Lync changing to Skype for Business

Like most people when I first saw the blog post from Microsoft, I had to swallow pretty hard to get the lump out of my throat.  My brain quickly went to all the worst places, imaging all the code my team and I have written over the last year becoming obsolete, imagining this re-brand killing off important business features we and our customers need, etc.

After re-reading it several times, and looking at the pictures of the new Lync client a couple of things started to becoming more clear.  To my eyes it would appear the Lync client got some new WPF theme over it and a Skype directory, so not a total rewrite, just a new look and big feature.



So with any luck the good stuff with Lync for programmers continues under the hood, and the team re-brands the Lync sdk WPF and Silverlight controls to match, an action they skipped on 2013 much to the chagrin of the developer community.

Making that assumption everything looks great for Lync users and resellers.  If the integration to Skype is the big change, you accomplish something pretty mind blowing.  This would essentially connect the fastest growing business communication platform, with the biggest home communication platform on the internet.  As you can imagine the possibilities for development grow exponentially on a platform that is already light years ahead of any other UC SDK set.  The possibilities for non-developers are promising too;

1.  Remote control possibility on just about any device that can run Skype.
2.  Easy way to connect mobile workers from places they may not even have a Lync client installed.
3.  Even easier use of Kinnect and Xbox one as a conference room solution.
4.  Integration of Skypes first class video technology.

To sum it all up, everyone just take a few deep breaths, then realize this change to Lync has nothing but positive improvements to an already great platform.  And for this programmer the end of the LinQ / Lync typo name duplication nightmare will finally come to an end.

Doug Routledge, C# Lync, SQL, Exchange, UC Developer