Skype for Business Online

Skype for Business Online (formerly Lync Online) is a Microsoft-hosted unified communication service for organizations featuring presence status, instant messaging (IM), voice and video calls, and application sharing. Near-term plans focus on voice and video improvements, particularly connections to telephone networks and conference room equipment, while other collaboration services (such as Microsoft Teams, which includes Skype for Business Online voice and video conference services) take on IM and other text discussion types.

Skype for Business Online Overview

Skype for Business Online enables users to view and publish presence status (whether a user is available, busy, or away, for example) and initiate communications sessions that include IM, voice, video, file sharing, and application and desktop sharing with other Skype and Skype for Business users.

For IM and conferencing, Skype for Business Online offers many of the same features as Skype for Business Server on-premises. However, it has lacked private branch exchange (PBX) capabilities and connectivity to the public switched telephone network (PSTN) for calling, and relied on partners for dial-in conference audio. In Nov. 2015, Microsoft began to close these remaining gaps in specific regions, introducing Cloud PBX and PSTN Calling services and its own PSTN Conferencing service. PSTN Conferencing has since expanded rapidly, while PSTN Calling is still available in only a few countries. Launched at the same time, a Skype Meeting Broadcast Service enables conferences of up to 10,000 attendees, an increase from the previous limit of 200.