The SIP Invite - Lync Archives

Microsoft Lync Sessions at Enterprise Connect

2013-03-13T20:28:19Z

We’ve got a lot to look forward to at the upcoming Enterprise Connect – surely Microsoft Lync will be a big focus of attention at this ever-growing meeting of communications professionals. A few events we’ve been coordinating with Microsoft, Verizon, Plantronics and ScanSource Communications during the event:

Join Verizon, AudioCodes and ScanSource Communications for a lunch buffet session titled “SIP Trunking and UC – Better together?”. Enjoy lunch and engage in a discussion about Lync in managed service deployments with SIP Trunking. Lunch is Tuesday, March 19th from 11:30 AM – 1:00 PM.
Enjoy a drink and hors d’oeuvres after a long day on Tuesday at the “One Voice for Lync Launch Party” – hosted by AudioCodes – it starts at 6:30 PM and will give you an opportunity to network with other Lync users, partners and industry leaders in Unified Communications.
On Wednesday morning, join Marty Parker from UC Strategies and Joseph Donald from Microsoft for a breakfast session titled “Lync 2013 – Where can it take you now?”. In addition to a fabulous breakfast buffet, we’ll be discussing the future of Unified Communications with Microsoft Lync, deployment strategies and successes. Breakfast is Wednesday, March 20th from 7:30 AM – 9:00 AM

All three sessions are being held in St. Georges 108 (in the atrium of the Gaylord Palms)

Pre-registration is requested – Register Me!

Lync Conference 2013 - A Look Back

2013-03-07T13:57:56Z

Now that the first-ever Lync Conference is behind us, some reflective thoughts and observations:

Far exceeding the organizer’s expectations, the Lync Conference sold out weeks before the event with over 1,000 paid attendees. (Based on the badge swapping in the hotel foyer, there must have been another 300 people “around the fringes”.) The event was an interesting mix of roughly 1/3 end-customers, another 1/3 resellers/partners and 1/3 vendors, analysts and press - all mixed into hours of great sessions, keynotes and exposition space. What does this mean? Lync has arrived and it is HOT.

We at AudioCodes used the event to kick-off our One Voice for Microsoft Lync branding campaign, featuring a new informational video that was hard to miss on our giant video screen. Feedback from the analysts and customers was very positive – the value of one source for the network elements, services and support is clear.

The AudioCodes 420HD, 430HD and 440HD IP phones were quite the hit with the attendees. Most notably was a “phone premonition” by the popular blogger Matt Landis foreseeing the arrival our 440HD phone. (I’m personally pitching to our executives that we informally call our 440HD “the Landis Phone” going forward.)

My session titled “Avoiding the Pilot Trap” was a hit at the show. Featuring an end-customer presentation from Jeff Bryngelson, Network Manager at American Axle & Manufacturing and a partner perspective from Benjamin Tosado, Principle at Conquest Technology Services, the session discussed some of the challenges that IT Managers and Administrators run into when their Lync pilot projects run into troubles and some first-hand tips on how to avoid a similar fate. Even the critical consultant Sheila McGee-Smith gave us a “best session of the conference” twitter nod for including real customers to share their stories. You can view a recording of the session on YouTube.

AudioCodes, Plantronics, Intelepeer and ScanSource Communications collaborated to organize the first ever “Voice LyncUP”, a social event that cruised the San Diego harbor on Tuesday evening. The event brought together close to 300 end-customer, partners and sponsors out on a cool and windy evening for an opportunity to socialize and share their Lync experiences. We’re looking forward to a bigger and better event next year with more sponsors and attendees.

And most importantly, the event gave us an opportunity to meet, collaborate and listen to a number of our current and prospective customers. Having real eye-to-eye discussions about the needs and wants for business adoption of Lync is impossible to put into words. We left with a new appreciation of what has been accomplished and what is to come from some of the early adopters and highly innovative community that makes up the Lync ecosystem.

One final thought – for those of us that attended this first-ever Lync Conference event, I suspect there will be a day in the future when we say “I was there when….” Looking forward to next year.

You can reach Alan at: alan.percy@audiocodes.com

Voice Enabling the Cloud with Microsoft Lync 2013

2012-12-05T16:03:11Z

By Alan D. Percy, Senior Director of Marketing NA, AudioCodes

Many resellers have seen success with Voice-enabled Microsoft Lync 2010, selling equipment and services into the mid-market and enterprises where businesses tend to have their own data centers or private cloud infrastructure. Meanwhile, deploying voice-enabled Lync to the small business market (under 250 seats) has been difficult, requiring dedicated server pool infrastructure for each business, resulting in high overhead costs.

During a recent AudioCodes-hosted webinar, Roy King, Business Planner at Microsoft and Larry Clarkson, CTO, AudioCodes addressed this challenge and walked us through the new hosting options available with the recently released Lync 2013.

For enterprises or mid-market, the existing Lync edition would continue to be deployed in either a customer-premise data center or a private cloud data center. A reseller partner could host Lync for a customer in a “hosted dedicated” architecture. Not much has changed here as reseller partners provide the equipment, installation, configuration and maintenance of the Lync server pool and related devices. Customization and business process integration are excellent ways for resellers to differentiate themselves and deepen their relationship with the enterprise. This is by far the most common deployment model for Lync to date.

The significant change in Lync 2013 is the new cloud-friendly version in the “Lync Hosting Pack”, enabling multi-tenant operation of Lync – ideal for servicing multiple smaller businesses that don’t want their own on-site Lync installation. As noted by Roy King during the webinar “small businesses don’t have the same requirements as enterprises, but do need customization or other features”. The Lync Hosting Pack opens up a whole new range of opportunities for resellers, allowing them to offer cloud-based voice-enabled Lync to smaller businesses, hosting it in a cloud data center of their own, or from a cloud computing provider.

As part of the cloud-based deployment architectures, AudioCodes media gateways and E-SBCs continue to play an important role in either the customer premise or the cloud data center, providing connectivity between the hosted Lync software and the public network. In addition, AudioCodes Survivable Branch Appliances continue to play an important role in providing voice quality monitoring, local trunking access and continued operation in cases where connectivity to the cloud data center is lost.

It seems that the new cloud-friendly Lync 2013 is something that resellers should take a close look at, helping refine a cloud strategy and offer.

If you’d like to learn more about Lync 2013 and the architectures supported by the Microsoft Lync Hosted Pack, you can view the recently recorded webinar “Microsoft Lync Hosting Strategy and Voice”. Access to the recording via the following link: http://bit.ly/VBVlAQ

Alan Percy is Senior Director of Strategic Marketing for North America at AudioCodes, a leading provider of Voice over IP networking products and enabling technology.

Alan.percy@audiocodes.com
+1-732-764-2506