That’s a hell of a mouthful I hear you scream.
But it does, for me sum up fact that Unified Communications means different things to different people, and more often than not, reflected in what the vendor has in the “bag” to sell you.
I guess I am therefore no different, as I have chosen to partner with Microsoft with their Lync solution – why?
Well it’s a simple as this – It is by far the best USER EXPERIENCE of anything I’ve seen in the market today, and it is actually a UNIFIED COMMUNICATIONS solution. So it brings together all the modalities of mainstream communications today: Instant Messaging – available on pretty much any device anywhere; Email – most of us start our day in OUTLOOK, and Lync embeds here beautifully, so you can simply interact with the sender of an email in any of the available modalities; Conferencing – a simple IM, can move to a “chat by “dragging” other contacts into the chat window, and then a mouse click (or screen press) to escalate to an audio conference, followed by another click/press to add video (with an impressive multi-party gallery view in 2013); PBX replacement – Lync allows you to take your extension anywhere and on any device, so enterprise staff are completely mobile and no desktop audio device beyond the PC/Laptop/tablet/mobile is necessary (save perhaps for a headset). So come snow, rain, hail or train strikes, I can log in and be at work (even if it means walking to the coffee shop first)
But words simply don’t do this solution justice – I suggest you try it for yourself – it is easy enough to do and I’d be happy to show you mine (excuse the innuendo)
Beyond the user experience, there are a many significant reasons why Lync makes sense
But what do I know…..
Graham Bunting -The Catalyst 