Step 2: Introducing Microsoft Lync

In step one of our eight-step approach to helping your customer get to true unified communications, we covered off the small but important step of getting voicemail linked up through Exchange Server UM, using an AudioCodes Mediant 1000 media gateway to translate from TDM to SIP.

In step two, we start to really introduce exciting new features and functionality for your customer – it’s time to introduce Microsoft Lync, Microsoft’s all-in-one corporate instant messaging, collaboration and presence system.

The key to success with a Lync implementation is to make sure it gets used. Metcalfe’s Law (the value of the network goes up exponentially as the number of nodes on the network increases) applies here, so it’s best to get as much of your customer’s organization up and running as quickly as possible. If you’re going to start with a sub-section of the organization though, go with rolling Lync out across a functional team, like sales or marketing. Once the members of that team are using the power of Lync, with integrated presence, instant messaging and collaboration, world will spread quickly through the enterprise, and users who haven’t been moved to Lync yet will be beating down IT’s doors demanding access to the new collaboration tools.

Once everyone’s up and running and starting to get to know Lync, it’s probably a good time to do some introductory training. While Lync is pretty easy to get around, you can really help make sure every user understands every feature of instant messaging and collaboration tool, and is getting as much as possible out of the Lync experience. Training doesn’t just include discovering and using all the features of Lync, there’s often some policy or etiquette training that should be done too, especially if this is the first time your customer has deployed presence and IM in any kind of official fashion.

Many of our customers have found Lync to be a tremendously powerful tool when it comes to increasing productivity, and we have as well with our own implementation at AudioCodes. With a little bit of nudging in the right direction, your customers will too!

At this point, voice is still flowing through the PBX, but you’ve got Lync up and running and integrated with Exchange. You’re starting to build a very solid foundation for your customer’s unified communications strategy.

Congratulations! That’s one more big step out of the way on the path to unified communications for your customer. Take a break and relax, because the next step’s a big one. Up next, we’ll tackle introducing voice and video over the LAN, including making sure your customer’s network is up for the bandwidth challenges that integrated video can pose.