Evolution - Lync 2013

Lync 2010 was the first credible attempt at a Unified Communications platform by Microsoft. Although OCS has been with us for many years it never managed to elevate itself above a corporate version of MSN messenger for most.

Six years ago Microsoft looked at the PBX and saw an isolated system with it's own directories and infrastructure, it was unable to take advantage of existing user groups and policies for the desktops and mobile computers already in use. As Smart phones became popular corporate tools it gave three separate ecosystems for an organisation to support just to use the most common forms of communication. Realising a chance to capitalise Microsoft have built Lync as a complete unified communication platform providing the functions of an enterprise wide IP-PBX with the best features of OCS and including mobile phone devices with desktop and mobile PC platforms as end-points.
Aside from providing common features seen in PBX's such as auto-attendants, hunt groups, IVR's, call parking, extension dialling and voice mailboxes, it integrates with Exchange to provide unified messaging: Voice mail to e-mail transcription and all the benefits of the Microsoft Exchange infrastructure. Being a Microsoft application it makes use of Active Directory negating the need to manage a separate directory. But it's trump card which no other system can claim to match is the way its Presence elements permeate into Office applications; open Outlook, read an e-mail from a few days earlier, decide you need clarification on a few key points, and you can see instantly whether the sender or indeed any of the other recipients are online with their Lync clients. Choose one that's available and you've got all forms of synchronous electronic communication just a click away.

There's no question that Lync can and is replacing PBX driven systems around the world and goes beyond anything they can offer despite the occasional cry to the contrary from telecoms engineers allied to other vendors that specialise only in VoIP systems. It's hardly surprising, a software giant is positioning to take their market away from them.

Interestingly, in my experience of board room meetings discussing Lync with business executives there's strong initial resistance to the idea of replacing a tried and tested system, largely unchanged for decades, which has never let them down and always existed as a separate entity, with a piece of software. And the idea of not needing that plastic box we call a telephone on our desks anymore just seems too strange for many.
Migrating from a traditional IP-PBX system to Lync is a huge leap for both end users and IT support personnel, it's pushing a complete new line of technology and services into their already complex ecosystem.

Although the real benefits of Lync are only seen when using its full potential especially Enterprise Voice, as shown in the Forrester report,  many organisations are opting to retain their existing IP-PBX's to handle EV and adopt Lync for it's messaging and Presence facilities in the short term at least.

Microsoft have played a master stroke with Lync and the upcoming new release, 2013, only builds on what is already a great UC platform. Some of the most awaited new features are:

• H.264 replacing the proprietary RTV codec. This is a clever move to standardise HD video streams.
• Persistent chat replacing group chat. Create chat rooms, hold on-going discussions with co-workers. Create topic feeds. And no separate client needed.
• Lync Web App. Now a full featured browser based client allowing those without Lync client to enjoy the full conferencing experience.
• Skype Integration. Lync federates with Skype users to provide, IM, voice, video and presence.
• Lync Online: Create hybrid deployments with a mix of on-premises and Lync Online servers. Microsoft calls this "hybrid voice". 
• High Availability with each front-end server storing a complete copy of all the databases in the SQL back-end, if the back-end SQL database server is unavailable, the front-end will still function. Also, Lync 2013 supports SQL mirroring on the back-end databases reducing hardware costs associated with clustering SQL.
• Co-location of AV conferencing and Archiving/Monitoring roles on the Front end servers and the Director role is optional (was it not before?)
• VDI plugin which allows full Audio Video support for virtual desktops.
• New Lync Mobile clients releasing first for Windows Phone, then Fruit and finally Android supporting the full voice experience.

So is Lync a replacement for the PBX? Maybe we should be asking if a PBX could be a replacement for Lync.