Lync: For, Against or With

By Kevin Kieller April 23, 2014 2 Comments

There is no question that Lync adoption by organizations as a voice solution is growing. Peter Hale of MZA reported at Enterprise Connect 2014 that Lync now ranks third among IP PBX vendors in North America in organizations with more than 100 extensions. Jerry Caron, SVP of Analysis at Current Analysis and Peter’s co-presenter summarized Lync’s growth as follows “Microsoft has gone from nothing to third in two to three years. It’s become a very significant player in a very short period of time.”

The growth of Lync means that channel partners, especially in North America, need to decide whether they are “for” Lync, “against” Lync or plan to sell more traditional IP PBXs along with Lync.

During my UC Summit session on Sunday, April 27, at 2 p.m., I plan to discuss in detail the opportunities and obstacles with each of these positions. In the meantime I offer up the following quick summary:

For Lync ... (selling Lync as an organizations primary voice and UC solution)

Opportunities	Obstacles
Large mindshare, growing adoption	Ease of deploying Lync for IM may cause organizations to underestimate complexity of voice
Strong ROI if displacing hosted audio conferencing	Some IT led Lync project teams have insufficient voice expertise and experience
Users typically adopt Lync desktop client organically; federation between companies is very strong driver	Requires integration with many other Microsoft infrastructure elements (AD, Exchange, etc.)
Ability to sell Lync IP sets, PSTN gateways and Lync Room Systems for additional revenue	Office 365 version of Lync lacks enterprise voice features
Lync provides a very strong (VPN-less) remote experience for nomadic users	May not be able to sell software licenses or enterprises may already have sufficient licenses

Against Lync … (selling another more “traditional” vendors voice and UC platform)

Opportunities	Obstacles
Lync has difficult time scaling down to organizations with fewer than 200 or so users	May need to displace (replace) existing Lync IM solution for full integrated UC experience
Cisco, Avaya and other traditional IP PBX solutions may be seen as lower risk to existing telecom group	Integration with Microsoft Outlook/Exchange and Office may not be as strong as provided by Lync
Ability to sell complete hardware and software solution may mean higher top-line revenue	Margins may be lower
Non-Lync vendors have stronger experience and track record especially in contact center	May be more difficult to integrate with line of business applications (if this is required)
Support model may be more straightforward	Licensing costs for UC components (e.g. conferencing, mobility) may be higher

With Lync … (proposing to integrate Lync into an existing or new traditional IP PBX)

Opportunities	Obstacles
Theoretically provides a “best of breed” UC experience with call control on more “traditional” platform and Lync used as desktop client	End-user experience when Lync used primarily for IM with “click to call” integration is generally found to be confusing
Can be positioned as an “add on” to what organization already has as opposed to a “rip and replace”	Supporting two disparate unsynchronized releases can be challenging as patches and version upgrades are released
More likely to receive support if the telecom team is selecting solution	Remote users will not necessarily have access to Lync voice features (click to call will ring office phone)
May be able to position integration as a “stepping stone” to final UC architecture	Limited number of deployments / case studies

To Lync or not to Lync, that is an important question!

I’m happy to start the conversation ahead of the UC Summit. Please connect with me via LinkedIn, Twitter @kkieller or comment below.

2 Responses to "Lync: For, Against or With" - Add Yours

Hugh Goldstein 4/29/2014 11:47:09 AM

Hi Kevin, interesting post, regarding this point:
"Opportunity: Ability to sell Lync IP sets, PSTN gateways and Lync Room Systems for additional revenueObstacle: Office 365 version of Lync lacks enterprise voice features"
think it could be helpful to differentiate varieties of Lync. Lync Server is positioned as full UC/PBX replacement. Yes, it is widely expected that Office 365 (or Lync Hosted Multi-tenant) at some point in 2014 or 2015 will be expanded to include DID/ Telephone identifiers. Still these may well be two distinct products and intended for different applications, and sold by different channels but sharing a brand name or two. So the absence of voice features on Office 365 for the time being is either irrelevant, or advantageous for those channels selling Lync Server, or Lync Hosted Dedicated. (Voxbone is a global SIP Trunking provider qualified for use with Lync Server and Lync Server Dedicated for example.)

Kevin Kieller 5/4/2014 8:09:10 AM

Thanks Hugh. Yes there are really three different versions of Lync as I see it.

1. Lync on-premises (which can also be hosted by a partner as a dedicated solution in their data center). This version provides all the features, most notably to and from PSTN calling, advanced call handling and the ability to integrate into existing voice and video systems.

2. Lync Online which is part of the Office 365 product. This version currently lacks PSTN calling, advance call handling (e.g. sim-ring and response groups), support for DSCP-QoS and ability to integrate with your existing on-premises equipment. This version allow for peer-to-peer voice and video including with federated partners and Skype contacts.

3. Multi-tenant hosted Lync (offered by MS partners using the Lync "hoster pack"). This can include most but not all features of on-premises deployments depending on how the partner implements it (certain features require 3rd party integration of additional software).

As always, matching an organization's specific business requirements with the right UC solution is the best path to success, for both the reseller/SI and the customer.