Skype for Business Online will permanently close next year and Microsoft Teams, your toolkit in the Office 365 package will be replaced. Microsoft ensures that Skype for Business has lower demand among business users and therefore carries out the transfer of users: The substitution will be executed on July 31, 2021.
From that date, Skype for Business online will stop receiving updates, access will be blocked and will not be compatible with any equipment. With this action, Skype “is defeated” by a tool that, ironically, is owned by Microsoft itself.
In the beginning, when it was launched in 2014, Skype for Business Online was named Lync, but later went on to use the Skype brand. This seems that Microsoft wants to stop using it to give full prominence to Microsoft Teams, which was launched in 2017 and since then it has been stepping into the corporate arena. In fact, two years ago Microsoft has already completed the closure of Skype Classic, another product under the umbrella of Skype.
Microsoft has made available to user’s manual, free training, user assistance systems and all kinds of guidance on how to use Microsoft Teams to facilitate the process of migration from one platform to another. The company also points out that Microsoft partner companies will also help users who need it with the change.
