The past week or so has been good for Microsoft’s Lync. Today, ABI released its vendor matrix for unified communications, and the big winner is Microsoft. Senior analyst Subha Rama was effusive in her praise:
Microsoft has shown the strongest growth among UC vendors, leveraging its position as a leader in desktop applications. It has, over the years, integrated multiple solutions in its portfolio to offer a compelling software-based UC solution in Lync. Microsoft also has the widest spectrum of partners for Lync and is expanding this ecosystem rapidly. It has an equally significant play both on the premises and in the cloud.
Not only did Lync score well with ABI, but it got a boost from its pivotal involvement in Microsoft’s Office 365, a cloud-based productivity suite that launched last week. PCWorld runs through how it fits in, and concludes that it is a good match:
Lync is far from being WebEx, much less telepresence, when it comes to multimedia conferencing. But it does represent a “unified communications for the rest of us” offering for small businesses, offering a balance of consumer and enterprise features with appropriate IT oversight.
PC Magazine points out that Microsoft beefed up Lync in anticipation of the launch of Office 365. The Lync Power Pack, the story says, offers six applications: IM an Expert, Conversations Analyzer, Conversation Translator, Information Downloader, Tabbed Conversations and the Group Chat Stress Tool. The story describes each of the applications.
