Microsoft Teams and Skype users will be able to call and message each other soon

What you need to know

• Microsoft Teams and Skype users will be able to message and call each other soon.
• The rollout of this interoperability should finish by the end of April 2020.
• Many people have been reluctant to switch to Teams due to the lack of this feature.

Microsoft Teams and users of the consumer version of Skype will be able to message and call each other by the end of next month. ZDNet reports that federation capability between the services will complete its rollout by the end of April 2020. The interoperability will work both ways, allowing people on both services to communicate with each other.

Being able to message and call people between the two services might be enough to push more people towards Microsoft Teams. Some organizations are understandably hesitant to switch to a service that limits the number of people users can communicate with.

While the capability to message and call between Microsoft Teams and Skype will be available, it will be disabled by default. Admins will have to go to the Microsoft 365 admin center and enable the feature within the external access settings area.

In 2017, Microsoft announced that Microsoft Teams would replace Skye for Business online. Skype for Business Online will be retired on July 31, 2021, so Microsoft will want to migrate all requested features over before that date.