Microsoft Business Voice 365

When it comes to Microsoft and their voice offerings, it is starting to again get confusing.

First we had Lync. Then Skype for Business. Along came Teams, and now we have Business Voice 365, but only in the UK and Canada for now. All this appears to be a move to take more money out of the market by integrating calling that previously was the domain of the service providers who did lots of work integrating Microsoft Office 365, like Dialpad, 8×8 and countless other ITSPs have done and promoted heavily.

Now, in typical Microsoft fashion, they are eating up their so called "partners" and offering the same type of service, with the same type of functionality and features as those who have "partnered" with them. What Microsoft has done is essentially bundled in calling functionality into Teams, making it an all in one "paid" add on to the "free" services from Teams. The roll out in Canada and the UK likely foreshadows a US introduction next year.

This is something to keep an eye on…..as it is more of a threat than Google Voice's paid service which has not really caused much of a stir in the market, nor is it even included with the G Suite services offering.