Microsoft releases Skype for Business Mac Preview with Outlook calendar integration today, plans to add instant messaging, telephony, and more this summer
Skype for Business Mac Preview, bringing collaboration to the forefront in Office and more Michael Cottuli / WinBeta : Here's everything that's new to Office 365 in April 2016 Tony Eversole / TechNet Blogs : Skype for Business for Mac Preview Released Usman / iPhone in Canada Blog : Skype for Business Mac Public Preview Released Juli Clover / MacRumors : Microsoft Debuts Skype for Business Preview on Mac With Outlook Integration Jack Purcher / Patently Apple : Phase One of Microsoft's all new Skype for Business for Macs is now Available to IT Administrators for Preview Andy Weir / Neowin : Microsoft makes it official, announces “all new Skype for Business for Mac” Public Preview Evan Selleck / iPhone Hacks : Microsoft Announces Skype for Business Mac Preview Pradeep / MSPoweruser : Microsoft announces Skype for Business Mac Preview John Callaham / iMore : Mac version of Skype for Business hits public preview
Context & Ripple Effects
The Mac has been the last holdout in Microsoft's Skype for Business rollout: after the service began its public rollout in April 2015 and mobile clients shipped on iOS and Android through late 2015, Windows and phone users had clients while Mac users were left with consumer Skype or browser workarounds.
Today's preview closes that gap starting with Outlook calendar integration — the piece that makes scheduled meetings work — with instant messaging and telephony promised for summer, which is also when Microsoft's earlier plan to give Office 365 users real phone numbers through Skype for Business is supposed to land.
First-order effects
- Mac-based Office 365 business customers can finally join and run Skype meetings natively, with calendar integration tying the client into Outlook scheduling rather than separate dial-ins.
- IT administrators get an early deployment window via the preview, letting them test the Mac client against their Office 365 tenant before the full feature set arrives.
Second-order effects
- Adding telephony this summer turns the Mac client into a full desk-phone replacement inside Office 365 subscriptions, pressuring standalone PBX and conferencing vendors whose per-seat pricing competes with a capability Microsoft bundles into existing licenses.
- A complete cross-platform client base (Windows, iOS, Android, now Mac) gives Microsoft the footprint to migrate those same users onto its next-generation collaboration product — the internally developed Skype Teams that sources say will be bundled with Office 365 for business.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, unified communications stops being a product businesses buy separately and becomes a feature tier of the productivity suite, with Microsoft controlling identity, calendar, messaging, and voice across every major desktop and mobile OS.
- The Mac preview arriving just months before Microsoft's own successor effort surfaces suggests Skype for Business itself is a bridge product — platform parity first, then consolidation around the newer Teams architecture.
The trend: Enterprise communications are being absorbed into office-productivity suites, with Microsoft using cross-platform client rollouts to convert Office 365 seats into a full voice-and-meeting stack before replacing it with a bundled successor.