M$ still can't make up their mind. They killed messaging everywhere for this?
Yeah. Like everyone else except FB, their messaging strategy has been all over the floor. Google is no better, with just as many failed / deprecated / cancelled messaging offerings, starts, and stops.
Since the acquisition, Skype was left alone to do its own thing for years and years. Corporates eager for more modern Messaging were keen to see what bringing Skype into Lync and onto Azure would do, but mgt attention was elsewhere, and not much changed. We're still waiting.
Anyone who follows this closely knows that Msft is acutely aware of its Messaging failings. All along Skype was left pretty much to itself, perhaps for too long, and now things have gotten stale.
Now, finally, attention is being given to sorting out the Messaging mess. Some months ago saw the first major reorg in Skype's top mgt since it was acquired, followed by important realignments in the dev teams. In July Msft quietly revealed that almost the whole consumer side of Skype had already been moved to Azure, and then it released Skype for Linux and Chromebook. And just last week Msft announced it's shedding 200+ people in London, mostly Skype employees.
So huge internal changes are finally beginning to be seen from the outside.
This little snippet about SMS Relay in Skype is just one little part of preparing the groundwork for a major revamp that's been in the works for a while. They've already said Group and Team Messaging is coming, a la Slack. And there's lots more. Yammer needs to be sorted, as does the whole social networking side and Lync ... lots to do re-engineering the engines and plumbing.
SMS Relay is not yet ready (some basic elements are in the Win 10 Insider Preview). But it's a glimpse, not a solution or even a strategy. we'll see that roll out over obvert the next year or so - very, very, late. But not too late, because everyone else's Messaging strategy is also all over the place.
So, it's early days. I'm pretty sure we'll be seeing quite a lot more about where they're going with Messaging. But it's along journey, constrained by a legacy.
