Users of Skype and Lync can now video call each other using the latest Skype desktop client from Microsoft and Lync 2013, TechTimes reports. Through this move the cross-app integration of the two online messaging clients is complete – users of the two apps were available to share instant messages and video calls between them starting May 2013. Skype and Lync offer their users the same set of services – instant messaging and voice and video calling features. Through this new feature Skype and Lync users can reach “even more colleagues, partners and customers, streamlining communications across both work and life”, Skype’s Elaine Ansell writes in a blog post.
Besides the new cross-app video call feature, Skype’s new version delivers a few improvements – Skype 7.0 offers its users the possibility to scroll, call and browse using touch, making it easier to interact with the communication tool using a touch PC, and has introduced compact view, a more balanced color scheme and the possibility to toggle showing of the unread messages. According to a previous announcement made by Microsoft on its text, voice and video messaging apps, Lync will be re-branded as Skype for Business. A post published on Skype’s website, the change is to be expected in the first half of next year.
In the first half of 2015, the next version of Lync will become Skype for Business with a new client experience, new server release, and updates to the service in Office 365. We believe that Skype for Business will again transform the way people communicate by giving organizations reach to hundreds of millions of Skype users outside the walls of their business.
Gurdeep Pall
The new messaging app will take advantage of both Skype’s and Lync’s strengths, adding the familiar Skype look to the business messaging app, while maintaining Lync’s powerful features and improving them as necessary.