At VMworld Europe 2016, VMware and Microsoft collaborate to enable joint VMware Horizon and Skype for Business customers with an even better experience, improved productivity and lower costs.
Around 3 billion minutes of calls go through Skype every single day, and the platform hosts a billion meetings every year. It’s no wonder that customers increasingly use this leading unified communications solution in tandem with VMware Horizon. At VMworld Europe today, we announced VMware and Microsoft are collaborating to deliver an even better Skype for Business experience with Horizon.
In case you missed it, here’s the video of Microsoft and VMware End-User Computing (EUC) CTOs Raj Gopalakrishnan and Shawn Bass discussing this exciting new collaboration:
An Even Better Experience with Horizon + Skype for Business
As seen with the enhancements we announced earlier this year, we are laser-focused on delivering the best user experience for our Horizon customers. Working with Microsoft, we can soon deliver an even better Skype for Business user experience. Together, we’ve created an optimized, direct peer-to-peer endpoint virtual channel that offloads media processing to the endpoints. You can see the difference in how the optimized solution will work in comparison to the existing solution below:
So, why are customers increasingly looking to use Skype for Business with Horizon? It all boils down to four key reasons:
- Secure collaboration: Secure data in the data center to prevent data leakage outside the organization through chats or exchanged files.
- Simple management: Easy management, control and deployment of Microsoft Skype for Business as a virtualized application.
- Great user experience: End users more easily collaborate across devices and platforms with a consistently great experience.
- Lower costs: All of the media processing happens between endpoints, reducing the load on data center infrastructure and overall infrastructure costs to customers.
Whether making a video call or participating in an online meeting on their Windows, Mac or Linux endpoint, we’re looking forward to enabling our joint Skype for Business and Horizon customers with an even better experience, improved productivity and lower costs.
How to Unlock New Skype for Business + Horizon Value for Your Business
Starting in the first quarter of 2017, the tech preview will showcase a brand new plug-in for Skype for Business. This new media plug-in leverages Microsoft Media Manager APIs and provides support for multiple client endpoints, including Windows, Mac and Linux endpoints. Additionally, the media plug-in will support both Skype for Business Server (on-premises) and Office 365 deployments.
To sign up for the tech preview and unlock the powerful benefits in your business, visit vmware.com/go/skype-business-horizon.
More EUC news from VMworld Europe 2016:
