I hated using Skype for personal use and frankly still do not use it, but absolutely could not do without Skype for Business. It is integrated with Exchange and keeps up to date with my Outlook calendar, so it is effortless to join a conference call. I completely hated trying to get a conference call number and pin from my calendar to input to phone. The process was problematic and a real waste of time. Now with Skype for Business, I am able to check my calendar, join calls, or participate in a meeting with screen sharing effortlessly. Effortlessly. The amount of stress of being late to a conference call due to an inability to obtain the information to make the call was considerable. The stress is gone and I am able to focus on the content of the interaction versus the steps to just connect. All of this and the ability to text with work colleagues and know if they are online or in a meeting makes Skype for Business a truly valuable, time saving, and stress reducing tool. Wish I had had this solution available when I first started working.... I probably would have a lot less gray hair now.

I rarely write a review, but the number of non-substantive reviews on the day of release was uncalled for. Some people clearly shouldn't be using a smartphone, let alone a collaboration app.I will admit that I did have trouble with the App Store update of the app. It downloaded and showed progress to install at 100%, but never actually finished. I thought maybe it was because the app was running as Lync 2013 in the background. I tried closing the app, but resulted in just deleting the app altogether and reinstalling. This worked perfectly.The app is a welcome refresh of the Lync client. This isn't just a rebranding. I have been using the Skype for Business client on my Windows PC for some time now, and have enjoyed the familiar experience to the personal Skype client. As far as performance, it's a bit to early to tell (it's only been out for 16 hours people). But I assume it will be just as solid as the Lync 2013 version it is based on. Thanks MICROSOFT for your continued push to support all platforms with your technologies!

I was glad to see this available and appreciate the app. I don't appreciate getting notifications when I SIGN OUT! We share a chat within our team for support. All night long after I've signed out I still get the messages. I haven't signed in for two weeks. I use it only when I'm on call for the weekend otherwise I use the desktop application. Two weeks later I'm still getting notified and bonged when a new message comes and it's in my notifications. Another issue is changing presence can sometimes work, sometimes doesn't work, takes a random amount of time to actually update. I also don't get messages. I get the sound and even notification with part of the message. Open the app and the message never comes. Perhaps some real beta testing in a wider range of iOS versions is needed? Since the last update it just constantly crashes. I literally RDP over vpn to a system that has the desktop client installed to use Skype for business. Even though it crashes every single time, I still get the notifications when I'm signed out. I do appreciate the app but please work to stabilize the features you've already provided.

Skype for business is fantastic when it works. You can easily share presentations and hear people clearly. When it works, it is very good and our preferred program. It took a while to get used to it though. In some cases, it was unstable and the participant would lose audio and the program would constantly reconnect. It appears to be dependent on the strength of your wireless signal and if it is a bit low, you can lose connection. It also depends a bit on the device. The best device I have used is my iPad. My iPhone and computer are somewhat less reliable but now work most of the time. The iPad has worked every time. The most confusing part is that for some of my colleagues, Skype works but Business Skype acts buggy. Huh? That makes no sense but it is real as the original Skype appears to be more stable. We will continue to work with the program as the bugs continue to go away but be prepared for some frustration at the beginning.