The latest release of Lync mobile includes a number of new features – first, Lync Mobile now provides the ability to view uploaded PowerPoint presentations from your Windows Phone or iOS device. While Lync Mobile has previously allowed users to view shared desktops, this new functionality allows Mobile users to view PowerPoints that have been uploaded to take advantage of functionality such as Q&AS and imbedded multimedia files.
As we are working with clients on deploying Lync in their environment, there can be a number of different server roles engaged. These can include conferencing servers, monitoring servers, front end, back end, and mediation servers. One advantage of deploying Lync is that the current licensing rules allow for these additional software roles to be run without purchasing additional server licenses. One suggestion, buy the Enterprise version to give yourself the most flexibility.
Microsoft finally released the mobile client for Windows 7 Phones, Androids, iPhones/iPADs, and the Symbian devices. Finally, we can now use Lync anywhere and those of you out there that have enabled Enterprise Voice have a host of options from dialing out your PSTN connection from anywhere, to auto-joining conferences with a tap on your phone.
Clients are loving the integrated audio conferencing options of Office 365. Lync provides great client-to-client audio and video. This is excellent when your entire team is at their desks. Yet, some of the most critical times are when there is a participant on the road. Maybe it is getting your pricing team together to discuss an important client while the sales representative is at the client site. Maybe it is when the President is driving to meet your largest client and needs a last minute set of data. For these times, our clients have found tremendous benefit from integrated audio conferencing. It allows participants to join via any phone, to an 800 number, and hear the same audio being shared on the Lync connection. The best part is that the per minute costs are low, about $.06 per minute and only the participants that are joining over the traditional phone network are charged for the conference call.
Several posts ago, I did a short review of Exchange online and Lync online. During that time we discussed another soon-to-be-revealed post, reviewing the capabilities of Office365 and Unified Messaging. So, let’s get right down to it!
