Microsoft points at Skype, Lync: You two, in my office – right now Microsoft has confirmed it will roll out Skype for Business – the service formerly known as Microsoft Lync – across its subscription-based Office 365 cloud this month. "Skype for Business Online is now rolling out to Office 365 customers worldwide, and we expect the roll out to be complete by the end of May," said the Skype …
"The thing is, you can host Lync servers yourself and keep control of all your data within your company intranet."
Actually you cannot, Lync is closed source so you can never say if it isn't sending out encrypted copies of the messages for selected few people. If you want to have IM there's _plenty_ of open solutions like XMPP.
Incorrect. Firstly, privileged parties do get to review the source code of MS products for security reasons such as this. Secondly, whilst you might not notice, there are plenty of parties that would notice Lync reaching out of your network to send your information back to MS HQ. Kapersky Labs would be on that faster than you can say "lawsuit". It's neither in MS's best interests nor their capabilities to pull this. Would you really want to chance the reputation of your flagship product (Office) on the idea that no-one would ever monitor their network traffic, no security specialist would ever test it and none of the numerous people who would have to be in the know in your company would ever blow the whistle? Short answer: you're a raving paranoid who hasn't thought this through.
What is not paranoid however (but slightly more on topic) is the idea that a really good product (Lync) will be screwed over by a forced merge with a pretty awful product (Skype) for the sake of Marketing trying to monetize the Skype user base.
What is not paranoid however (but slightly more on topic) is the idea that a reallygoodsad attempt at a knock-off product (Lync) will bescrewed overhumanely euthanized bya forced merge with a pretty awful productthe product and service it vainly tried to emulate (Skype)for the sake of Marketing trying to monetizeby popular demand of the Skype user base.
There, FTFY. Now...like the guy above said...Shhh, adults are talking.
We use Lync at work and it doesn't work fine. Why not? Because it requires you to push your head right up Microsoft's silo, and we have some non-MS kit. The Apple version is poor. The Linux version is non-existent - with a firm promise that it will remain so. The WIndows version works mostly, kind-of (I remember laughing in disbelief as it popped up a message about a missed phone call *whilst I was in the middle of that call*).
"but really it's just an IM client"
No, Lync is a full unified comms suite, including multipoint AV conferencing and telephony.
"so if we wind up with something else, so what?"
It you also use Outlook / Exchange or Office 365 as well then nothing will replace Lync and provide as great an integrated solution...
Yep, Skype was never great but it sort of worked.
Since MS has got its mitts on ot, it has gotten a lot worse. It is much harder to make a 'phone' to a POTS subscriber call these days. I've even had to pay international rates for a call to a number that was in Bristol (UK) and I was just down the road in Weston.
Come back Sametime, all is forgiven
The latest update with the 'if you want to exit our battery-sucking app that sucks you need to re-enter your username and password all over again on restarting it' is the straw that's broke the camel's back, I'm testing alternatives to this heap of junk. If you haven't updated already then don't.
>>"Now it's just untrustworthy shite."
Skype sold out to the NSA all by themself, before MS got a hold of them. Check your information. Those joining PRISM the chronological order was something like Skype, Google, Microsoft, Yahoo. I can't remember where the others were but Skype was always crap and always untrustworthy. I used to argue with everyone I met about it that they should be using some open SIP client but few people listened. And now look where we are. :(
We've only just finished an 'upgrade' from Lotus Sametime to Lync. And now we have to do it all over again. Nice one Microsoft, this is why sane IT departments avoid you like the plague.
I dislike Lync intensely, but it did answer the question of what happened to the muppets who wrote the UI for Microsoft Money. Seems they didn't get sacked after all.
I'm interested, why do you dislike it? As a Lync user in a large organisation (thousands of people online all round the world), I find it a great tool. It tells me someone's status quickly (online, busy, away from their desk, offline etc). It lets me send a quick message to anyone in the organisation. Internally, it offers a quick, easy way to screen share, which can be very useful.
As far as I can see, that's all it's really meant to do, and it does it pretty well. I suppose there may be other features (video calling?) but I don't see them shoved down my throat.
If this becomes Skype, no doubt we'll be force-fed all of Skype's nonsense - buggy interface, silly blocks of colour instead of information, inability to work out which microphone/speaker/headset combination you want to use, inability to log out, resource hogging, inconsistent UI across different computers, random regressions due to "upgrades"... Yay.
I previously used Office Communicator and find Lync a huge step backwards in useability. The interface is an abomination and lacks any meaningful layout customisation.The amount of wasted on-screen space in order to carry out a simple text conversation renders it unviable for me to the point that I no longer use it.
"why do you dislike it?"
Here goes:
1. Wasted whitespace everywhere. I have other things to do in my day that don't involve Lync.
2. Too many windows - I actually liked Sametime's list single paned and tabbed interface; it was the only product from Lotus that was usable.
3. Conference call quality has significantly dropped since moving from our previous WBC offering to Lync.
4. Can't paste 'long messages' into a conversation. WTF!? This isn't Twitter.
5. Pasting images into conversations is a joke: tiny thumbnails, having to open a separate application to see the image, the weird and pointless 'cancel' link - click this and you've lost the image. Even Sametime got this right.
6. Clumsy handling of presentations - everyone struggles with getting this flowing well, and meetings are now far more choppy. And this is even with people who have lots of meetings.
7. The phone dialer often doesn't work with the numeric keys on the keyboard, so I end up clicking numbers. And my blood pressure keeps going up.
8. 'Do you want to close all tabs or the current tab?' There's an 'Always close all tabs' option which I never want, but no 'Always close current tab' option which I do want. Gaaah!
I could go on, but from a personal level, I just think the interface is clunky, non-intuitive and ugly, and when something compares unfavourably to a Lotus product, you know it's no good.
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I happen to love Jabber. I only got it working one time, but that was when I had to demonstrate my ability to "video call" from home in order to be excused from travelling for a pointless 3-day project meeting in a soulless business park near Oxford. Come the day, Jabber failed so I missed the entire meeting but had the most productive week of my tenure with zero interruptions!
Is there no Web RTC product yet to replace all these silly messengers?
We use jabber, cool thing. As for conferencing, we use some crap proprietary BS. yes, I know hello.firefox.com, yes it does work, and yes it comes free, and no it does not require firefox clients, and, no I do not know why we spend thousands on crapware - no lync/Skype/Communicator over here, mind ... Au weier, as the Germans say.
So I just installed Skype for business today. It's really just Lync with a new skin. I don't think you'd even need to upgrade the server unless you had some old version that doesnt support the updated client.
I found the new UI to be rubbish, very little contrast in some areas, like using Office 365 without using the light-grey or dark-grey theme.
The new notification sounds are even worse, so I will be changing those pretty quickly.
You can switch between the lync/Skype themes by changing a registry key and restarting the client.
I much prefer 'Lync' as a name as well. Lotus Sametime had some perks but I prefer Lync
Lync is okay is you don't think of it as a time wasting IM client and use it for the web and video business chat. (Expensive licence aside) Even then there are better but as Lync doesn't work with MS Direct Access it has become quickly out paced by most other competitors.
But Skype was always pants, you can't use it for business when it is NSA riddled, cloud based and peer to peer. A whole host of regulations should be flashing red warnings when you consider using Skype for business. Then again you can't use Office 365 so two things to avoid wrapped in one nice little package.
You can bet the marketroids are going to want to use it.
And let's face it - "Lync" does sound a bit like a sexually transmitted disease. "I went down the doctors with a case of the lync yesterday" "What they give you, antibiotics gain?" "Yeah"
"Incorrect. Firstly, privileged parties do get to review the source code of MS products for security reasons such as this. Secondly, whilst you might not notice, there are plenty of parties that would notice Lync reaching out of your network to send your information back to MS HQ. "
First point, actually this software is closed source. Having some privileged few parties get to look over it really isn't at all reassuring to me.
Second point is 100% true, enough people run traffic sniffers to notice if Lynx were phoning home without authorization, it clearly doesn't do this or it would have been called out for it a long time ago.
Skype for Business is just the latest version of Lync. Updated UI, new brand, and updated server and online service.
If you use Lync at work, and then you switch to Skype for Business at work, it's like upgrading to the next version.
And yes, there is a server version of Skype for Business you can put in your company's data center. It's the upgrade to the Lync Server 2013.
A plain old telephone? Its has worked for over 100 years and continues to function well.
This Lync/Skype (whatever) program does a couple of things:
Good: Reduces per call cost.
Bad: Locks you into Microsoft products that have initial costs for all involved, and get superceded by the next version that has "shiny shiny" to impress people to buy the next version, forcing everyone to upgrade so the CEO can have his "feature".
Note: A telephone from over 50 years ago STILL works on a modern phone line. I can't say as much for these products.
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