Microsoft has just announced the debut of the Skype for Business Mac Public Preview, allowing commercial customers to request invites for testing the Mac client. “We’ll start by issuing invites to IT administrators to download the client and gradually expand the preview to everyone in the coming weeks”, notes the official Microsoft blog.
Skype for Business preview for Mac users will be released in three cumulative stages, with public availability planned for the third quarter of 2016. Microsoft notes that today’s initial release will allow users to see and join meetings. Once you sign in, you’ll see your meetings for today and tomorrow, based on your Outlook calendar, displayed in the Skype for Business client. Once you join a meeting, you can enjoy full screen video, content viewing, in-meeting chat and the ability to invite others to the meeting.
In the second phase, the preview will get instant messaging, presence and contacts, which will be released in early summer. In the meantime, users can continue to use Lync for Mac 2011 side-by-side with Skype for Mac Preview. In the third and final phase of the preview, telephony and related features will be introduced as well.
To get started, IT administrators can sign up their organization by visiting the Skype for Business Preview site. Each day, we will issue invitations to IT administrators, with the goal of extending invitations to everyone in the coming weeks. Once an IT administrator downloads the preview client, they can manage its distribution to end users within their organization.
Check out a demonstration of the Skype for Business Mac Public Preview in the following video:
