Skype for Business Online Supports Large Meetings

Skype Meeting Broadcast is a Microsoft-hosted service that provides support for large meetings with up to 10,000 attendees. For organizations that have standardized on Skype for Business, the service provides an integrated solution that supports small and large meetings, and it competes with other large hosted meeting providers. However, this is a first release, and the service has technical and functional limitations. On-premises customers will need a hybrid configuration and significant setup and server changes to access the features. The service is expected to be generally available in late 2015 and will be available with most Office 365 plans.

Meeting Functionality

The service is designed to deliver few-to-many presentations, where only a few users are presenters and everyone else participates as attendees. Currently, the service is limited to sharing PowerPoint content, along with presenter audio and video, but it does not currently support desktop and application sharing.

Large events require upfront planning and preparation by a team; thus, Skype Meeting Broadcast includes different roles with capabilities for delivering, participating in, and attending meetings, including the following: