Communicate directly with customers via Skype for Business inside your mobile apps
By Skype for Business Team as written on blogs.office.com
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
Posted on July 14, 2015 by David Mario Smith
At its Worldwide Partner Conference, Microsoft gave new details on it’s Project GigJam collaboration app, which represents a fresh approach by the technology titan. GigJam will enable users to find or pull information from any or multiple business applications, share that information or parts of it with team members in a workspace metaphor. Users can keep track of processes and the tasks involved to get work done quicker.
I find GigJam to be one of the more important announcements from Microsoft’s Worldwide Partner Conference. For one, the name is probably the coolest name Microsoft has come up with. Well, being the son of a Jazz musician, it just evokes emotions in me. But I digress. More importantly, this represents a new Microsoft. This is Satya Nadella’s Microsoft, which is trying to be more open and platform agnostic.
GigJam is not tied to Windows. It was built using web standards such as REST, OAuth, JavaScript, and HTML5. It also works across Android, iOS, Mac and Windows devices and PCs. It also works on large screens such as Surface. GigJam allows you to share tasks with a purpose, in which you can assign responsibilities with the right information to the right people, ensuring the proper context to get things done. Cortana capabilities will be built in to allow audio for audio comments. Every task in an application seemingly becomes an application in itself that enables multi-user collaboration. Now it’s exact release date has not be revealed, but we anticipate this will be one of the most significant Microsoft product launches.
GigJam is Nadella’s vision to move Microsoft into an innovative position of openness and breaking down proprietary barriers between the applications and devices people use to get work done. What makes GigJam important is that it could potentially cause a paradigm shift in the way collaboration and productivity applications work. We’ve seen Microsoft release Sway and Delve and is trying to address the “help people get work done” mantra of newer mobile collaboration services such as Slack. The traditional barriers to that have been proprietary islands of collaboration platforms in which Microsoft was a main culprit. Building GigJam with open standards is a huge step for Microsoft and sends an industry alert that they’re about innovating in this space.
I’ve been writing about the emerging mobile collaboration space, which is impacting collaboration and causing traditional vendors to react with new lightweight mobile offerings to support how people work. I believe GigJam is an innovative step and point in this trend that will demand a response from emerging and traditional collaboration providers. GigJam calls tasks, people, content and context to the forefront in a way that will potentially help people get work done faster and more efficiently. GigJam is at the project stage, so from now till it is officially released, I’m sure deeper details will be revealed. As an analyst, I’m usually tempered on product announcements claiming to be the next big thing and that can cure all ails, but I believe Microsoft has something here. Time will tell how well they execute though. Stay tuned!
Source: https://aragonresearch.com/gigjam-microsoft-attempts-to-redo-collaboration/
It’s an exciting time for Skype for Business as they deliver communication-powered productivity in Office. In the last few months, they've delivered the Skype for Business client for Windows, the new Skype for Business Server, and Skype for Business Online in Office 365. And just last week, they announced previews of new meetings and voice capabilities in Office 365 through the Skype for Business Preview Program.
Today they announced the availability of the Skype for Business app for Windows Phone.
What’s new - intuitive interface, more emoticons, improved server communications
If you are familiar with the Lync app for Windows Phone, you’ll notice a number of enhancements in the new app. The most noticeable differences right off the bat are the Skype for Business brand and UI, which is intuitive and familiar if you happen to use Skype in your personal communications. They've also revamped emoticons, which now offers over 100 emoticons to land your message visually.
They have improved how the app and the server handle conversation notifications. Once you’re notified of a new conversation on your phone, the other clients you have logged in won’t be able to grab the conversation and prevent you from responding on your phone.
They have also enhanced security with at-rest data encryption, so your conversation history and voicemail is encrypted by default.
And your most recent conversations are now synchronized across devices whether they took place on your PC, tablet or phone, as long as you’re running the latest server software. We’re working hard to enable that for Office 365 users as well, so stay tuned for more news to come.
How you can upgrade today
Most people who have the Lync 2013 app on their Windows Phone will be automatically updated to the new Skype for Business app, but here are the particulars depending on which version of Windows Phone you use:
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If you have a Windows Phone 8.1 and higher but do not have the Lync 2013 app, you can download the new Skype for Business app in the Windows Store.
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If you have Windows Phone 8.1 and higher and currently have the Lync 2013 mobile app, the new Skype for Business app will replace your existing app and tile automatically.
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If you have Windows Phone 8.0, you will continue to use Lync 2013 or Lync 2010, which remains compatible even if your organization is running the new Skype for Business Server.
Posted by Skype for Business Team, on July 6, 2015
