From next year, Microsoft’s enterprise collaboration tool Lync will be rebranded Skype for Business.

Aside from getting a new name, Skype for Business will also come with an updated client experience and a few feature enhancements.

Most noticeably, Skype for Business will look and feel like Skype. It will adopt the familiar Skype icons for calling, adding video and ending a call, and it will also get additional Skype features such as video calling and the user directory, making it possible to call any Skype user on any device.

Skype for Business will retain Lync’s basic feature set such as content sharing and telephony – with a few improvements. For example, with Skype for Business it will only take one click instead of three to transfer a call.

It’s worth noting that while Skype for Business will have many similarities to Skype, they will run as separate applications. This means that users of Skype and Skype for Business will have two different usernames and accounts.

According to Gurdeep Pall, corporate vice president of Skype, the aim of the rebrand is to “bring together the familiar experience and user love of Skype with the enterprise security, compliance, and control from Lync.”

Office 365 customers will be automatically upgraded to Skype for Business in the first half of next year. Current Lync Server customers will simply have to update from Lync Server 2013 to the new Skype for Business Server in their data centres.

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