Skype For Business Now Available For iOS, Android
- by Ben Frederick @mp_benfred, May 20, 2016
Microsoft opened up Skype for businesses with a new SDK this week, allowing app developers to incorporate the application’s video, audio and messaging functions into their apps.
According to a blog post from James Skay, senior product marketing manager for the Skype for Business team, the initial focus of the SDK Preview is to power “remote advisor”
solutions that enable consumer mobile and tablet applications to communicate with Skype for business organizations. Businesses can leverage the power of their existing Skype for business server and
Skype for business online infrastructure.
Microsoft demoed a version of this capability at their Build 2016 conference earlier this year, with health app MDLIVE enabling doctors and patients to share paperwork and test results, set up appointments, and video chat remotely.
“Skype for Business will provide MDLIVE with a much more scalable architecture, so we can accommodate even higher volumes of video consults daily,” stated Randy Parker, founder and CEO of MDLIVE. “The adoption of Skype for Business also enables us to deliver a significantly improved user experience for both patients and physicians.”
It makes sense that Microsoft is moving Skype for business, a primarily desktop application, over to mobile. Users are taking a mobile-first approach to the medium, and developers are aware that customer service will be a big differentiator between mobile services in the near future.
The new SDK comes at no additional cost to Skype for business server or Skype for business online users. The SDK is available for both iOS and Android developers.
