Microsoft announced that Skype for Business will be retired on July 31, 2019. Microsoft has said they have over 13 million daily active users on Microsoft Teams and Teams will replace all communication services for the company in the future. Skype for Business was released in 2014 a few years after Microsoft acquired Skype in 2011.
From now until the retirement date, Skype for Business customers will experience no change in service or operation. Starting September 1st, 2019, all new customers will be on-boarded directly to Teams for chat, meetings, and calling.
Microsoft did say in the press release “In 2017 we launched Microsoft Teams as “the hub for teamwork” in Microsoft 365. Teams combines chat, video, calling, and document collaboration into a single, integrated app – and enables an entirely new way of working. Over the last two years, we’ve worked closely with customers to refine Teams, and we now feel we’re at the point that we can confidently recommend it as an upgrade to all Skype for Business Online customers.”
Microsoft made this announcement now to give users time to migrate their users over as companies with thousands of users will need the two years to plan and migrate users.