It has benefited my organization because I can use it on the phone, I can use it on a laptop, wherever I want. The communication channel is very easy now and I can call and chat. It's experienced. Together, my team manages everything. It's very easy.

There are many valuable features. For collaboration purposes, there are many motivation integrations.

We have found that there is a lag because it cannot integrate with the internal landline. It's easier to integrate in the U.S.

We use a link as a browser calling so only calling is available. 

I have been using Skype for Business for one year. 

You need to follow the guidelines for the HN to be built on multiple servers and multiple in procedures. It's not a big challenge. The stability and the scalability are not a big challenge at all.

We haven't received high availability. There is no problem because you need to follow their guidelines, build the HN high availability solutions. We don't have an issue. 

There are 900 users who use it in my company. It's used on a daily basis. 

Microsoft support is fantastic. I don't have any problems.

People are working from home and this collaboration is efficient and we see real-time collaboration happening from the teams. This is a very good solution for work from home concepts.

In the next release, I would like to see the ability to do group calling. 

I would rate Sype for Business a nine out of ten. 

The solution has improved the flexibility of meetings for our organization. For example, I can use it from my phone or laptop. I can use it wherever I am. It's increased our communication channels.

It has everything in one place from sharing to team management. It makes everything easy.

There are many valuable aspects of the solution. For collaboration purposes, there are many integration capabilities. 

Making calls and having meetings is easy. 

There are a lot of very fundamental functions on offer.

There is sometimes a lag, often because this is not integrated with a few fields. We are in India, so we have some restrictions on some key integrations. For example, it cannot integrate with our internal landlines. When I was in the United States, this wasn't a problem at all.

We need some sort of functionality whereby users can use a link as browser calling. Calling only is what is available to us. That's not in every country, however, just a few. They should make it standard across the board around the world.

The solution isn't connected to Microsoft Teams, and I feel like there is better communication on that particular solution. The group capabilities are a bit less than Teams.

I have some standard meetings that happen on a regular basis, and it would be nice if I could just go directly to them from Skype instead of looking into my calendar and clicking on a link.

Group calling is not available on Skype right now.

I've been using the solution for almost a full year at this point. The company has been using the solution for five years.

The stability of the solution is great. There aren't bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash. We don't face any challenges with the solution in that sense.

We have limited employees, so we've never really experimented with scaling the solution. I can't speak to how easy it would be to expand the solution.

We have about 900 users on the solution right now.

We use the solution quite often. It's used on a daily basis.

We get our technical support from Microsoft, who owns Skype. They've always been fantastic. We have been satisfied with the level or response we get.

The implementation of the solution was handled before I came to the company, so I didn't participate in the initial institution. I don't know if the product has a straightforward or complex setup.

I believe that deployment took place under the supervision of another team.

With work from home situations increasing, and a company would benefit from using this solution. The collaboration capabilities are great and allow for real-time interactions within teams. It's perfect for remote work.

I'd rate the solution nine out of ten.

We primarily use the solution for our business meetings.

The solution is stable.

There are free versions of the solution available.

It would be ideal if the solution could make instant messages more permanent. Currently, if you close the conversation, you lose the instant messages that you shared during the meeting. If those could last beyond the meeting, that would be a great addition, due to the fact that frequently, people give each other key details, important information, or email addresses, etc., during the meeting. If you don't write it down during the meeting, after the meeting closes, it's gone forever. That can be quite frustrating.

The ability for the solution to offer a grid view, so you can see all of the people on a call at the same time, instead of just a few selected ones, would be ideal.

I've been using the solution for about a year now.

The solution appears to be quite stable. There aren't bugs or glitches. There aren't any crashes. It doesn't freeze. I would say it's reliable.

Our IT team would handle any scaling that needs to be done. It's not something I have direct experience with.

We have about 20,000 users on the product in our organization currently. Everybody uses it, from the accountant to the CEO.

The number of employees has remained fairly stable for a long time. Right now, they're just maintaining it at the same user level. We haven't had any recent growth. I have no idea if we'll increase usage in the future.

Skype is actually the first tool like this that I have used. Another company I work with is trying out Zoom, but that's fairly recent.

I wasn't a part of the initial setup of the solution. I don't know if it was complex or straightforward. I'm just a user. The IT team is the one that sets it up and configures everything for us. I also can't say if the process of deployment was fast or not or how long the process took.

I'm sure there are licensing fees for it, however, I don't know what they are. I know there are free versions of the solution. However, that probably doesn't apply to us as we have a high number of users in this company.

I'm just a user of the product. I'm not a reseller or an integrator.

I use Skype for Business every day.

I'd rate the solution nine out of ten. It's been great so far.

Recently, we all went remote, so we needed a way to implement virtual meetings on a large scale and we utilize Skype for Business for these purposes. It might have a lot to do with the response to COVID and getting more people connected for remote access.

The solution connects to meetings pretty well. 

I like the fact that it opens up your video conferencing, and, in many cases, the audio at the same time. 

It's very useful that the solution can save conversations.

The implementation could be improved.

In my case, I don't necessarily pick up audio, so I have to dial in. I have two connections. One is a visual and one is strictly for audio calls. Some other users aren't experiencing that issue. It's inconsistent and I'm not sure why. I also can't say with certainty that this is a Skype problem or if something else is causing the discrepancy. 

There seems to be some sort of setting whereby it pretty much keeps instant messenger open all the time. I don't know what the settings are, or if this can be switched off. I believe there's an integration with that, where it assumes a certain status. I haven't had a chance to manually change it or to look into how to adjust it. 

The integration with Outlook could be improved.

There could be more opportunities for setting up your current status.

The solution feels like it's pretty bare-bones. There could be some additional features added, perhaps on the statuses or something of that nature because as it stands now, it's pretty sparse. I have heard that they're going to be introducing some features pretty soon. I hope that's the case. 

I've personally used Skype itself for years. However, in terms of utilizing Skype for Business, I've only been using the solution for the last month, or, more accurately, about three weeks.

The solution seems to be pretty stable and is just as stable in the business version as the regular version. I haven't had any issues whatsoever with crashes or glitches. However, it does feel like it's pretty bare-bones.

The solution is pretty scalable. You can use it across the company, and certainly within IT. Since everybody's working remotely now, with COVID-19, I think it scales quite well.

Even when you add people, it's still easy to manage many multiples people in a single meeting

I don't know how many people in our company are actually on it at this point. I imagine it's quite a few, however, I'm not sure of which departments that are using it, or if it's been deployed across the board.

I've logged into technical support a few times on the Microsoft store. They used to actually go through edX at one point. They may have their own portal now. I've looked at it for various products such as SQL, Visual Source Code, etc. and not just for Skype, so I can navigate it pretty well. I've been helped there. They do have paths to different types of certifications and stuff. I have not gone through any of that myself, however.

The initial setup is straightforward. It's not complex at all.

We're just a customer.

I'd advise other organizations that the implementation is pretty smooth as far as installations go, so they shouldn't be afraid to give it a try. Using it is very straightforward, and it just sits on your desktop as an icon, so it's easy to access when you need it.

Overall, I'd rate the solution eight out of ten.

Skype is mainly used for our internal meetings. We have it set up for all the different groups in the company, whether it's my IFC, the marketing team, pre-sales team, senior leadership, etc. We're using the product at least once a day and everybody in the company uses it. We're customers of Skype and I'm the manager of global business development. 

The calling features are the most valuable, especially now as we are working remotely  because of this pandemic. The screen sharing aspect is also a valuable feature. For example, if we need to explain something internally or deliver a presentation internally, being able to share the screen is a huge benefit. We also use Google Meet for that, so it's dual usage for us.

We have issues with the Skype bandwidth, particularly for external meetings, which is why we also use Google Meet. Also, the sound quality of Skype is not great - there is a constant background humming noise. Clarity is essential, especially in our planning meetings. We can't rely on Skype for that and that's why we sometimes use Google Meet instead. 

I've been at this company for three months and that's how long I've been using the solution. 

The system is somewhat stable although there's the issue of the background noise and it's not always clear who is talking. Following the flow of a meeting can become a bit tricky when a lot of people are involved.

The solution is scalable in that we can sometimes have up to 30 people participating in a meeting. 

We currently use both Skype and Google Meet. Google Meet is very user friendly with good voice quality. We can record our calls and then share screens when we're making a presentation. It's an easier solution than Skype even though we use both platforms. 
For our external client meetings we use Google Meet and internally we use Skype. 

I would rate this solution a six out of 10. 

We use Skype for hosting meetings that are internal to the organization.

Pre-COVID, we did not use it as much as we do now. Post-COVID, however, all of my staff meetings are now done through the visual interface.

I use the chat feature to communicate with my staff, which is very helpful. I'm in a different area of the building than my support team, so a lot of my communications, rather than me running down to their offices or calling them, can be done with Skype.

Going forward, I would like to see better call quality and reliability.

I have been using Skype for Business since I joined UNCF two years ago.

Different parts of our organization were using Skype and Zoom, and we are trying to standardize the use of solutions for virtual meetings. Zoom is being used for external communication, and Skype for Business is being used internally.

Microsoft Teams is replacing Skype for business and we have also used Amazon Chime.

All of these solutions are different audiences. The first category is internal communications and collaboration, and that would be Skype and Teams. In the next tier, you have external meetings, webinars, and conferences of medium-sized scale. These are within the Zoom realm. Finally, you have virtual events such as registrations and breakout rooms. Although Zoom has that capability, the scale is different, which is where Chime and some of the other products come in.

The tier that Teams and Skype for Business are in, suits that tier. Skype is not about conferences, large meetings, webinars, and the like. It is for people working together online, sharing information, transferring files, and changing the screens depending on who is presenting. It's a collaborative remote use case.

The cost of Skype for Business is incorporated into our Office 365 licenses.

Microsoft Teams is slated to replace Skype and Skype for Business. It will have a more seamless interface between it and Outlook and the Office 365 suite. It is feature-rich and includes things like a whiteboarding capability. It is easy to use and ties together far more manageable and sophisticated collaboration tools.

I would rate this solution a six out of ten.

We use Skype for all of our video conference purposes.

Skype for Business and video conferencing makes it easier to work from home.

The most valuable feature is stability.

The quality of calls has to be improved. I don't know whether it is a server problem that is taking away from the quality, but I have found that it is sometimes poor.

We have had trouble with scalability when trying to host large meetings.

We have been using Skype for Business for close to three years.

Stability is good but there are issues with call quality.

I would rate scalability average because I have found that there is an upper limit to the number of people that can be added to a conference. I'm not sure whether it is depending on the license that my organization has, but I do find that scalability is an issue in a large conference scenario.

It is used across our organization, with close to 15,000 or 16,000 users.

Our in-house team is responsible for technical support, although if they cannot handle the problem then they contact Skype. When this has happened, our problems have been resolved very fast.

I have been receiving meeting invitations from outside of our organization using other solutions, such as Webex. When I attend those meetings I use their software.

Our in-house IT group pre-installed this solution for me. They also handle our support.

I would rate this solution a nine out of ten.

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.

Our primary use case is for chat and we use it for internal meetings. We also have a federation between a couple of companies, so we also use it for virtual meetings across those companies that we have the federation with. It is our preferred chat and video solution nowadays. 

My last customer used it and Polycom, but Polycom was historic because of the meeting rooms. And the meeting rooms tended to be set up for Polycom, so if you were doing meetings from one meeting room to another one, then we'd switch to Polycom. Otherwise, it was Skype For Business.

The simplicity and ease of use are the most valuable features. It's so much easier and quicker than writing an email to someone and waiting for them to read it. If you actually see in Skype For Business that they're online and free, and you just put your question into there, it's a lot faster. The increase in productivity for messaging people is the number one reason for using it.

With respect to installing it in a large multinational, I find that installing it so that it gives decent performance across the company, can be a bit of black science. The ease of configuration or the lack of decent tooling to pinpoint your problems is probably its biggest issue. That's not just an issue with Skype For Business. That's pretty much across the board with unified communication systems.

What I'd really love them to provide would be an easy method of linking or connecting to other Skype For Business personnel in other companies who are also using Skype For Business without having to set up a federation. There are lots and lots of companies now using Skype For Business with other unified communications products. You can send someone a link, and then they can come into your Skype For Business meeting. We have issues trying to do Skype For Business.

I've been using this solution since 2006 when it was called Communicator. It's actually been 14 years. 

We quite often see glitches where it jitters and stuff like this, but that's all to do with the wide-area network links. I'm sure we could improve that if our unified communications guys had better tooling and understanding of the complexities. What we see is that in most companies the implementation is not optimal.

I haven't actually had to contact Microsoft support about Skype For Business related issues. Technical support with Microsoft depends upon your support contracts. If you're paying for the highest level, then it's absolutely fantastic.

You get what you pay for. The standard support contract is no worse or better than any other company. I have to say, the few times that I've had to call Microsoft with a priority support call, and the technical account manager gets put on it and keeps on top of the Microsoft side and stuff, then that goes really well. As well as you could expect it to go. I don't have any experience with Microsoft technical support when it comes down to Skype For Business.

Times in the past with respect to Azure issues that I was experiencing, I know that both the premium and the next level down, they were both absolutely fine. I always ended up talking to people that knew their stuff and when it was resolvable, it got resolved.

I definitely recommend the product. If you are in a complex distributed environment, with offices with varying levels of connection and various different bandwidths of connections and latency, that it's worth spending the extra money to get someone who really knows their stuff with respect to unified communications to set up Skype For Business across their organization. Someone that understands the pitfalls, because how your infrastructure is built is key to whether you're going to get a decent and stable experience or not.

I would rate it a nine out of ten. I would give it this rating purely because of the fact that when it gets installed across a complex environment, you really need someone who knows their stuff to install it. But once it's installed properly, it's absolutely fine. It does what it says on the tin.

The use of Skype Business has several purposes within our organization, each determined by the specific situation. Its use of instant messages and chats has helped a lot in short conversations, avoiding much of the need to use email for a certain action.

Audio calls help a lot in terms of reducing costs for long discussions, and takes advantage of the maximum gratuity between users of the same program.

Video conferencing to hold virtual meetings helps to prevent employee displacement, where everyone can now enjoy the comfort of their own offices.

Communication is the main way to reduce delays and work better. By facilitating access to a more effective means of communication, we have better clarification between departments and employees when it comes to finding solutions to their problems.

The use of video conferencing is an excellent tool to avoid the expenses associated with displacements of professionals who need to be in a meeting with other members. With this function, all guests can be in their own offices, homes, or elsewhere. At the time of the call, everyone will be in a virtual room.

The use of multiple users making calls from both audio conferencing and video conferencing requires a good connection to the internet. If one of the users has a poor internet connection, this failure will compromise the meeting, causing delays and distortions in the communications.

The product has good stability, but it depends on the speed of internet bandwidth. A good connection is required for smooth operation.

It has excellent scalability since it integrates with all sectors of the company. All of our needs are met.

Technical support is very good. The procedures and services performed by them are very clear and objective.

We did not use another solution prior to this one.

The implementation was very easy, as the program installer itself is very intuitive.

We have an internal IT team that performs all of the implementation procedures.

In less than six months we were able to achieve the ROI with clearance.

To realize value from the purchase of Skype Business, you need to take advantage of all the important functions of the program. These features include audio conferencing and video conferencing calls. Otherwise, the cost becomes high.

We had already known about the quality of this tool before joining the service, so we did not evaluate other options.

Skype Business is the best program that performs this type of service, and it is a benchmark in the market.

For communication needs among users who are in the habit of doing work on the road, it is necessary to have a good connection to the internet for the satisfactory functioning of mobile devices such as phones and tablets.

We use this solution for meetings and scheduling. Our meetings involve audio or video. These take place with outside clients at any place in the world.

Using this solution has helped us to cut long distance calls, as well as video services from third parties. We have the option to use this solution even for local calls.

The most valuable features include video meetings with clients, scheduling multi-party meetings, and keeping track of meetings with each client.

Skype for Business is good for the PCs with higher bandwidth, but an improvement is required for low bandwidth usage.

I feel that the stability of this solution is very good.

My impression is that the scalability is very good.

The technical support for this product is very good.

Previously, we used Lotus Notes Chat, but it is not as powerful as Skype for Business.

It was a little bit complex to setup, but the usage is not.

Our implementation was done thought the vendor's team, and they were knowledgeable.

Our return of investment was over a two year period.

It may be slightly costly, but the features are awesome.

We did not evaluate other products before choosing Skype for Business.

I do not have any specific advice, other than improvement in the app is required.

I have used this software since 2014. You can do meetings with your employees, and employees outside of your company.

It has a very easy setup, it's easy to use and can be configured on any device. Everything gets recorded on an exchange server, so you don't have to worry about recording meetings and conversations.

It improves travel time for our employees and cost. It can be used on your 4G LTE connection easily. It has also improved manpower productivity.

You can do meetings of up to two hundred people in a single conversation. You can share your desktop with all meeting attendees at the same instant.

There is normal interface of software,it should be user friendly and eye catchy.Nothing esle and i cannot explain much.

My primary use case for this solution is for internal meetings and meetings with customers.

I find the international dialing is the best feature.

Skype for Business needs to improve their support for Android cellphones. Sometimes the connection crashes, which is understandable if you are traveling. But, it would be nice if this could be stabilized somehow.

Additionally, I think there is a need to improve the chat-for-groups feature. It is not perfected yet.

I venture to say that 30% of the people using this solution at our company have had issues with stability, due to the volatility and crashes.

I do not have experience with tech support.

We used to use G Suite Hangout as a similar solution. But, prior to that, we were not using anything else in this domain. We chose Skype for Business after other colleagues suggested that we give it a try. It has served us well.

It may be considered costly for certain markets, such as in India.

We really like the screen sharing tool. The user experience is smooth, and user-friendly.

I use this solution primarily for my consulting business. It enables me to keep in touch with clients via conference calls, video conferencing, desktop sharing and more.

The audio and the screenshot sharing is quite strong.

I think sometimes the connectivity needs improvement. Sometimes people have connectivity issues. Once you are running, it's terrific. But, there are unexpected dropouts occasionally. The reliability is not 100%. For example, we had a call today which started great, and then suddenly there were several participants that dropped out of the call due to connectivity.

I also think that it would be great to have a drag-and-drop feature during a call. 

Additionally, the screen sharing is really good. It would be nice to draw notes for screen sharing. This would especially be nice with Touch Pros.

There are some issues with stability during phone calls. Sometimes the connectivity drops, and it is frustrating.

We are small scale, with a small number of users. I do not know how it would handle very large numbers of users.

The Microsoft tech support are very good. They get back to you. I log a support call, and I usually have someone on the phone within a half an hour, so it is pretty good. 

Implementation and setup were pretty straightforward. It took us a half an hour. We did not need any expertise to get it running at all.

The pricing is really good. It is quite affordable because it came with our Office 365. It is on a per-user license, which is nice. I quite like that they have made it very granular with all of their licensing.  I get a feeling that smaller organizations can interact with bigger organizations in a more global way by using this service. It is leveling the playing field.

I looked at GoToMeetings. It is a good solution, and it has a few nice features. Skype for Business has better video and audio quality.

If you have Office 365, you should give it a "go" and try it!

My primary use case is for our employees to connect to anyone from any of their devices. In our version, we are primarily using from a laptop or a mobile phone. So, they can connect trhough Skype from anywhere. It is a firm requirement so we can connect from any remote location to anywhere.

Our employees use this solution for a communal space for decision making. We can gather a meeting online, and make global decisions. It saves trouble, and it saves us time.

I really like the meeting feature. It is the feature that is used the most in our case. It is really helpful because it reduces our company's travel expenses.

Sometimes Skype is slow, and we cannot use other elements of our devices while using the Skype solution. 

In addition, we would love to implement a whiteboard to the solution. It would be very helpful if you could draw a diagram while in a meeting on Skype. We do use other tools like Zoom and GoToMeeting for these types of features, but it would be nice for Skype to implement these tools, as well.

Sometimes it is unstable and slow.

It is very scalable. We have had no problems.

Technical support is OK.

It took us three months to implement the solution to our team of employees. 

It is a business solution that helps our company connect globally to others in our sphere.

We negotiated a fair price with Microsoft. It is definitely worthwhile to negotiate with them for the best price for your solution.

We were aware of Cisco Webex, and other similar solutions. But, we had Skype with the Microsoft Suite of products. We find that the Microsoft agility will be better, the support is better, and based on the business demand, it matches our criteria, and we prefer it.

It is a really good tool, with almost of the the features on the level of expertise that we need. We would love to see upgrades with whiteboards, architecture diagrams, and such. Apart from that, it would be great to have a interlink or integration with companies that are not on Microsoft Skype.

• Firstly, it is an innovative and even more profitable way of communicating. Also, the product offers a very professional image, which is very useful to the organization. Thanks to the interface, quality, design and easy handling, it allows for establishing a better relationship.
• Secondly, in terms of conversations whether via voice or video call, Skype for Bussiness meets the necessary criteria and with respect to the costs, it is profitable, plus it can be used in various equipment and operating systems which is another advantage.

Skype for Business has improved the communication system in my organization. It is not just a mere implementation; it is something that will undoubtedly influence the productive system likewise, especially in a company where operations are relatively small. 

Despite having few members, the use of this product strengthens the communication links and not only internally, it has also been used with some suppliers, partners, and friends, which has been a pleasant experience.

One of the most useful functions has been its use for calls. Although seeming obvious, it should be noted that the quality I would say is excellent, and the plans offered by the product are superb, also, the image represents the product strength of my organization and without a doubt, it is something innovative.

Specifically in the service area: Since my organization is in charge of repair and maintenance service of computer equipment, and also works internally in communication with members who bring about growth in the company, to include any functionality would be a service that transmits data stored in the cloud, in the form that can be saved, and also to send and receive useful files.

Skype for Business and PSTN Conferencing. Our users are using this add-on license to perform internal and external web and audio conferences for between two and 200 users.

We like the easy provisioning of Skype for Business Conferencing. Also, we like the tools our administrator can use to identify which calls had quality issues and why. This makes troubleshooting our user experience somewhat easier.

• We overcame the audio quality issues by asking users to use the 'Call Me' feature with their desk phone. 
• We would like to better customize our instructions within the Outlook plugin/invite, but we are unable to do so. 
• Our user base has struggled for adoption, as using Skype audio is not a very consistent experience due to the diverse networks that they are on (home office, corporate office, and branch office networks).

We have been able to save money by moving our conferencing solution to Skype for Business Conferencing. 

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.

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.

• 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.

IM, Presence, P2P audio video calls, Conferencing.

Optimizes our network, encourages adoption, standardizes optimized headsets, strong change management, mobility.

Make the Skype applications work with unified end user computing. For example, so that Apple headsets can be used. Instead of optimizing some headsets, it would be helpful to get into OS to optimize the application.

Five years.

Yes.

Yes.

Five out of 10.

No.

Complex.

It depends on your infrastructure. There is value in using Skype only when your organization is Microsoft shop.

Cisco.

Look at your end users and computing needs and find a suitable solution for them.

RDS, Conferencing, VoIP and IM are the most valuable features.

The Remote Desktop Sharing (RDS): It allows the users to share the desktop during a collaboration session. This feature gained popularity with our users whilst assisting others or working on a document together.

Conferencing: The ability to host conference calls with multiple users and bring in mobile users or other participants on the click of a button proved superior. All the users, now, have conferencing space which is readily available on a moments notice. Scheduled meetings which are tightly integrated with Microsoft Outlook means the users spend less time organizing meetings; where the users needed to call the support team to book boardrooms or book conferencing resources, this is all now integrated with Outlook. Anyone can now do this easily without engaging with support desks or engaging conferencing of the support teams.

VoIP: The ability to call any user without incurring any charges. Since introducing Microsoft Lync, our users can now call other Lync users in other organizations. Our system is equipped with PSTN calling, which has allowed the users to make calls to PSTN from anywhere in the world. It has introduced flexibility in the way we work. We, now, have our users working on the road all the time and they can call/be called on their Skype number anytime-anywhere.

We have used Microsoft products and this product is tightly integrated in the Microsoft ecosystem. Everyone in the company uses some aspect of this product.

Conferencing and interoperability need to be improved.

The biggest challenge has been seen in terms of interoperability with the other vendors. Microsoft chose standards which are freely available to minimize their costs. This decision means other vendors cannot integrate with Skype because they are using licensed technologies. Conferences on Microsoft cannot be joined to conferences from other vendors; no collaboration across technologies. That means gateways that allow Skype to communicate with other conferencing systems are required. These gateways usually come with limitations on what you can/can't do during a conference. Adding gateways means spending more money without a guarantee that everything will work as intended. It, also, complicates the solution to provide all services.

Luckily, there are vendors who have risen to fill this gap, vendors such as Pexip and Acano. Fortunately or unfortunately, Acano was acquired by Cisco. These gateways allow Microsoft Skype to communicate with any conferencing systems without losing any functionality.

I have used this solution for eight years.

It has been stable.

Scalability is good so far. We just added more servers to meet our needs.

I would rate the technical support an eight out of 10.

The setup was straightforward.

Business Enterprise Voice provides the most pain for pricing.

QoS and ample bandwidth are a must. Virtualization can be a source of pain, i.e., if it is not implemented as per the requirements from Microsoft.