Skype for Business Reviews

We primarily use the solution for business purposes. We use it for virtual meetings. 

The initial setup is pretty straightforward.

The deployment is very fast.

It needs to be easier to use. The product is very heavy. It's very unmanageable. It used to take up a lot of memory of my computer system. 

There are not many options, in terms of some other third-party integration. The adoption of Zoom primarily spiked during the pandemic and is sort of better. This solution is now being used much less.

The solution isn't scalable.

I've been dealing with the solution for one and a half years so far. 

The solution is very stable and unmanageable. 

The product doesn't really scale all that well.

We have about a hundred users on the solution. 

I don't have any experience with technical support. I can't speak to how they are in terms of helpfulness or responsiveness. 

I'm also familiar with Microsoft Teams or Zoom.

The initial setup is not overly difficult. It's pretty straightforward in general. A company shouldn't have any issues with the process.

The deployment is also quick and only takes a minute or so.

I handled the implementation myself. I didn't need the help of any consultants or integrators.

While it's my understanding that users would need to pay for a license, I have no visibility on the costs involved. 

I'd rate the solution at a five out of ten.

I wouldn't really recommend the solution to other users or organizations. I'd rather suggest Zoom or Microsoft Teams, which are better options.

The most valuable feature is the ease of organizing and setting up a meeting.

It is integrated with my Outlook, which is helpful.

The quality of the meetings is very good.

We need a feature where you can virtually raise your hand to silently let the presenter know that you have a question.

I have been using Skype for Business for between five and seven years.

The meetings can easily be expanded. Once you have the link you can push it, even in a WhatsApp group, to have all of your invitees become part of the meeting. The typical meeting for me is about 30 people.

We have begun using Microsoft Teams in place of Skype for Business and it is very good for collaboration. However, it is also missing the "raise hand" feature.

The initial setup was not difficult for me. 

My understanding is that Skype for Business will be retired in July of 2021, so I am in the process of migrating to Teams.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.

Voice quality improvement, especially when used for over 40 minutes.

File sharing and email invitations for a conference. I can have a meeting with  people at the opposite end of the Earth, sharing documentation; it is quite easy.

Click to call: I should be able to make a desktop phone call when I click a member of my directory. There are other applications that enable making calls by clicking in the Lync directory.

One to three years.

Rarely, a chat message is sent very slowly.

No scalability issues.

Good.

I didn't set it up.

I rate it eight out of 10. It is generally very good to work with using chat or web meetings. It would be a 10 if I could make a call by clicking in the directory in Lync.

Integration with other MS products such as outlook, OWA, SharePoint Support for various client devices, gateways etc. Support for federation with third party.Lync Client allows users access to presence, instant messaging, voice, audio, video, and Web conferencing

Voice telephony and video calls utilize lots of bandwidth.

It's is a very good product to have -- a solution for IM, voice telephony and video communication bundled into one.

• IM
• Audio/video
• Federation
• Public telephony
• RGS 

The public telephony feature reduces hard phone costs and RGS is like a call centre feature.

Reduced the capital cost on the hard phone.

End user enhancement: There are few codes in the back-end from the vendor which need to improve, be enhanced, like application sharing for remote party to access the machine, and can be easily accessed by tools, such as CAD design. This is one of the examples.

Nine years starting from its 2005 version.

There have been a few issues working with vendor.

An eight out of 10.

No.

It will depend on the B2B setup.

It is okay for a large environment.

Think about other parameters, such as monitoring, if you invest in a Microsoft-based monitoring solution.