Forum Discussion
MSI Installation?
They are just not willing to use the C2R version of anything at this point - as part of rolling out Skype for Business Online, they will be licensed for Skype for Business, but they will either have Office 2010, 2013, or 2016 MSI installed on their desktops. I'm thinking they could either A. enable Skype for Business in those installations, or B. rollout the Skype for Business 2016 Basic client to everyone via MSI install in SCCM. I agree using C2R would be simpler, and have already provided guidance on how to do that.
Your problem is that Office 365 only supports the Office 2016 now, so Skype for Business 2016. Others may work but support for them stopped a year after 2016 shipped. B. Would be fine, but Skype Basic is well, basic.
Why not jump ahead straight to Teams, they'll need to end up there at some point. There are some feature gaps that are being plugged, but the basics around meeting and calling are all in place.
But I guess regardless, what I'm interested in finding out is MS recommendation for the scenario that we already have 2013/2016 Office MSI rolled out, are adding SfBOnline, and want to roll out the best client that isn't C2R; I haven't really been able to find an exact right answer about that scenario.
Office 365 System Requirments are here :-
https://products.office.com/en-gb/office-system-requirements
The service supports versions of Office that are in mainstream support, that currently means :-
Office Pro Plus as long as it's not more than 12months old, which means Office 2016.
Office 2016 Professional until 13/10/2020
Office 2013 Professional Service Pack 1 until 10/4/2018
Other versions may work with diminishing functionality over time.
If you are licensed for Skype for Business CLIENT through your Office 2013/16 Professional suite then you should install it from the suite's installer. If the rest of the suite was deployed without including Skype you'll need to run the installer again to add the Skype apps.
Skype for Business Basic doesn;t include 'advanced' feature for telephony or compliance.
But if you arent doing telephony, why arent you just deploying Teams now, it's already quite capable as a meeting platform and has far easier to license and deploy client components.
Do you have a link that Office 365 only supports Office 2016? And as for SfB Basic, the only limitations that I've been able to find are around enterprise voice, from here: https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dn933896.aspx
We're only doing IM/P and conferencing, so that shouldn't affect them.