The Future of Skype for Business: Microsoft Teams

It's official, Skype for Business end of life has been announced. The long-awaited transition from Skype for Business to Teams has been announced by Microsoft, with Skype to be removed from online offerings on 31st of July 2021. Both services have been co-existing within Office 365 as Microsoft have been refining Teams to formally replace Skype for Business. On the announced date the Skype online service will be turned off, meaning no users will be able to access any services, leaving unused local installs of both the client and the server in hybrid setups.

All-new Office 365 customers, signing up from the 1st of September 2019, will not get the option of Skype for Business with all their IM, calling and meetings driven from Teams. Existing services will continue until the EOL date in 2021 but face a two-year countdown to complete a migration project.

How to Prepare for Skype EOL

The first challenge for any organization is to quickly identify where Skype for Business is currently being used on the estate to highlight where the focus of the migration project team is required. Most traditional SAM tools require their native agent to be physically deployed on devices within a customer's estate to provide inventory which can be a time-consuming process requiring a high level of internal resources for not only the deployment but for packaging, testing and resolution of compatibility issues.

Lansweeper agentless' discovery does not require a local agent to be deployed on each device to bring back inventory information. Therefore, the platform can quickly, with a minimal internal resource, ascertain your Skype for Business application installs mitigating most internal blockers an agent-centric tool would create. Once the installs have been identified, this intelligence can be invaluable in identifying where the software will need to be removed and highlight parts of the business where users will need Teams (both application and training).

Skype Deployed in the Cloud? No Problem.

As a customer, you may have VDI or Application Virtualisation in Azure or are running a Hybrid Service with an on-premises Server in a public or private cloud. Lansweeper DeepScan Discovery technology can discover Skype deployments hosted in both on-premises or in cloud infrastructure ensuring parts of your estate are not missed.

Combining Lansweeper Technology with License Dashboard

Furthermore, the utilization of Lansweeper's SAM Partner License Dashboard can add to Lansweeper's agentless inventory capability. License Dashboard's SAM software provides the ability to import Office 365 (among others) portal user data to further identify who in your organization currently uses Skype and will require a Teams subscription. This will enable your organization to identify not only which devices need to be transitioned to teams, but which users need their subscriptions updated as well as training on the new application. With our report, your network will be up to date by the time Skype for Business reaches End of Life.

Utilizing Lansweeper and License Dashboard to identify Skype installs will support best practice in control of unsupported software to mitigate the security risk they may become. If Skype installs were not located once the Skype service is removed from Office 365, the local applications would no longer be updated with security patches and vulnerability fixes.

By utilizing Lansweeper and License Dashboard technology you will gain a low impact inventory technology which can help you identify, both on-premises and in the cloud, Skype for Business installs, enabling you to smoothly identify and migrate to Teams with minimal business impact.

Migration Audit Report: Find All Skype for Business Installations

Since Skype for Business is part of the Office 365 package, checking which machines currently have skype for business can be done through custom registry scanning . After performing a custom registry scan, you can run our custom Skype for Business Audit Report to list all Skype installations in your network.

>> How to set up registry scanning to identify all Skype for Business installs .

Skype for Business Report - Click to Enlarge

If you haven't already, start your free trial of Lansweeper to run the Skype for Business EOL Audit Report. Make sure to subscribe via the form below if you want to receive the latest Audit Reports for free.