Skype 2019 Persistent Chat News and Updates

New Update: Future of Persistent Chat beyond Skype for Business

In my previous blog post I discussed Skype Persistent Chat ("PChat") support in Skype for Business 2019.

Since the first Skype for Business 2019 Public Preview release, Microsoft have continued to harden and improve the feature set, towards GA in the coming weeks.

On the PChat front - there is good news.

I previously highlighted that a mix-mode topology with 2019 frontend pools and Skype 2015 PChat pools was fully supported. Users homed on 2019 frontends can access PChat chat rooms on 2015 pools - this means that you're free to upgrade your other Skype workloads to 2019. A 2015 frontend pool is required as the "next-hop" to the PChat pool, though since no users will be homed here, it can in theory have minimal resources.

The caveat I previously talked about was that the PChat "room management" website was not available for 2019-homed users. (The RM website was only available on 2015 frontends, and in itself has always been incompatible in cross-pool scenarios).

The latest builds have resolved this problem, however. Microsoft have listened to the vocal community that still demand PChat continuity into Server 2019. The Skype 2019 frontends now serve their own RM website, which will surface management capabilities for the local site's default PChat pool as usual. This means that 2019-homed users get exactly the same experience as 2015-homed users. 

More to come from MindLink on this over the coming months, as we look to the future roadmap of on-premise persistent team chat capabilities for Skype 2019.

Want to know more about our products? We also offer:

• MindLink Anywhere: A feature enhanced, Skype for Business Web Client for secure web access.
• MindLink Mobile: A secure and containerised Skype for Business Mobile Client, that supports Persistent Chat.
• MindLink Chatbots: Chatbots built for Skype for Business, build your own or choose from ready-made chatbots.