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Comment by ktpsns | Hacker News Reader

I love such devices. However, similiar to smartphones they depend so much on the software, and Microsoft is not too known for interoperability. How can my Linux and Mac OS X colleagues participate and contribute in the meetings? Such tools need open platforms and communities which build them.

I'm especially concerned because Microsoft stopped the support for a native Linux Skype client.

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I can't say anything about this new system.

But I think in general Microsoft isn't that bad for cross-platform nowadays. On MacOS I have Office, Skype, Onedrive, etc. And I can access my documents on phones via mobile clients. The tools are all weaker than the Windows versions, but I think they mostly get the job done and are getting better over time.

Can't comment on pure Linux support, but would understand if it's lacking due to the smaller user-base.

For Skype for Business meetings they have a chrome plugin now. It requires you to download an MSI to install. Haven't figured out how to do that in Linux.

Note that Microsoft are in the process of deprecating Skype for Business altogether (https://www.theverge.com/2017/9/25/16360072/microsoft-teams-...) in favor of Teams (their Slack-like online tool).

Teams has voice?

Yep. And video and screen sharing. It's pretty good.

The chrome support is still a bit lacking, so Linux users are second class citizens for now. But it's improving steadily.

Microsoft definitely has been moving towards a more cross platform software suite. My biggest issue is that Skype is by far the worst video calling platform. Zoom and BlueJeans long since surpassed hangouts, and even hangouts is better than Skype. I saw another hn commenter mention that all of their skype calls begin with 10 minutes of handshaking - "can you hear me? let me restart my computer. hold on my mic isn't being recognized" - and I think 10 minutes is generously low.

Is that Skype or Skype for Business (which is just a rebranded Lync, which is just a rebranded Office Communicator)?

In any case, as the site mentions, the new Hub is exclusively for Teams, which has its own conferencing system.

Good question, and I have no idea. The conferencing system in meeting rooms was managed by a facilities team. Probably it was Skype for Business, given that?

Now we're all using Zoom and it's much smoother. /anecdote

completely anecdotal, but I just interviewed a candidate for an open position at my employer yesterday via skype. His laptop in Ohio to our conference room in California. Went off without a hitch (except my colleague couldn't figure out how to hang up -- "It's the big red icon there ... no the red one ... the red one"). Our equipment was a basic PC running Win7 and a HD web cam resting on top of a wall-mounted 70" LCD television.

I'd be greatly surprised if there's any Linux support at all. Microsoft supports macOS, iOS, and Android these days not because they care about interoperability, but because Microsoft needs users on these platforms. If Microsoft cared about interop. for the sake of anyone except Microsoft, OOXML wouldn't be crap, and their office suite wouldn't be crippling ODF files on save.

Microsoft has a much longer (and quite colourful) history of not-supporting and breaking interop.

VSCode, Teams, Skype, (Office 365 using browser) are available on all platforms including Linux.

Why do you think OOXML is crap or that Office "cripples" ODF files on save?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16784179

teams is a web app and the desktop variant is built on top of electron. you can download it for mac https://teams.microsoft.com/downloads or use teams.microsoft.com on linux.

Nadella seems to have changed from Balmer's "software on Windows" to the current "software with Windows". I know that their have been making better Android and iOS compatibility.

However, I would guess that they would still be aggressive against other desktop OSs.

Re—organizing the windows os under the cloud services division felt like it really spoke to the software with windows vision

That's my big gripe with this. I'm not a huge fan of anything from Microsoft, but these look VERY cool. However, we're a big Mac/iOS shop, so interoperability would be a concern. And, I'm afraid, non-existant.

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