Microsoft Lync 2010 Launches in New York City Today

Microsoft Lync - The Next Generation of Communications ServerMicrosoft Lync 2010 now delivers on our vision to transform communications by connecting people in new ways. Lync integrates enterprise voice, instant messaging and web, audio and video conferencing into a connected single communications experience.

Today our partner network, which includes companies like Polycom, HP and Logitech, is announcing 70 new devices optimized for Lync.  And with Lync’s commitment to open standards and extensive interoperability across a wide variety of platforms we expect Lync-based solutions will be developed across a wide spectrum of PCs, browsers and mobile devices in 2011 and beyond. Additionally, more than 400 partners are involved in readiness activities to help customers plan, deploy, manage, and support Lync 2010 ISVs

Independent software vendors provide traditional functions in unified communications, such as contact centers, call recording, and accounting, and an entirely new class of solutions that integrate communications deeply within business applications and processes. Some of our partners include - Blue Position; Clarity; Clearway NMS; Computer Talk; Convergent; Enabling Technologies; Evangelyze.net; FaceTime; Formicary; Geomant; ISI-Info; MetalForming; MindCTI; OSIsoft; Post CTI / Live-PA; PrairieFyre; ProtonMedia; Telerik; Telrex; Twisted Pair; UnifySquare; Wortell.

Lync Online will be available in 2011 with the general availability of Office 365. Lync Online is for customers who want to move to the cloud to take advantage of Microsoft’s broader Office365 service, and we expect online voice capabilities will be available in 2011.

You can download trial versions of both Lync 2010 and Lync Server 2010 from   Download Microsoft® Lync™ Server 2010 Release Candidate.

For More Information

Home Page: Microsoft Lync Server – Unified Communications Platform
Announcement: Introducing Microsoft Lync, the next OCS!
Developer Center: Office Communications Developer Center
More about Lync: View Tech Ed presentations online. Just search for “Communications Server.”

About Lync

Microsoft Lync is the fifth major release of our product that combines presence, instant messaging, conferencing, and voice in a single system. One system for customers to purchase, manage, and secure, instead of separate systems for presence, IM, conferencing, and voice/telephony. As a result, the investments of Microsoft and our customers in scalability, security, and high availability apply to all the ways people communicate, not just voice. Lync customers can take advantage of redundancy within a data center to survive server failures, failover scenarios across data centers to survive data center disasters, and appliances for branch offices that provide telephony and instant messaging in the case of WAN outages.