Introducing free Skype Meetings • Hacker News Board

Re: Introducing free Skype Meetings

#11

Post by WorldMaker » Tue, Jul 05, 2016, 9:42 PM UTC

dfar1 wrote: post #4

As stated... This is only useful for businesses using office 360. Getting your friends to use skype is as easy getting them to switch to windows phone. I used to have skype to speak with friends abroad, but most have switched to Whatsapp... I now use whatsapp.

No, this states this is free, small conference support for non-Office 365 teams. (Office 365 teams already have Skype for Business with fewer restrictions on the number of people in a conference.)

This is also a Web-based Skype for Business (nee Lync) mini-client, not to be confused with desktop Skype (Consumer) clients (which has its own conferencing system which is also different and with different limitations). One of the cases where Skype and Skype for Business branding is unnecessarily confusing.

It does seem to be a small concession to teams currently using Google's Hangouts in the hopes of upselling those teams to try the rest of Office 365.

Re: Introducing free Skype Meetings

#12

Post by WorldMaker » Tue, Jul 05, 2016, 9:46 PM UTC

mcroft wrote: post #8

Apparently as an Office 365 user my experience is already "richer". I can't imagine how awful this could possibly be that my experience should be better. I mostly resort to using Google Hangouts internally which is more reliable, easier and actually works in Linux. And is free.

This seems to be a web-based mini-client of Skype for Business now available for non-Office 365 teams. They say it has more restrictions that Office 365 users of Skype for Business: Primarily conferences are limited to 10 people in a conference in the first 60 days of a (non-Office 365) team using it and 3 people after that.

This seems to be an attempt to upsell teams currently using Google Hangouts to try Office 365.

It may also be a slipstream announcement that the web-based client for Skype for Business has gotten better? I can't tell based on just the blog post. Something to investigate maybe.

Re: Introducing free Skype Meetings

#13

Post by Nullabillity » Wed, Jul 06, 2016, 3:44 AM UTC

xiaoma wrote: post #10

Nullabillity wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my experience most people tend to at least have it installed. But yeah, Hangouts has much better quality (especially screen sharing is night and day) and a much lower barrier to entry (no business email requirement, no client to install if your browser supports WebRTC, no region restriction, higher client limit).

> no region restriction Hangouts doesn't work in China, undeniably a major if not the major online market. Skype does.

Fair enough then, less region restriction, since this thing only works in the US.