Skype for Business 2019

Skype for Business server 2019 is now available from Microsoft for public preview as of July 24th. 

It will be available for general release toward the end of the year with a hybrid mode deployment enabling the on-premise infrastructure to leverage Cloud services including;

• Cloud Voicemail (when Exchange Sever 2019 is deployed.)
• Automated process for migrations to Microsoft Teams which will ultimately become the single communication & collaboration toolset for Microsoft.
• Cloud Auto Attendant.
• Cloud Call Data Connector, no need to store and provision QoE databases on premise, this data is now uploaded to Microsoft's cloud and accessed via the Call Quality Dashboard (QCD.)

Microsoft Office 2019 will ship in the final quarter of the year and includes a new Skype for Business client to use with the server toolset.

Support lifecycle has been aligned with the rest of the 2019 products with mainstream support ending in 2023 (5 years) and extended support until 2025.
Will this be the last Skype for Business client / server application Microsoft release? Who knows, but customers that do not wish to migrate to Teams have at least another five years on the SfB platform with guaranteed supportability.