Moving Skype for Business to Microsoft Teams

The breaking news of Microsoft’s plan to merge Skype for Business capabilities into its Microsoft Teams road map caught quite a few people off guard. Teams has been picking up steam, and with the clear overlap in capability (Teams was architected using the same code base), many within the community had surmised that this had been the plan all along. The real issue, of course, is how Microsoft will manage the transition between them — and how organizations who rely on Skype for Business will also make that transition. While Skype for Business Server 2019 will be available for on-premises environments next year, this shift in the road map has certainly caused many customers and partners to shuffle their own strategies.

In the next #CollabTalk tweetjam, we’ll discuss Microsoft’s shift in strategy around Skype for Business, and discuss the community perspective on these plans — and whether Microsoft Teams is ready for prime time within the unified communications world. Join us on Thursday, November 30th from 8am to 9am Pacific as we discuss “Moving from Skype to Microsoft Teams” via Twitter and the #CollabTalk hashtag. Come participate with our amazing panel of MVPs, solution providers, and community influencers and join in on yet another great online discussion!

These online discussions are open to anyone — you do not have to be on the panel to participate, but can login to Twitter and join the conversation at any time! Just remember to use the #CollabTalk hashtag, or join through our dedicated tweetjam site at http://twubs.com/CollabTalk. This month’s tweetjam is once again being sponsored by our good friends at tyGraph.

If you have never participated in one of these tweetjams, it’s pretty simple: anyone can jump in and share their thoughts, or just lurk in the wings and absorb the wisdom of the crowd. Either way, it’ll be a TON of content to consume in a single hour. You can follow the live session using the Twitter UI of your choice (Twitter.com, Hootsuite, Tweetdeck, Twubs, whatever). How it works is that I’ll post a series of questions every few minutes, and people will respond to Q1, Q2, Q3 and so forth with A1, A2, A3, always including the #CollabTalk hashtag with their answers. Feel free to reply as often (or as little) as you’d like, ask your own follow up questions, share relevant links, re-tweet others, and engage with the audience.

The questions we will discuss during this month’s tweetjam include:

1. Does the announcement of Skype for Business moving to Microsoft Teams impact your business? Why / why not?
2. How will the move into Microsoft Teams affect Skype for Business Server?
3. Will the combined Skype and Microsoft Teams road map give Microsoft a strong competitive position?
4. What does the shift from ‘Unified Communications’ to ‘Intelligent Communications’ mean to you / your customers?
5. How is your organization adjusting to the increased focus on communication and chat-based automation?
6. What more could / should Microsoft do to help with this transition from Skype to Microsoft Teams?
7. If you could ask for anything, what would be your top 3 feature requests for Microsoft Teams?

Of course, there will be side-questions, side-conversations, and wise-cracking throughout. This is open to the public, so please join in the discussion! The dialog is usually thought-provoking but also fun.

Our panel will continue to expand as we get close to the event, but here are some of the experts who have confirmed so far:

• Mark Allen (@1markallen1), uc pioneer and Microsoft Lync specialist, ceo of BluePanda
• Karuana Gatimu (@karuana), principal program manager for Microsoft Teams engineering at Microsoft
• Torren Manson (@bumpinthenet), senior systems engineer with ConvergeOne
• Kevin McDonnell (@kevmcdonk), senior technical architect at Ballard Chalmers
• Jussi Roine (@jussiroine), Microsoft Regional Director, SharePoint MCM and MVP, chief architect at Onsight
• Matt Wade (@thatmattwade), cloud services lead at H3 Solutions, founder of icansharepoint
• Jeffrey Schwartz (@jeffreyschwartz), editor of Redmond Magazine and editor-at-large for Redmond Channel Partner magazine
• Becky Benishek (@bbenishek), Microsoft MVP, social media & community manager at CPI
• Nick Brattoli (@Byrdttoli), Microsoft MVP, founder and lead consultant at Byrdttoli Enterprise Consulting
• Bill Ayers (@SPdoctor), SharePoint MCM/MCSM, solution architect and developer
• Max Fritz (@TheCloudSherpa), identity management, Office 365, AzureAD, and SharePoint expert at Now Micro
• Darrell Webster (@reoffice365), Office Servers & Services MVP, perpetual non-sleeper, and co-founder REgarding365.com
• Liz Sundet (@percusn), Microsoft MVP, platonic friend to ferns everywhere
• Theresa Eller (@SharePointMadam), SharePoint consultant at Constellation Solutions
• Patrick Curran (@pcfromdc), director, federal group at Planet Technologies
• Nick Brattoli (@Byrdttoli), founder and lead consultant at Byrdttoli Enterprise Consulting
• Ed Senez (@edsenez), president at UnlimitedViz and TyGraph
• Tobiasz Koprowski (@KoprowskiT), Data Platform MVP, independent consultant
• Drew Madelung (@dmadelung), SharePoint and Office 365 MVP and architect at Concurrency Inc.
• Matthew Hughes (@mattmoo2), owner of KinetalMedia and KinetalIT
• Ragnar Heil (@ragnarh), Office Servers & Services MVP and Microsoft alliance manager EMEA for Metalogix
• Stacy Deere-Strole (@sldeere), SharePoint MVP and owner of Focal Point Solutions
• Ryan Schouten (@ShrPntKnight) Office Servers & Services MVP, senior SharePoint architect and evangelist at ZAACT
• Alistair Pugin (@alistairpugin), SharePoint MVP and productivity evangelist at Britehouse
• Doug Hemminger (@DougHemminger), SharePoint MVP and evangelist with SPR Consulting
• Brian Culver (@SPbrianculver), SharePoint MCM and founder, president of Expert Point Solution
• Eric Overfield (@ericoverfield), Microsoft Regional Director, SharePoint MVP, and founder of PixelMill
• Eric Riz (@rizinsights), SharePoint MVP and ceo of Empty Cubicle
• Adam Levithan (@collabadam), Office 365 MVP and senior product manager at Exostar
• Heather Newman (@heddanewman), co-founder and cmo of ContentPanda
• Harjit Ghaliwal (@Hoorge), Microsoft MVP, IT Pro, technology & social media evangelist
• Dean Swann (@sdeanswann), social collaborator, growth hacker and product manager for UnlimitedViz
• Robert Toro (@SharePointToro), SharePoint practice director at Slalom
• Mike Oryszak (next_connect), managing director at B&R Business Solutions
• Erica Toelle (@ericatoelle), evangelist at Record Point
• Joel Oleson (@joeloleson), Microsoft regional practice director at Konica Minolta
• Barry Jinks (@BJinks), founder and ceo at Colligo
• Treb Gatte (@tgatte), Business Solutions MVP, international speaker/man of mystery at TumbleRoad LLC
• Stefan Bauer (@StfBauer), Office Development MVP, information architect and UX consultant
• Jeff Willinger (@jwillie), Office 365 MVP and director of collaboration and social business at Rightpoint
• and your host, Christian Buckley (@buckleyplanet), Microsoft MVP, founder & ceo of CollabTalk LLC

If you would like to join our panel, please drop me a line. Otherwise, everyone is invited to the online discussion itself. And if you can’t make the time, keeping watching the Twitter feed for updates via my Storify page. You can also watch my Twitters via @buckleyplanet for updates. And thank you again to tyGraph for your continued support of these CollabTalk tweetjams!

If you are interested in being a sponsor of a future tweetjam, please contact me at CollabTalk.com