This release of Lync is not just a minor upgrade from OCS 2007 R2. It has some great new features and functionality coming, here are some the key ones:
Lync 2010 Client
- Contact Cards – these are available in all Office and SharePoint applications as well
- Unified Contact Store – no longer do you have contacts all over place
- Activity Feeds – similar to Facebook status feeds shows list of status changes, title changes, OOF, etc.
- Fast Search – quickly find people in your organistion
- Skill Search – you can find experts on your campus for example
- Frequent Contacts – folks you communicate with the most are listed
- Conversation View – lists all the communications you have had in a single view (meetings, voice calls, IMs, etc)
New Mac 2011 client
Mac Office 2011 just Released To Manufacturing (RTM) last Friday. With that release comes a new Outlook 2011 Mac client and a new Communicator client for Mac.
New Outlook 2011 for Mac client
Showing the ability to read Exchange calendar, change presence and display calendar information in the contact card on the Mac.
Some of the Mac 2011 enhancements include:
- Contact cards and photos
- Voice capabilities – make and receive calls internal and external – works with OCS 2007 R2 enterprise voice as well
- Outlook/Exchange calendar integration – view availability of contacts
- Presence throughout the Mac Office 2011 products – including co-authoring on documents with presence awareness
Dialpad View
Voice call view on Mac 2011 client
Conferencing
- Single client – Live Meeting client is GONE!! All conferencing is provided natively in the Lync 2010 client.
- Join reliability – make it easier to join meetings from mobile phones and from meeting reminders
- PSTN conferencing features – will have DTMF controls, audio announcements, meeting lobby
- Rich conferencing experience – record meetings directly into WMV format, work on content in background during presentations
- Panoramic HD video – support for HD conferencing now, panoramic HD support as well
- Desktop & Application sharing – lightweight desktop sharing for faster rendering times – no more 2 second delays, etc.
- Reach client called Lync 2010 Attendee client – this is a Silverlight client for PCs (people joining from off campus), Macs and other platforms to consume meetings
- Infrastructure consolidation
- Video interop with Polycom, Radvision and Tandberg
Mac conferencing
There are plans to have Mac conferencing capabilities using a Silverlight Lync 2010 Attendee client client (web) for Mac users to start. Mac users can consume Lync meetings now. Additional conferencing functionality for Mac may be in the works post RTM. I will post more as more info comes available.
Some Mac Silverlight client conferencing features include:
- View PC PowerPoints
- View shared PC desktop
- Remotely control PC desktop
- Annotate PowerPoints, virtual laser pointer
- Create and Post Polls, Vote in Polls
- Create Whiteboard, collaborate in whiteboard
Can be combined with Mac 2011 Communicator client to include:
- Audio conferencing
- Video conferencing
Voice client improvements
•Dialpad
- Voicemail access – visual voicemail is very nice since you can play voicemails right in the client
- Private line – can setup one private line per voice enabled person
- Call delegation – can setup boss/admin and use Attendant Console for Admins/Receptionists
- Call routing – setup calls to go to another line forwarding or simulring (cell, home phone, etc)
- Call quality notification – lets you know if you are on a bad connection, echoing, speaking too loudly/softly, etc.
- Call park
- Device transfer – you can switch between multiple device real time during the call – headset, ip phone, usb phone, etc.
Voice server improvements
Survivable branch appliance – appliance used for remote locations in case of a datacenter link outage/loss the SBA will leverage a PSTN connection for backup dialtone and failback to WAN link when available again. SBAs available from NET, Ferrari, HP, Audiocodes and Dialogic.
SBA diagram showing PSTN and WAN options
HP’s SBA appliance GUI screen
•Datacenter resiliency – can failover dialtone to alternate datacenters if primary datacenter goes down
- Call admission control (CAC) – can define bandwidth policies, audio and video routes, route traffic to Internet or PSTN based on links, etc.
- Announcement service – announce folks joining/leaving meetings
- Media bypass – no longer need mediation servers in remote locations for media nor are they needed for IP-PBX interop (for R2 voice customers today this translates to a huge reduction in Lync servers needed)
- E-911 for North America – native E911 location awareness See my post here for more info.
- Response group improvements
- Analog device support – fax machines and analog phones can be reflected in call detail records, etc.
Deployment improvements
- Standard and Enterprise Editions
- Reduced # of server roles – elimination for need of dedicated mediation server and other roles
- Srver colocation enhancements
- Central Management Store – Lync config data stored in SQL now
- Planning Tool
- Topology Builder
- Migration tools
Mobility
Features potentially slated (subject to change of course):
Single number reach - both ways (from Lync to mobile and from Mobile to Lync) where your mobile number stays hidden
- Mobile voicemail avoidance – simul ring will send call to Exchange voicemail vs. mobile voicemail for example
- Photos for each of your contacts
- Join meeting – can join Lync conferences right from phone
- See attendees in a Lync conference – along with who is talking
- Control a Lync conference from mobile – mute, promote, remove, etc
Manageability
- Lync Server Control Panel – core Lync administration capabilities from web page
- PowerShell – Lync Server can be fully managed from the command line if GUI is not your cup of tea
- Role Based Access Control – granular administration delegation down the property level if needed
- Server Draining – can drain calls before shutting down server for maintenance for example
- Virtualistion Support – huge win here since now all the audio/video roles can be virtualised
- Enhanced monitoring – much better reporting and monitoring details, SCOM packs, etc.