Skype for Business Reviews and Pricing

Senior Consultant at Unify Square

Oct 11, 2016

Having CCE integrated with local gateways is a big help in making the Cloud adoption straightforward

Intro and Scenario

Some months ago, Microsoft added to its Office 365/Skype Online offer Cloud PBX with PSTN calling (Public Switched Telephone Network is the aggregate of the world's circuit-switched telephone networks).

Cloud PBX gives the capability to connect Skype for Business (S4B) Online users to the PSTN with no existing on-premises deployment.

Your telco, in such a scenario, could be Microsoft itself but this kind of solution involves some interesting downsides.

Microsoft should be able to offer phone numbers in many different countries that have dissimilar regulations and that will have different carriers and providers, each one trying to offer something more interesting than competitors.

The alternative to the aforementioned scenario (and a more down-to-earth solution) is having all Skype for Business workload in the Cloud with minimum footprint on-premises, just to connect S4B users to local PSTN services (using SIP or ISDN).
This is what Microsoft calls Skype for Business Cloud Connector Edition (previously, you may have heard names like MinTop or Minimal Topology).

While I will not deep dive the specifications of this solution, the implications it has must be understood from any customer that is evaluating a Cloud based VOIP system like this one

CCE Overview

CCE is a downloadable package from Microsoft. Inside the package, you will have four virtual machines running on Hyper-V that you will have to deploy in your DMZ.
As you can see in the following schema (from the TechNet post Plan for Skype for Business Cloud Connector Edition ( https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/mt605227.aspx) CCE acts as a bridge between your local telco provider and the Microsoft Cloud.

Deploying more than a single CCE on a site will add resiliency and increase the number of supported calls.

Note that, in this kind of scenario, you have purchase PSTN conferencing from Microsoft or from audio conferencing provider (ACP) partner if you want to add dial-in conferencing.

In addition, from a security point of view, the Directory Services inside the CCE have no communication with your production Domain Controllers.

Is CCE useful for My Company?

In the TechNet post Plan your Cloud PBX solution in Skype for Business 2015 or Lync Server 2013 ( https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/mt612869.aspx) Microsoft offers an interesting "block diagram” to help customers selecting the right solution.

CCE is seen as something fit for greenfield deployments, while existing Skype for Business infrastructures are suitable to work with Cloud PBX directly.

Vendors like Audiocodes are already offering support to the CCE onboard of their Gateways and Session Border Controllers (SBCs).

That is interesting because to talk with the local PSTN you usually already have the requirement for a gateway/SBC.

Therefore, CCE will probably add small or no cost to what you already had to spend anyway.

Takeaways

CCE is an interesting proposal to realize an hybrid voice deployment (Cloud services and local telco) with little effort.

Removing the Skype for Business (on-premises) deployment from the requirements to use Cloud PBX with PSTN calling simplifies the whole process of moving Enterprise Voice (VOIP) to the Cloud.

Having CCE integrated with gateways is another help in making the aforementioned Cloud adoption straightforward.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.

it_user326337Customer Success Manager at PeerSpot

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Oct 31, 2016

Thanks for you thorough review, Fabrizio! Do you have any other advice or recommendations for future/current users?

VijayKumar4

AVP - Cyber Secuirty at Cloud4C Services

Jul 26, 2020

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Enables our teams to have real-time collaboration

Pros and Cons

"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."

"We have found that there is a lag because it cannot integrate with the internal landline."

How has it helped my organization?

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.

What is most valuable?

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

What needs improvement?

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.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Skype for Business for one year.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

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.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

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

How are customer service and technical support?

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

What other advice do I have?

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.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.

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it_user353589

Head of Strategic Portfolio Management team at a comms service provider with 11-50 employees

Jan 28, 2018

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It's great being able to share files and documentation anywhere around the world

Pros and Cons

"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."

"I should be able to make a desktop phone call when I click a member of my Lync directory."

How has it helped my organization?

Voice quality improvement, especially when used for over 40 minutes.

What is most valuable?

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.

What needs improvement?

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.

For how long have I used the solution?

One to three years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Rarely, a chat message is sent very slowly.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

No scalability issues.

How is customer service and technical support?

Good.

How was the initial setup?

I didn't set it up.

What other advice do I have?

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.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.

reviewer2057283

Software architect at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees

Jan 7, 2023

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Easy to use , with nice integration, and very scalable

Pros and Cons

"The integration with Microsoft Outlook for creating and scheduling meetings is nice."

"I would like to see an updated user interface and layout even though no functionality is missing."

What is our primary use case?

Our primary use case is for meetings, online meetings, internal meetings, and with vendors.

How has it helped my organization?

The integration with Microsoft Outlook for creating and scheduling meetings is nice. I believe that this software is very much like the others, for example, Microsoft teams.

What needs improvement?

I would like to see an updated user interface and layout even though no functionality is missing.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Skype for Business for the past two months.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The stability is very good.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

There is excellent scalability and we have five hundred users currently.

What other advice do I have?

I would highly recommend Skype for Business and give it a nine out of ten.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.

reviewer1311051

Sr. IT Project Manager at a university with self employed

Mar 28, 2020

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Easy to set up and organize meetings, and integrates with Outlook

Pros and Cons

"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."

What is most valuable?

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.

What needs improvement?

We need a feature where you can virtually raise your hand to silently let the presenter know that you have a question.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Skype for Business for between five and seven years.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

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.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

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.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup was not difficult for me.

What other advice do I have?

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.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.

reviewer1065756

Works

Apr 19, 2019

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Easy setup, easy to use and can be configured on any device

Pros and Cons

"You can do meetings of up to two hundred people in a single conversation."

"Make it user friendly."

What is our primary use case?

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.

How has it helped my organization?

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.

What is most valuable?

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.

What needs improvement?

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

For how long have I used the solution?

Three to five years.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.

it_user6528

Infrastructure Expert at a comms service provider with 51-200 employees

May 16, 2013

It is easy to integrate with Call Centers and doesn’t need separate appliances or hardware but several aspects have room for improvement

For how long have you used this product?
- 2 years

Which features of this product are most valuable to you?
- VoIP, IM Chat, Conferencing, Mobility

Can you give an example of how this product has improved the way your organization functions?
- Make it easy to communicate between colleagues, partners and even other companies. It is easy to integrate with Call Centers and doesn’t need separate appliances or hardware. It all can be virtualized. It also allows you to call anytime and anywhere from within your PC or Mobile phone.

What areas of this product have room for improvement?
- IM and file transfer, Conferencing, Persistent Chat, Monitoring and Archiving, Quality of voice and video and Mobility.

Did you encounter any issues with deployment, stability or scalability?
- Integration with Office 365 can be difficult sometimes if migrating users from Lync on cloud to Lync on premise.

Did you previously use a different solution and if so, why did you switch?
- We used to have Openfire, but since we are partners of Microsoft and Lync was a unified communication solution for enterprises which gather everything in it. Then we decided to migrate and deployed our first Lync in 2010.

Before choosing this product, did you evaluate other options? If so, which ones?
- No, we have just choose to go for Microsoft Lync and so as many of our enterprise customers who previously had OCS deployed on their premise.

How would you rate the level of customer service and technical support?
- Overall the level of customer service for Lync is good however, for Microsoft Office 365 it has been improved from getting support on forums to exchanging e-mails and even following up on issues by phone calls.

Was the initial setup straightforward or complex? In what ways?
- Initial setup was some how complicated with the edge part as you have to understand the trick of getting two NICs working and routing the traffic on internal NIC to Lync front end while the other NIC which is external has to face the Firewall DMZ lan.

Did you implement through a vendor team or an in-house one? If through a vendor team, how would you rate their level of expertise?
- We have deployed an in-house server and it’s currently still up and running, also we have evaluated the Office 365 and support was extremely good.

What is your ROI on this product?
- Lync has many features that would save your enterprise money, time and effort. Starting with the money, it lessens the cost of communication by using less PSTN lines for VoIP calls when using the Enterprise Voice feature for Lync, It saves you time since you can have conference calls with your clients on Lync using Multiple Conferencing capability along with Multi-Video as well saving the time of going to the customer’s main office for the meeting. Also it can be integrated with other various application servers providing you features which you probably don’t know about yet.

What was your original setup cost for this product and what is your day-to-day cost of using this product?
- Total cost of the project may vary depending on the requirements of the setup, The number of clients who will be using it and what kind of features would they require on it. It may start from $5000 up to $50,000.

What advice would you give to others looking into implementing this product?
- I have recommended Microsoft Lync to one of the customers who had Asterisk and used to have lot of voice quality issue even though they are using the generic audio codecs that are used by majority of VoIP applications. Microsoft Lync uses a different Codec which makes it unique and has better quality in this case.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.

it_user6528Infrastructure Expert at a comms service provider with 51-200 employees

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May 16, 2013

Hi Fabrizio,

Yes this review is dedicated to Lync 2010 more than 2013 however, I have migrated to 2013 about few months ago and noticed the big difference and change between both 2010 and 2013. as you mentioned Monitoring and Archiving are now part of the FE but require a separate SQL server. Mobility has been improved that it actually makes you not in need to use your desktop sometimes.

WAC server supports PowerPoint slides share for multi-point conferencing. I have deployed WAC couple of times in dedicated server (Internal) use and had great results.

Overall I can say a lot of my clients were very satisfied about the results.

I think I have to write another review about Lync 2013.

See all 2 comments

F. Can AKTAN

IT Systems Administrator at Gama Türkerler Ortaklığı

Apr 4, 2022

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High availability, scalable, and but difficult user interface

Pros and Cons

"I have found Skype for Business to be stable."

"Skype for Business could improve the interface. It could be easier to use. Additionally, it's hard to find the people or add people you want to communicate with."

What is our primary use case?

We are using Skype for Business mostly for meetings.

What needs improvement?

Skype for Business could improve the interface. It could be easier to use. Additionally, it's hard to find the people or add people you want to communicate with.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Skype for Business for approximately four years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

I have found Skype for Business to be stable.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Skype for Business is a scalable solution.

We have approximately 350 people are using this solution. All departments are using it.

How are customer service and support?

The support for Skype for Business is good.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup of Skype for Business was simple.

What about the implementation team?

We did the deployment of Skype for Business in-house.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

We are using the subscription-based version of Skype for Business. There is a free version of the solution.

What other advice do I have?

We are in the process of moving to Microsoft Teams and it is integrated into Microsoft Office.

I rate Skype for Business a six out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Public Cloud

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.