Lync 2010 and Office Communicator 2007: Which is better?

Sunday, April 8, 2012 | AKRAMUZZAMAN at 4:24 AM |

Microsoft Lync Server 2010

Is your business moving at “Digital Speed”? Should it be? When more than one employee is assigned to complete a task, are those tasks worked in series, or at the same time? How do your employees coordinate schedules? How do you make the most of free minutes in your schedule? Where is Bob? When will he be back? Do you have time to wait for him to respond to your email? Would a voice call be better than email? Would video help communicate your message? Do you need to share a document with the message? Do both of you need to edit different parts of the same document at the same time? How does your business link all of these answers together? If not, you should consider Microsoft Lync Server 2010.
Lync was one of the products launched by Microsoft in March last year and was scheduled to ship in December 2010. It is really a “version 5″ product that hatched from the lineage of NetMeeting, Live Communications Server, Office Communications Server 2007, then OCS 2007 R2, and now Lync 2010. Sovran has been deploying these technologies for over 4 years now where they were suitable, but we have been somewhat cautious about deploying all features until now. With this version, everything is simple, intuitive, and personally, I think Microsoft has gotten this one right.
So, what is Lync 2010? Lync 2010 communications software creates a virtual connection between you and the people you work with. It lets you talk, share your desktop and programs, and work together in real time, all from your computer. It’s a secure, controllable, and logged Instant Messaging platform. It is a presence solution that incorporates an internal peer to peer audio/video conferencing and on the web. It’s a desktop sharing platform. It is a document collaboration platform when also linked with Office 2010 and SharePoint 2010 (Topics for another month). It integrates with Active directory, particularly Exchange, and like Outlook can be securely accessed outside of your network without a VPN client.
In its simplest deployment, all that is required is a single server license ($695 MSRP) and user CAL licenses ($31 MSRP) to unlock standard peer to peer features. At this level, each user will access Lync through the Office Communicator 2010 client.

From this client, users can see the “presence” status of other users based on Exchange calendar, phone on/off hook status, or activity at the user keyboard, plus users can also force their status. This presence information also shows up as “gumdrops” in any Office 2010 or SharePoint 2010 screen. Simply click on a user in your list of contacts and initiate a call, video session, share you desktop, email, or schedule a meeting in Outlook if everyone you need is not immediately available.
Are you eager to see Lync2010 in action and what it can do to improve your company’s communications? Sovran has a Lync2010 deployment live and ready to experience in our Seminar room. Contact your Sovran Sales Consultant to schedule a demonstration or attend our Microsoft Lync Server 2010 Seminar on February 16th, 2011 at 9:00 am.
Here are some quick videos that offer more on Lync 2010:

Version history

There are a number of updates that have come out since the original release of the Lync client.

• Microsoft Lync 2010 - Ver 4.0.7577.0
• Microsoft Lync 2010 - Cumulative Update 1 - Ver 4.0.7577.108 (Jan 2011)
• Microsoft Lync 2010 - Cumulative Update 2 - Ver 4.0.7577.253 (Apr 2011)
• Microsoft Lync 2010 - Cumulative Update 2.1 - Ver 4.0.7577.256 (Apr 2011)
• Microsoft Lync 2010 - Cumulative Update 2.2 - Ver 4.0.7577.275 (Apr 2011)
• Microsoft Lync 2010 - Cumulative Update 2.3 - Ver 4.0.7577.280 (May 2011)
• Microsoft Lync 2010 - Cumulative Update 3 - Ver 4.0.7577.314 (Jul 2011)
• Microsoft Lync 2010 - Cumulative Update 3.1 - Ver 4.0.7577.330 (Sep 2011)
• Microsoft Lync 2010 - Cumulative Update 3.2 - Ver 4.0.7577.336 (Oct 2011)
• Microsoft Lync 2010 - Cumulative Update 4 - Ver 4.0.7577.4051 (Dec 2011)
• Microsoft Lync 2010 - Cumulative Update 4.1 - Ver 4.0.7577.4061 (Mar 2012)

Features

Basic features include instant messaging, Voice Over IP and video conferencing inside the client software. Advanced features are related to integration with other Microsoft software:

• Availability of contacts is based on Microsoft Outlook calendars stored in a Microsoft Exchange Server
• Contact lists can be retrieved from a local directory service, like Microsoft Exchange Server
• Microsoft Office can show if other people are working on the same document
• All communication between the clients is done through a Microsoft Lync Server server. This makes communications more secure, as messages do not need to leave the corporate intranet, unlike with the Internet based Windows Live Messenger. The server can be set to relay messages to other instant messaging networks, avoiding installation of extra software at the client side.
• A number of client types are available for Microsoft Lync, including mobile clients.
• Uses SIP as the basis for its client communication protocol
• Offers support for TLS and SRTP to encrypt and secure signaling and media traffic.
• Allows sharing files.

The main new features of this version are the addition of real-time multi-client Collaborative software capabilities, (which allow teams of people to see and simultaneously work on the same documents and communications session). These features are implemented as follow:

• Collaboration through Whiteboard documents, where the participants have great freedom to share text, drawing and graphical annotations.
• Collaboration through Power Point documents, where the participants can control and see presentations, as well as allow everybody to add text, drawing and graphical annotations.
• Polling lists, where Presenters can organize polls and all participants can vote and see results.
• Desktop sharing, usually by allowing participants to see and collaborate on your windows screen.
• Windows applications sharing, by allowing participants to see and collaborate on a specific application.

All collaboration sessions get automatically defined as conferences, where clients can invite more contacts. Conference initiators (usually called organizers) can either promote participants to act as presenters or demote them to act as attendees. They can also define some basic policies about what presenters and attendees are able to see and do. Deeper details of policy permissions are defined at server level.
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