin Morris (@justimorris) July 16, 2018
As noted by ZDNet’s Mary Jo Foley, Ron Markezich, CVP for Microsoft 365 Commercial also emphasized the “parity between Skype for Business Online and Microsoft Teams” during his Inspire keynote this week. In response to a request for clarification though, a Microsoft spokesperson told Foley that “feature parity means that all engineering work required to support the convergence roadmap is done and the features are rolling out to customers now.” In other words, everything is now in place for all remaining Skype for Business features to make their way to Microsoft Teams.
While Microsoft Teams is now almost ready to replace Skype for Business, the latter will continue to work for companies that still use it. “We plan to continue to offer and support Skype for Business in Office 365 and Skype for Business Server on-premises, announced Lori Wright, General Manager for Microsoft Teams and Skype last year. “For customers who are not yet ready to move their PBX and advanced calling capabilities to the cloud, we will release a new version of Skype for Business Server targeted for the second half of calendar year 2018,” she added.
