Lync 2010

I found a few old threads regarding Lync 2010 but nothing in-depth. Has anyone been using it for a while? We are shopping for a web/video conferencing solution as well as a new phone system. Given we are a Windows shop, everything I've seen so far from Microsoft and Polycom seem like a great fit for our environment. Hopefully someone here has some feedback.

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Essendon

Claymoore's your man on this one. royal too, but he only drops by on and off.

it_consultant

cyberguypr wrote: »

I found a few old threads regarding Lync 2010 but nothing in-depth. Has anyone been using it for a while? We are shopping for a web/video conferencing solution as well as a new phone system. Given we are a Windows shop, everything I've seen so far from Microsoft and Polycom seem like a great fit for our environment. Hopefully someone here has some feedback.

I asked this question a while ago on this forum and got no response. I am still recommending it as a solution for that client since they are a non-profit, making the software next to free.

Everyone

We had an old MS Live server when I started here, only about 50 licenses. They didn't want to spend the money to upgrade to OCS and roll out to the rest of the more than 3000 users we have, so I had to find a free/opensource alternative. Ended up setting up an OpenFire server. That took care of the chat side of things... They used Dim-Dim for a little bit to do the conferencing stuff, now going to OpenMeeting.

I tired to get them to add Lync 2010 to our EA, knowing it wouldn't get approved.

I really want to set one up, I guess I'll have to do one in a lab with a trial copy. $:\$ I can't even get them to add Enterprise CALs to our Exchange 2010 so I can replace our old Aastra UCP voicemail system that is still running on an old Windows 2000 server with Exchange's Unified Messaging system.

Sorry, enough ranting, I just really want work with the complete Unified Communications suite.

Mishra

We are still piloting Lync. It's been interesting so far.

it_consultant

Mishra wrote: »

We are still piloting Lync. It's been interesting so far.

How so?

cyberguypr

Mishra wrote: »

We are still piloting Lync. It's been interesting so far.

Say more! Don't make us force information out of you.

cyberguypr

Everyone wrote: »

We had an old MS Live server when I started here, only about 50 licenses. They didn't want to spend the money to upgrade to OCS and roll out to the rest of the more than 3000 users we have, so I had to find a free/opensource alternative. Ended up setting up an OpenFire server. That took care of the chat side of things... They used Dim-Dim for a little bit to do the conferencing stuff, now going to OpenMeeting.

I tired to get them to add Lync 2010 to our EA, knowing it wouldn't get approved. I really want to set one up, I guess I'll have to do one in a lab with a trial copy. $:\$ I can't even get them to add Enterprise CALs to our Exchange 2010 so I can replace our old Aastra UCP voicemail system that is still running on an old Windows 2000 server with Exchange's Unified Messaging system.

Sorry, enough ranting, I just really want work with the complete Unified Communications suite.

Did we work at the same place? Those cheapos at my old job went exactly with Openfire and DimDim to save money. My new job has an initiative to deploy a full blown UC solution including a new phone system, video conference and web collaboration. Everything I've seen from Lync look promising. I just want to hear from someone actually using it.

bobausmus

We have been testing Lync 2010 for about 6 months and have had great success. One gotcha is a Ent CA in your environment. Conferencing will not work without a CA.

Video conferencing is a huge bonus for us. The video swaps to the person that is talking at the time but is on a delay of 1 second or so (to stop the video for moving for just a quick little "yes" or "no" answer).

Dragging and dropping of files into chat is also a bonus. No more; wait, let me email that to you, oh it's in your junk email or spam folder. No you can be chatting with someone and drop and drag that file across.

Screensharing works great and is a huge time saver.

Downside include learning curve. It is a big one. Voice calls are not like traditional IP-PBX systems. You have to learn it the Microsoft way. One big hurdle is that Lync only (ONLY) uses TCP based SIP trunks. Problem with that is there are only a handful of providers that give TCP SIP trunks. Most are UDP. I found that Intelepeer works great and even helped me set it up.

That's my 3 cents (a little more than 2 cents).

it_consultant

This is exactly the feedback I need. Thank you.

Mishra

Thanks Bob.

cyberguypr

Many thanks for the update.

Mishra

The two things I wish it had are:

-Ability to send a message to multiple people without the impromptu meeting that it starts.

-Be able to paste in screen shots/pictures and send easily (this is my #1 desire)

Other than that, it has been pretty handy.

shodown

it really depends on your needs and environment. If you need fancy call routing or you take a lot of inbound callers your best best would be to look into Avaya, Cisco, Shortel,

But you said you are looking just into conferencing and collaboration I would say lync is a good bet. Don't fall for the M$ hype of VOIP being another application running on top of your network and you don't need hardphones. They have a good system in Lync and I will be setting up quite a few in the future to replace meeting place express. However I don't think they are ready to do battle with the Avaya's/Cisco's or even the shoretel's of the world.

One last thing M$ technology relies heavily on SIP which is the future, but its not now, so you will need hardware that is capable of doing all the of the conferencing functions of external users calling in and people calling in from remote locations which means more servers, gateways. Just something to keep in mind as one of our customers has lynch and didn't think things through we had to sale them Cisco routers to handle a lot of the features M$ forgot to tell them about.