I don't even think it was a deprecation for a new product, just a standard version deprecation. Office Communicator became Lync and Lync became Skype for Busine

I don't even think it was a deprecation for a new product, just a standard version deprecation. Office Communicator became Lync and Lync became Skype for Business. They were successive major "versions" that came with rebranding and some changes in direction.