Microsoft announced its plans to fold some Microsoft Teams and Skype features into each other in March. The cross functionality was expected in April, but was delayed until May. However, Microsoft returned last month and postponed the release again. The company put a vague June launch for the interoperability. Now that June is here, Microsoft has kept its word to the letter and launched Microsoft Teams and Skype integrations. The feature merger will allow Microsoft Teams users to make calls and send messages directly to Skype users. In other words, recipients won’t need to be using Teams to receive messages and calls. “Teams and Skype interoperability will enable collaboration with more partners, customers, and suppliers who rely on Skype for Consumer (SFC) as their communication app,” Microsoft said in a blogpost. “On either platform, customers will be able to discover users via email search, then chat or call using audio/video. Clients supported include Desktop, Web and Mobile (iOS/Android). Admins will be able to control user access to this feature from The Teams Admin Center.”
Questions over Skype
Recently the company released a consumer version of Teams, leaving some question marks over the long-term viability of Skype. So far, Microsoft is committed to ongoing Skype development but it’s not impossible that one day Skype will fold entirely into Teams. Skype for Business was folded into Teams and will shutter permanently in 2021. So far, Microsoft says it has no plans for regular Skype to follow a similar path.
