The adoption of Microsoft (News - Alert) Lync as a unified communications platform is growing exponentially, with Microsoft reporting huge growth for the platform. Many enterprises view Lync as a cost-effective strategy to incorporate unified communications into their existing IPT environment utilizing their existing Windows network architecture, along with their users’ existing desktop resources. While this strategy can yield significant ROI, it also creates additional strain on the IP network, and the system resources of every Lync user’s desktop.
With that concern in mind, Tone Software (News - Alert) recently posted a podcast where two industry leaders took a deeper dive into Lync and its benefits to the enterprise.
Participants were Gary Audin, president of Delphi (News - Alert), Inc, and Paul Wiggins, director of convergence technologies at Tone Software. The two spoke recently while at Enterprise Connect 2014 in Orlando. Audin has more than 40 years of computer, communications and security experience, having planned, designed, specified, implemented and operated data, LAN and telephone networks. Wiggins is an expert on Lync, and brought some keen insights to the discussion. The entire podcast can be downloaded HERE.
Audin opened the discussion by asking if the expansion of Lync has created problems in the management area.
Wiggins replied: “There has been a good strategy on Microsoft’s part in getting Lync throughout the enterprise; there has been almost a ‘Trojan-Horse’ like effect,” he noted. “Some 90 percent of businesses runs Windows at the desktop, and have included Lync and its capabilities as part of the office package.”
Wiggins also noted that as companies get more into unified communications, it’s cheap and easy to deploy Lync. “Seeing companies use Lync for peer-to-peer, Chat, instant messaging and more, then branching out into full conferencing, and then into the actual enterprise,” is becoming more the norm, he observed.
Audin asked if it’s becoming more difficult to measure quality and performance in these mixed environments, and Wiggins noted that it was.
“Lync has now added a tremendous amount of complexity into something that was traditionally hard wired,” Wiggins said. “User expectations are rising even as the technology gets more complex.”
The pair went on to discuss other benefits of Lync in the enterprise, concluding that it will only serve to benefit all who utilize it.
To hear the complete podcast from the beginning, click HERE.
Edited by Maurice Nagle