The shear growth in adoption of Microsoft’s Communications Server platform over time has driven multiple partners to provide a varying array of solutions from value-add devices to complete endpoints to core infrastructure.Īlso understand that any references to H.264 Scalable Video Coding ( SVC) in this article infers Microsoft’s specific implementation of the codec, advertised as X-H264UC, which is not directly compatible with H.264 SVC that some standards-based video systems support today. It is the delivery mechanisms which can be quite different in design and application to where neither can be equated with being from the same food group, much less even both be considered foods. The popular fruit-based idiom just does not ring true in this scenario even if though both sides are trying to share the same sources of data: a person’s face, their voice, a spreadsheet, or presentation deck.

signaling, audio, video, content) and the large gap in design methodology between each. Much of that complexity has to do with the wide array of communication paths (e.g. There have always been a fair share of challenges in providing a bridge between the Microsoft UC platform world and the massive in-place deployment of the world’s standards-based conferencing solutions. Hence the very real and common need for finding a way to protect and leverage any investment in existing systems, while possibly even shifting future expenditures toward a completely Skype-centric view.

Also this only addresses a company’s own systems and limits their ability to host conferences with partners and customers who may be using different solutions. Clearly cost, scale, and time are controlling factors in the ability to even attempt this approach which can look much simpler on paper. Either by reducing the need for interoperability by shifting new purchases toward these native systems, or by figuratively ‘biting the bullet’ and just replacing everything with an LRS solution. This alternative approach is what the Lync Room System product line is intended to address. One additional approach is simply forego interoperability by replacing any incompatible system with new, supported solutions. Whatever the discussion, it always boils down to figuring out a way to get something old to work with something new or making things foreign to each other find a way to interact successfully. Depending on the source this could be referring to traditional standards-based conference room solutions communicating with foreign systems, or this could be more of a story about tying together with enterprise and consumer grade applications. Backgroundīefore getting into the new information it would be prudent to start with some baseline understanding of what the generalized term of ‘video interoperability’ actually means. As made evident by the unexpected popularity of an earlier article on this same topic for Lync 2013, there is a growing need to understand this space which has actually become more complicated over time, due to the increasing number of applicable solutions and methods coming into the market since then, provided by multiple Microsoft partners and even Microsoft themselves. This article will attempt to do the same regarding one of the advertised capabilities coming to the Lync replacement in Skype for Business: Video Interoperability. In a previous article this rebranding of Lync to Skype for Business (SfB) was analyzed and explained in an effort to clarify some of the confusion immediately seen after that announcement. With the recently launched Office 365 Summit events Microsoft has started sharing technical details on the various new capabilities which are on the horizon with the future release of Skype for Business Server.

Test microphone skype for business