This left the door open to the huge ecosystem of partners to fill the void.

There are previews of Office 2016 (for Windows) and Exchange 2016.

Early on when I first heard of this change I had my concerns and even doubts.

It had the potential to change the way people thought of the product.

It went from a (little known) well respected name of a business focused communications product to a (lovehate) consumer product with the words for Business tacked on the end.

The biggest concern for the IT executives I spoke to was the perception of the name for their bosses.

That the product they have been pushing to get approved is now called Skype.

I once described it as a gourmet burger restaurant with a made up name changing its name to McDonalds for C ulinarians.

People also know that, since it is a new version of the product that it also comes with many enhancements.

What I find interesting about the Gartner Magic Quadrant reports is that the results have a lot to do timing.

The top spot is given to the vendor with more to offer at the time of writing, not at the time you will most likely be reading it.

In 2012, Cisco narrowly claimed the top spot from Microsoft largely because they were comparing the Cisco offering with Lync 2010.

The Cisco solution was tried and trusted, but Microsoft was hot on their heels.

Cisco had theirs out in time for the writing of the document.

So I think the comparison was between the latest Cisco and Lync 2010.

Finally they were comparing Cisco and Microsoft at the time of writing and reading.

This is clearly a comparison between what Skype for Business can do as part of a complete solution to what Cisco do with Webex as a point solution.

As part of a complete solution it is the very definition of Unified Communications.

If you are confused, just contact me and Ill do my best to explain what I knowcan.

The third is saying that those that deploy it using in-house resources rather than using specialist experts end up with a solution requiring multiple vendors (needing different partners for telephones, gateways, SBAs, remote support and network monitoring).

Actually, this is the same whether deploying in-house or by using an expert partner.

The fact that Microsoft dont make phones, gateways, SBAs etc is obviously a different to Cisco who have a complete package of products.

Gartner Patch Management Magic Quadrant