You’ll notice that there has not been a lot published on the blog for the last few months. In part just because we’ve been very busy, but in the main because we’ve been focusing on the next release of Office Communications Server and it’s all been under NDA.
Well, today, Microsoft have made available the release candidate of the successor to Office Communications Server 2007 R2.
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-ca/evalcenter/ff808407.aspx
The big surprise is that the product is no longer Communications Server “14” or even Communications Server 2010. It’s been known for a while that the word Office was being dropped from the name (as in communications server rather than office communications server), but I didn’t expect this! The new name for Microsoft’s real time unified communications platform is:
To be more specific, the server component is Microsoft Lync Server 2010, while the client (formerly communicator) is simply Lync 2010.
At first, I wondered what the product group were doing, throwing away the Communications Server branding, however, the more I think about it the more it grows on me.
Just like Exchange has become synonymous with enterprise email, I believe that Lync will do the same for unified communications, for example, “Making a Lync call”
It’s a great move and makes talking about the product much easier, “Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2” always was a bit of a mouthful!
At Digital IP, we’ve been working with Microsoft for the last few months as part of the partner Technical Readiness Program, helping us get up to speed with the beta’s of Lync. This has included spending time with the product group in Redmond and having our staff go through “ignite” training.
I’m very excited by the new product and the opportunity it presents, both for us and for our customers to realise real world cost savings and productivity enhancements.
One thing is for sure, the next few months will be a rollercoaster ride as we complete our internal deployment, customer deployment and get ramped up for launch events.
We will be running a series of launch events in various locations before the end of the year. Stay tuned for more information and sign up when they become available to be one of the first to see Lync live in action!
In the meantime, you can read more on the Microsoft website:
http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2010/sep10/lyncpr.mspx
Other RC downloads include:
Lync Planning Tool:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=bcd64040-40c4-4714-9e68-c649785cc43a
Lync Attendee (Admin Install)
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=1772a5ad-9688-4861-8387-ec30411bf455
Lync Attendee (User Install)
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=68a3ca04-a058-4e47-98ea-9e9af7ebd6e3
Tags: Communications Server, CS "14", Lync, Lync 2010, Lync Server, OCS
