Forum Discussion
Updates and change logs
Hello, Ben:
Just after you wrote this, I discussed your post with our team. I prepared an answer, but I went on vacation the next day and it never got posted. In the crush of getting caught up after my vacation, I didn't realize that this was never answered. I apologize.
Skype for Business on Mac (SfB Mac) is a new app, written from the ground up, to replace Lync for Mac 2011. Every rewrite project I‘ve ever seen suffers from the problem of spending a large (or huge) effort just to rebuild what its predecessor had, and SfB Mac is no exception. From launch, we have acknowledged that the app is missing features that customers need, and we continually work to fill in those gaps. We prioritize work almost entirely based on customer feedback to ship the most critical features soonest. We release updates monthly in order to deliver value as quickly possible. Unfortunately, the wait time can be longer for customers with on-premises servers, since many features require a server change.
While we are steadily working to close the gaps compared to Skype for Business on Windows, the reality is that SfB Mac will never have full parity with the Windows version. There are several reasons for this. The Windows app has many features that are rarely used, and most customers don’t need us to recreate them in SfB Mac. In some cases, platform limitations prevent us from implementing features. (For example, the Windows feature of taking control of a someone’s shared screen is heavily dependent on Windows remote-desktop services that aren’t there on the Mac. To recreate it would mean rearchitecting the sharing infrastructure for all of SfB.) In other cases, the architecture of the Mac app (which is different than for the Windows app) makes it prohibitively expensive to implement some features. The Mac is an important platform, and we want to create an excellent experience, but it won’t be an exact experience as on Windows.
With respect to the specific issues you list:
- Screen sharing – screen sharing is available now, but we do not plan to support remote control (because of the platform limitations explained above)
- Tabbed chat windows for those with IM archiving disabled – we have an architectural limitation that prevents this feature
- Multiple conversations with the same person – we are testing a change now to mitigate this
- Update status based on Exchange calendar states – this is in our plan for Q1 of 2018
- File sharing – this is available in one-to-one IM conversations. File sharing in meetings is in our plan for Q1 of 2018
I sympathize with your frustration. Rest assured that we do listen to your feedback. We can't take on everything at once, but customer input is the primary criteria for prioritizing our product decisions. Please continue to post and tell us what you need and what you think.
Phil Garding
Phil-
Thank you for your response. I did not see this until today so I apologize for the delay.
With respect, I do not find this to be an acceptable answer and I'm sure there are many here reading this that agree.
I don't work for Microsoft so I'm not anticipating you sharing with us internal design decisions or really responding with much more than "I'm sorry you feel that way, that's the way it is", but I'd still like to put this out there.
How is it that Lync for Mac had screen sharing / remote control but this was thought to be an unnecessary feature? I myself have a Microsoft Remote Desktop App that allows me to do the very thing that you say is too difficult to implement into a Mac application. I'm not a product owner and I'm not a project manager for your company but considering how often a feature like this is used I find it extremely difficult to believe that this was put on the chopping block- especially if you truly are listening to customer feedback.
Again- tabbed chat windows, in a prior release I had this. I had it for maybe a week? Then an update came through and it was gone. I find this extremely difficult to believe as well that this is your stance on the topic. I'm shocked that it's acceptable to say, "Well, that's the way we built it so too bad".
File sharing on release 16.11.115 one-to-one has not worked for me at all. Maybe I've done something wrong but it fails each time I've attempted it or one of my peers has attempted to send something to me.
I find myself sitting here in a haze of confusion each time I read your response. Why in the world did you build a new app to replace Lync for Mac at all? The only "new" feature I can see being helpful is calling and our company doesn't utilize that feature yet so I don't see this as a win at all. It's not progress if you're taking away heavily used features and it's not finished if we're missing them.
I understand you can't take on everything at once. That would be a ludicrous expectation. But I would hope it wouldn't be released without stripping away functionality from the prior application.
-Ben Morelli
Hello, Ben:
I appreciate your response. Some decisions have been very difficult, and we don't make them lightly. The tradeoff is often multiple man-months of effort to implement a feature versus ongoing bug fixes and other features.
With respect to take-control of screen sharing (meaning sending mouse and keyboard events across the wire to a remote computer), we have never supported this in any Lync or Skype for Business product on Mac. Lync 2011 and our web apps on Mac have screen sharing, but do not allow taking control of remote sharing.
For tabbed chat windows, I don't know the history of the momentary feature you describe. Perhaps there was some investigation into supporting it that got rolled back, or perhaps it was a bug. To support tabbed windows correctly requires a significant rearchitecting of the product in order to be able to retrieve past messages to create the history.
I would like to understand your failures with peer-to-peer file sharing. This sounds like we have a bug that needs to be fixed. Are you using the insider build? If so, please submit a bug so we can investigate the logs around the failure. To do that, recreate the problem and then click Help\Report an Issue and fill out the ticket. It may be helpful if whoever you tried to send to/from could do the same, so we can see the logs on both sides of the transfer.
Thanks,
Phil.
Hey Phil,
I hope you do not mind me chiming in here as well. First of all, thank you for taking the time with a more detailed response.
1. Tabbed window - as you mention SfB for Mac was a complete rewrite. Then how come this particular item just was not thought off? Why would anyone think that this is something Mac users would not want, when at the same time Apple has been implementing more features in the OS for tabs. It is available when there is a setting on the server to allow for archiving enabled. Now I can understand that with this disabled, any IM not received in SfB can thus not be shown. But really, why can you not just show the different windows into 1 window with tabs instead? What does that then even have to do with history? This is pure UI right now. And UI which you have already implemented. Right now I IM with multiple people, each IM is in it’s own window. Put it as tabs instead and we would be a lot happier!
2- Glad to hear you’re implementing something to reduce the issue to have multiple conversations with the same person, across multiple chats? Personally. Conversation is coming from person X; I already have a window (preferably tab though) open with person X. Put the IM in there. So many other IM programs seem to be able to do this, weird that MS is having so many issues on this one. And again, with implementing this it would thus end up making it easier for point 1 as well right?
3- Control. Understand what you mean here with limitation. Yet, as the world keeps on moving more to smartphones, tablets, and what else. At some point not having it Windows centric will I think become more critical. Now I am not sure if you mean it means changes to everything SfB (Windows, servers, Mac) or just Mac. If it is Mac, then I would say here as well that this should have been taking into account when rewriting the app for the Mac in the 1st place. If everything else, I can understand this would be quite the undertaking. But maybe one best to be taken sooner rather then later? For the overall SfB platform itself then?
Thank you.
