What could be better than having a day fully devoted to taking pictures of yourself?! For us at Managed Solution, we couldn't think of anyway better to celebrate this glamorous holiday than by sharing some of our best selfies. Flattering angles and superb lighting only!
With selfies sweeping social media and most of the internet, it's no wonder face-to-face interaction online is becoming more popular. Along with advancements in hardware and software, video conferencing is now becoming increasingly popular for business interaction in the workplace. Encouraged by young, tech-savvy millennials, those in leadership today are very enthusiastic about technology and want to use it where possible, as leaders of the future will be dependent on technology and therefore will expect to utilize it throughout their daily lives. According to a joint survey performed by Redshift Research and sponsored by Cisco, 87 percent of young respondents would prefer to work for a more “video-enabled” organization over one that limits its investment in video conferencing. In addition, 84 percent of respondents believe that they would rely on virtual meetings with video for one out of every four interactions at a minimum.
In a recent Q&A session, Lovina McMurchy, general manager of Skype Advertising, stated that Skype averages 8 billion hours of social video calls each year—this has been the case since 2011, when Microsoft acquired the company. The growing trend of video calls will continue to change how people interact with one another and combat some of the stigma associated with choosing video conferencing over face-to-face meetings.
In addition to the growing social use associated with video conferencing, it is now becoming more commonplace during the modern interview process. Global companies often seek global talent, but traveling out-of-state for a job interview isn’t always the best approach. Because of this, a recent study conducted by PGI suggests that 66 percent of job candidates prefer video interviews over traveling to meet a potential employer. This is even becoming more common with local candidates that might need to meet a large team whose schedules do not align.
Video conferencing has also become a popular feature of quality enterprise business solutions. By integrating video conferencing services with enterprise systems, employees are finding new and unique ways to run virtual meetings that go beyond traditional methods. In the same Redshift Research survey about video conferencing, respondents were asked about future features that would help them improve meetings with enterprise integration. Fifty-four percent of respondents showed interest in customizing the viewer’s experience with social media sharing tools. Twenty-one percent would prefer real-time language translation and pop-up bubbles that provide LinkedIn and Salesforce information on meeting participants.
Video conferencing services let participants communicate on many levels beyond a traditional conference call. Through viewing facial expressions and body language, participants are able to experience different non-verbal cues, which often make up 93 percent of standard communication. Through virtual reality, participants can take virtual meetings even further.
By wearing a headset like the HoloLens, which combines both virtual and augmented reality into one experience, meeting participants can all sit in the same room together, no matter where they are physically located. This is accomplished via holograms that can be viewed through the headset.
With traditional video conferencing, participants only look into a camera and onto their screens to see one another. This often leads to missed eye contact and a continued feeling of separation. With technology like the HoloLens, participants can turn their head to the left to look at the hologram of the person sitting on their left. They can turn to their right to interact with the person on their right. In addition, they can share projects and manipulate them in real-time as a team. All of this can be done in a virtual environment set in the physical world.
These are just three trends of many set to change the way we interact with one another through video conferencing. As technology continues to evolve, virtual meetings will quickly become the norm and the board room conference phone will become nothing more than a retro paperweight.
Learn more about the future of video conferencing and Microsoft here.
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Communicate directly with customers via Skype for Business inside your mobile apps
The Skype for Business team is always on the lookout for new ways to bring greater value to our customers. We look for new and innovative ideas that connect people together utilizing the power of our platform. Today, we are pleased to announce that the Skype for Business App SDK Preview is now available for download. This new SDK enables developers to seamlessly integrate instant messaging, audio and video experiences into their custom iOS and Android applications.
At Build 2016, we previewed the Skype for Business App SDK and highlighted the ease of seamless integration into native mobile and tablet applications powered by Skype for Business. We showcased a real-world solution created by MDLIVE—a pioneer and visionary in telehealth and leading provider of online and on-demand healthcare delivery services and software—that connects patients and physicians together via mobile devices in a new, convenient and efficient way. And by collaborating with Microsoft and Office 365, MDLIVE is able to offer a secure and HIPAA-compliant system for patients and providers to communicate, share and review patient medical records, lab results and provide assessments.
“Skype for Business will provide MDLIVE with a much more scalable architecture, so we can accommodate even higher volumes of video consults daily,” said Randy Parker, founder and CEO of MDLIVE. “The adoption of Skype for Business also enables us to deliver a significantly improved user experience for both patients and physicians.”
The initial focus of the SDK Preview is to power “remote advisor” solutions that enable consumer mobile and tablet applications to communicate with Skype for Business organizations. Businesses can leverage the power of their existing Skype for Business Server and Skype for Business Online infrastructure—including the familiar native clients they use today—to reach customers never before possible.
Whether you are looking to add voice, video or chat functionality into a new or existing application, the Skype for Business App SDK Preview makes it easy. The availability of these features is an important step in our Skype Developer Platform roadmap to combine the power of cloud voice, meetings and messaging with new cloud APIs and SDKs that work across a range of web and device platforms to drive new scenarios and help developers and partners re-imagine how they engage and win customers.
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Communicate directly with customers via Skype for Business inside your mobile apps
The Skype for Business team is always on the lookout for new ways to bring greater value to our customers. We look for new and innovative ideas that connect people together utilizing the power of our platform. Today, we are pleased to announce that the Skype for Business App SDK Preview is now available for download. This new SDK enables developers to seamlessly integrate instant messaging, audio and video experiences into their custom iOS and Android applications.
At Build 2016, we previewed the Skype for Business App SDK and highlighted the ease of seamless integration into native mobile and tablet applications powered by Skype for Business. We showcased a real-world solution created by MDLIVE—a pioneer and visionary in telehealth and leading provider of online and on-demand healthcare delivery services and software—that connects patients and physicians together via mobile devices in a new, convenient and efficient way. And by collaborating with Microsoft and Office 365, MDLIVE is able to offer a secure and HIPAA-compliant system for patients and providers to communicate, share and review patient medical records, lab results and provide assessments.
“Skype for Business will provide MDLIVE with a much more scalable architecture, so we can accommodate even higher volumes of video consults daily,” said Randy Parker, founder and CEO of MDLIVE. “The adoption of Skype for Business also enables us to deliver a significantly improved user experience for both patients and physicians.”
The initial focus of the SDK Preview is to power “remote advisor” solutions that enable consumer mobile and tablet applications to communicate with Skype for Business organizations. Businesses can leverage the power of their existing Skype for Business Server and Skype for Business Online infrastructure—including the familiar native clients they use today—to reach customers never before possible.
Whether you are looking to add voice, video or chat functionality into a new or existing application, the Skype for Business App SDK Preview makes it easy. The availability of these features is an important step in our Skype Developer Platform roadmap to combine the power of cloud voice, meetings and messaging with new cloud APIs and SDKs that work across a range of web and device platforms to drive new scenarios and help developers and partners re-imagine how they engage and win customers.
Download the Skype for Business App SDK Preview today. We look forward to your feedback on these new features and can’t wait to see what you build!
This preview release is a part of the larger Skype for Business developer opportunities announced at Build 2016. For more information on the Skype Developer Platform or additional resources be sure to visit the Skype Developer Platform.
—James Skay, senior product marketing manager for the Skype for Business team
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Happy Cinco de Mayo!
Let's celebrate the Fifth of May with tacos, tequila, and Skype for Business!
Cinco de Mayo represents the day the Mexican Army, against all odds, defeated the French in the Battle of Puebla. Now, people around the world take this day to appreciate Mexican and latin culture. The best way to celebrate? Use Skype for Business tools to increase your efficiency and make more time for margaritas and mariachi bands. Check out these 5 awesome foundational tips for Skype for Business, as written on bettercloud.com, with quick tutorial videos.
Schedule a Skype for Business Video or Audio Call Straight from Outlook
Since becoming part of Office 365 in April, Skype for Business has integrated with Lync and made scheduling video and audio calls a cinch. Straight from your Outlook calendar, you are able to schedule Skype for Business calls both within your calendar and within an invite. For those of us who need a demonstration or reminder, the video below will show how to create a Skype for Business meeting using both Outlook 2013/2016 and the Outlook Web App.
Share Only What You Need to Share with Others on Your Skype Meetings
Now that you know how to schedule a Skype call, here’s how to launch the meeting and share your screen with other participants on the call. Screen sharing is a feature of corporate calls that many of us have come to expect and Skype for Business provides several different content sharing options. Shareable options include your whole desktop, a certain application, a PowerPoint presentation, or event an attachment. Check out the video below.
Just Need to Chat Real Quick? Make a Skype for Business Direct Call Instead of a Video Call
While you can make a video call, you can also just use audio (and let’s admit, we all have bad hair days and may not need to be on camera for every meeting). In Skype for Business, users can easily make phone calls from their computer and connect with colleagues. For those work from home days or weeks on the road, making a direct call in Skype for Business can be the ticket to get work done.
Who’s in Your Skype for Business Address Book?
Skype for Business contacts represent the people you know, do business with, and communicate with. If you’re just getting started with S4B or you need to expand your circles, you can add people to your contacts list, whether they’re in your organization or outside of it (with some limits, based on your administrator’s settings).
An Instant Message in Skype for Business Can Do the Trick for a Quick Question
And then there’s times when you just want to send a quick message. If you’ve got something to share that doesn’t warrant an email, send an instant message with Skype for Business. The basic steps to send an IM will be intuitive for most users: simply double-click on the name of the contact you want to send a message to, type your message, and press your Enter key to send.
Now that you've learned 5 useful tips in Skype for Business, it's time to celebrate! Bring out the sombreros, cook up some traditional Mexican dishes (or just grab some take-out from the local food truck), and take a shot at the Mexican Hat Dance. Cinco de Mayo is the perfect day to celebrate and appreciate Mexican culture, so enjoy this Fifth of May!
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Case Study: BDSmktg Marketing agency improves technology, saves $87,000 with cloud-based telephony
For BDSmktg, its field staff is the core of its business, with only a small percentage of employees at headquarters. BDSmktg is using Skype for Business Online in Microsoft Office 365 to knit these two groups more closely together, accelerate business, and save bundles of money. With Skype for Business Online, BDSmktg will save US$87,000 annually in personal phone charge reimbursements, audio conferencing fees, and PBX maintenance, and avoid the need to spend $250,000 on a new PBX system.
Flustered by phones
James Metcalfe never imagined that the most troublesome technology in his company would be the most mundane: phones.
James Metcalfe is Director of IT Network Infrastructure for BDSmktg, an agency that provides retail marketing services for world-class brands by representing their products and services in stores. The Irvine, California¬–based agency provides thousands of representatives each year to some of the biggest names in retail.
James Metcalfe had already outfitted several hundred of the agency’s full-time employees with Microsoft Office 365 to give them anytime, anywhere, any-device access to email, document storage, document sharing, and web conferencing. Employees used the latest PCs, laptops, tablets, and smartphones.
But old-fashioned phone communications posed a growing problem. Only a small percentage of BDSmktg employees work at the Irvine headquarters, while thousands work in the field—from home or on the road—because their jobs require that they be near the stores they service.
A significant portion of the company’s large recruiting team and extensive field staff used their personal phones to conduct business, and BDSmktg reimbursed them for the charges. But this was expensive and problematic. When job candidates returned calls to recruiters, they could end up talking to a recruiter’s family member. Or, if recruiters or field operations managers left BDSmktg and went to work for a competitor, they took job candidates’ phone numbers with them.
“There were delays in tracking down phone numbers to reach colleagues, which slowed down the business,” Metcalfe says.
In the Irvine office, the company’s private branch exchange (PBX) system was old, out of date, and hemorrhaging money. “Every time we had budget talks, the PBX system came up, but sticker shock ended the discussion,” Metcalfe says. “The timing was never right to make the large investment to replace or upgrade it.”
One way to connect everyone
In late 2015, BDSmktg asked to be part of a Microsoft early adopter program for a new version of Skype for Business Online (part of Microsoft Office 365) that included significant telephony enhancements. Cloud PBX and PSTN Calling provide software-based PBX functionality with a bank of Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) phone numbers. PSTN Conferencing allows people invited to a Skype for Business Online meeting to join by dialing in over a landline or mobile phone (rather than the Internet).
BDSmktg gave Skype for Business Online to about 300 of its employees, and adoption was instant and enthusiastic. “We’ve been using Lync Online for years, so our staff already had experience with chat, screen share, and video and web conferencing,” Metcalfe says. “Adding PSTN Conferencing and PSTN Calling just makes communications even simpler. With Skype for Business Online, we have one way to connect everyone, wherever they are, whatever device they’re using, and whether they’re connected to the Internet or not.”
More professional, more accountable
Today, BDSmktg employees who work from home have an assigned Skype for Business Online phone number that they use for work calls; no more giving out personal phone numbers. When an employee leaves BDSmktg, there’s no longer the worry that a personal phone number is a contact’s only link to the company. BDSmktg simply reassigns the Skype for Business Online phone number to a new employee, maintaining continuity with client and job candidate communications.
“With PSTN Calling, we can track every inbound and outbound call, see the number called, and the duration of the call,” Metcalfe says. “We have much better accountability around a critical part of our business.”
Work effectively from anywhere
Employees working from home now feel better connected to the company because they can connect quickly with colleagues. “We’re able to provide more seamless communication for our employees who work from home,” Metcalfe says. “People are blown away by the quality of the HD Voice in Skype for Business Online. They don’t want to go back to regular phones.”
BDSmktg management likes the flexibility that the new features provide. “With Skype for Business Online, we have more freedom to place people wherever the business needs them to be, rather than having technology limitation determine employee access,” says Ken Kress, President of BDSmktg.
Huge savings
Management also likes the savings. By using Skype for Business Online for field staff telephony, BDSmktg eliminates the need to reimburse employees for calls made from personal devices—a US$12,000 annual savings.
By replacing the $8,000-a-month licenses from its current conferencing provider with a $1,700-a-month Skype for Business Online subscription, BDSmktg will save $75,000 annually.
And by replacing its physical PBX with Cloud PBX, BDSmktg will avoid a $250,000 replacement cost and ongoing maintenance costs of $35,000 a year.
Last but not least is the real estate cost avoidance that BDSmktg could realize by using Skype for Business Online. “We’ll avoid significant costs to expand our office as our company grows as we enable more people and roles to work from home,” Metcalfe says.
Easy to manage
From Metcalfe’s perspective, having telephony functionality bundled with Office 365 makes his life easier. He eliminates the work and expense of a physical phone infrastructure. It’s far easier to move employees around the office and to move them from office to home. “Scaling up and creating additional phone numbers with PSTN Calling is very straightforward,” Metcalfe says.
There are fewer vendors and bills to manage. More services on user desktops are connected and interoperable, making support easier. “Giving employees new capabilities and saving money is what a successful IT department strives for,” Metcalfe says. “I’ve been championing a new phone system for three years, and to finally find a solution that is affordable, easy to implement, and easy to use is a game changer.”
Next, extend to every field employee
Metcalfe’s vision is for all the company’s thousands of field staff representatives to have access to Skype for Business Online and other Office 365 services. The above-mentioned savings could well make this possible.
“It would be ideal for our field operations managers to easily and instantly connect with the representatives that they manage,” Metcalfe says. “Everyone would have the Skype for Business Online mobile app on their smartphones. As our field programs ramp up and down, we adjust our Office 365 subscriptions as required using a central admin portal. It would make us more nimble, more responsive, and more competitive than ever.”
Since joining Microsoft in 1991, the only constant for Bev Hess has been a remote workstyle. Bev started her career as an account rep based in St. Louis, often logging thousands of miles in the car or flying to client sites or meeting with customers over the telephone. She’s held a number of roles in the field, eventually rising to sales management and then pursuing a passion to empower others with better technology, first as a loud voice in the field and now managing a large global team as part of the Microsoft IT organization.
Today, Bev rarely sees many of her 139-person team in person. Her typical day starts with a mere 30-second commute to her home office in California, more than 1,100 miles away from Microsoft’s corporate headquarters in Redmond, Washington. But she’s also connected and productive wherever she may be, whether out walking the dog, running errands, or even training for an upcoming triathlon. She appreciates having the flexibility to blend life as a mom with the challenges of building long-lasting professional relationships and running a high-performance team at one of the world’s largest technology companies. For her, life couldn’t be more balanced.
For Bev, “Skype for Business is my #1 tool. It’s how I start and end my day.
Skype for Business is now the norm for getting things done
Skype for Business has become the equalizing force that is changing how we work. It is not only helping to reinvent productivity, but also helping to decrease the need for commuting and business travel, which is good for our people, our business and the planet.
While Bev has always been successful as a remote employee, she says “I get a lot more done today.” In the days of audio-only tele-conferencing and conference room meetings, meetings would often start without her and “I’m sorry you can’t see this” was an all-too-common apology. These days, Skype for Business has become the norm for how work gets done at Microsoft. And many people meeting her for the first time over Skype don’t know that she—and most of her team members—aren’t in a corporate office.
Skype for Business combines audio and video conferencing, instant messaging, and screen sharing into one app that works on any device. Meet collaboratively one-on-one or with hundreds of people, or broadcast meetings to thousands of people.
Today Bev can’t imagine working without Skype. She hires people over Skype, conducts people reviews over Skype, and even occasionally fires people on Skype. “If someone isn’t comfortable getting hired without meeting their manager in person, they simply aren’t a fit for my team.” This way of doing business has also helped her to retain great people that needed to change location or workstyle—all while empowering them to be just as effective as they could be in a corporate office. For example, she recently hired a young data scientist in France that has lectured at MIT and is considered a rising star in her field.
“I think the Microsoft work culture and technology environment is what has enabled me to attract such exceptional talent.”
All told, Bev’s team is spread over 23 countries. To accommodate team members in various time zones, her workday commonly spans from 5 AM to 10 PM, though she hardly notices. She benefits through a flexibility to interweave her professional and personal lives, and Microsoft benefits by getting twice the availability of a typical 9–5 office worker. She also works to be open and available and sets aside time each week as open “office hours” for her team to drop by virtually via Skype and talk about anything.
Her team represents a perfect example of the modern workplace. While some of her team work in larger offices, many others work in remote or satellite offices with only a handful of employees. Others telecommute from rented office or flex space in their local city. And others, like Bev herself, work on the go, making their home or a hotel room their office. Regardless of where they are, Skype for Business is the equalizing force that empowers every team member to be productive whenever and wherever they may be, helping Microsoft realize greater value from its workforce.
85 percent of Bev’s team—including Bev herself—is located outside of Redmond.
A sustainable way of doing business
At Microsoft, we’re committed to demonstrating environmental leadership. In 2012, we made a commitment to become carbon neutral across our operations, including data centers, development labs, offices, manufacturing, and business air travel. We see Skype as an important component of our environmentally responsible operations and as a catalyst for reshaping how business gets done in the future—at Microsoft and around the world.
For example, many of our people now attend town meetings, our annual Company Meeting, and large conferences virtually. Skype has provided globally-distributed teams the ability to meet more often and more conveniently, helping people stay more connected and also increasing the speed at which we do business.
Skype has also afforded more frequent customer contact, helping lessen the need for on-site travel by our sales teams. Virtual meetings and demos of solution capabilities help ensure sellers remain responsive to our customers’ needs and include all stakeholders, regardless of where they may be. When Bev thinks back to her time as a seller, she sees a night-and-day difference between how she worked back then and how our sales teams work today. “Skype is the catalyst that is enabling us to adopt a more sustainable way of doing business without sacrificing the strong relationships we desire with our customers,” she says.
As virtual meetings become increasingly commonplace, people are spending less time commuting to work and are flying fewer miles to attend remote meetings and events. This reduced need for travel is helping us avoid carbon emissions, which is both good for the environment and good for business. Additionally, as more of our employees work remotely, Skype is effectively helping us to minimize our office space and the emissions associated with our buildings. In fact, the Global e-Sustainability Initiative’s (GeSI’s) SMARTer 2030 report estimates that virtual meetings and working remotely could reduce commuting globally by up to 53 percent and reduce the number of business trips by car or plane by 80 percent by 2030, potentially saving 165 billion liters of fuel from transportation.
Transforming enterprise IT
Skype for Business is an important enabler of a more sustainable way of doing business, helping us to reduce emissions from business air travel as well as emissions in our private data center. For example, as we shift from managing communications in our own facilities to a fully cloud-based Skype for Business environment, we expect to reduce associated data center emissions by 30 to 60 percent per user.
Moving to an IP-based collaboration environment also provides us with an unprecedented ability to analyze and manage our communications infrastructure. Bert Byerly is the Skype for Business service engineer for Microsoft IT and constantly monitors the environment, watching for trends and working to constantly improve service levels. “Reliability is at an all-time high, with call quality now at more than 95 percent,” he reports.
Final thoughts
As Bev thinks back to just how much Skype for Business has helped transform Microsoft into a modern, sustainable workplace, she’s excited to see the role Microsoft is playing in the world, both in empowering people and businesses and helping to reduce carbon emissions with technology.
Worldwide use of Office 365 Cloud PBX Now Simplified
Today, we’re excited to announce the availability of Skype for Business Cloud Connector Edition.
Cloud Connector Edition makes it possible to connect any existing telephone circuit to Cloud PBX in Office 365 using a single server and minimal configuration. This allows for the user’s phone capability to be managed out of Office 365 while their phone calls continue to use their existing phone number, circuits and PSTN provider contract. Cloud Connector Edition can be downloaded directly from Microsoft at http://aka.ms/getCCE
The availability of Skype for Business Cloud Connector Edition comes in addition to the existing capability of on-premises PSTN connectivity for existing Lync Server and Skype for Business Server deployments. For existing customers who have Skype for Business Server 2015 or Lync Server 2013 deployed, you can get started planning this topology here. What’s great about Cloud Connector Edition is that now Office 365 customers without Skype for Business on-premises can bring their PSTN circuits to Cloud PBX with minimal infrastructure investment.
Delivered as a set of packaged virtual machines for deployment on-premises, Skype for Business Cloud Connector Edition uses with the same binaries as the full server, but packaged to just the components necessary for cloud connectivity. So while Edge Server manages connectivity to Office 365 and Mediation Server connects to the next-hop SIP Peer, other components for registration and meetings are excluded. The result is faster to deploy, easier to configure and operated from the cloud.
Because the same software components are being used as the server, the interoperability between Cloud Connector Edition and your existing PSTN circuits is the same as with Skype for Business Server. An extensive array of Gateways, SBCs, IP-PBXs and IP telephony service providers have been tested with Lync Server and Skype for Business and this same infrastructure is supported. You can find the infrastructure qualified with Skype for Business here. For PSTN infrastructure that hasn’t yet been tested with Skype for Business, you can use a Gateway or Session Border Controller from our partners including AudioCodes and Sonus.
Everyone who has a subscription to Cloud PBX can get started today with the Skype for Business Cloud Connector Edition and download directly from Microsoft at http://aka.ms/getCCE. Of course our large network of partners stand ready to help customers plan their deployments and can be found at http://partnersolutions.skypeforbusiness.com . For customers who are interested in deploying themselves, the complete guide to planning your deployment can be found on TechNet here.
Thanks so much!!
Jamie Stark
@nomorephones
Skype for Business for Android
Skype for Business for Android is a productivity app that brings Skype Meetings, instant messaging, voice, and video capabilities to your Android mobile device. It has a new look and feel, at-a-glance view of your upcoming meetings and conversation history, simplified call controls, and many other improvements.
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