Microsoft's Lync: Unified Communications Made Easy

Lync is an office communicator through which colleagues can communicate using instant messages, video conferences and phone calls. Microsoft states that about 70% of fortune 500 companies currently use Lync, which include companies like Sprint,Shell and Dell. The next version of Lync is part of the Microsoft Office 2013 suite. The biggest selling point of Lync is that it can integrate seamlessly with Outlook and other Office tools like Microsoft Word to deliver a integrated collaborative platform. We held an interaction with Microsoft's Sukhvinder Ahuja, Director of Unified Communications, to find out more about how the product would help SMEs. Ahuja had these major points to make:

How will Lync benefit SMEs

in particular?

No internal infrastructure is needed to use Microsoft Lync, so SMEs can afford it. Since it is completely cloud-based, all the back-end data storage and transmission is done through the Office 365 Cloud. There is a tiered structure to Lync Services. You can subscribe to core services, and pay for value-added services if you want. Lync Online plans start from just $2 per user/month. Integration with other Microsoft enterprise apps like Outlook and Word simplify collaboration with others. For example, if you get an urgent mail from a colleague, Lync integration allows you to check your colleague's presence and message them immediately.

Why choose Lync over Skype?

Skype offers free services for customers but Lync offers enterprise-level services. Lync can integrate with Office productivity tools but Skype cannot. Lync has Telephony integration using internal infrastructure but Skype does not provide Telephony integration for corporate use. Lync is interoperable with Skype, so you could have a set of users on Lync and another set on Skype. Additional layers of security over Skype.

Lync Me In!

Ahuja made a convincing case for the adoption of

Lync, highlighting the USP of Lync as its ability to integrate with other Microsoft enterprise products seamlessly. Next week, we shall bring you an overview of the latest features added to the new version, Lync 2013. Keep reading!