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Lync in the Enterprise and Thinking "Big"
February 9, 2014By Alan Percy, Senior Director of Marketing, AudioCodes
As preparations come together for the upcoming Lync Conference in Las Vegas, one pattern seems to be emerging – Lync is making strong inroads in Enterprise. Just looking at the end-customers expected at the event and the scheduled presenters, you can see a long list of household names, most of which are home to over 10,000 employees. Large enterprises have some unique challenges, requiring their network architects to “think big”.
Enterprise Scaling and SIP Trunk Consolidation
January 14, 2014
AudioCodes announces high-capacity SBC for Enterprise SIP Trunking
By Alan Percy, Senior Director of Marketing, AudioCodes
Large global enterprises have made it clear that SIP is part of their future. The challenge for them is making the migration. With complex multi-site networks, an array of telecommunications suppliers, lengthy contracts and network infrastructure, things don’t happen overnight.
School District Passes the Lync Test
November 14, 2013
Proving that preparation will get you to the head of the class
By Alan Percy, Senior Director of Marketing, AudioCodes
Earlier this summer I wrote about the importance of network readiness and preparation in advance of enterprise-wide implementations of Microsoft Lync – quoting Benjamin Franklin “By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail” Apparently the administrators at Allen Independent School District in Allen, Texas were paying attention in their American History class and heeded Ben’s advice as they began their Lync implementation.
I recently wrapped up a case study with David Spann, Executive Director of Technology for the Allen Independent School District, discussing the preparations he and the school district made prior to their implementation of Microsoft Lync. By the way, Allen ISD is no run-of-the-mill school district, with 11,800 student and teacher workstations, close to 1,000 computers in administrative offices, and over 2,000 tablets, the Allen ISD rivals many enterprises with a complex multi-site network.
Lync, Skype, Education and the Eraser
October 13, 2013
Lync and Skype enable distance learning, but how to keep your attention?
By Alan Percy, Senior Director of Marketing, AudioCodes
This week I had the opportunity to spend some time in Redmond, working with the Lync Marketing team on our 2014 plans in their new home in Building 5 on the Redmond campus. The facility is pretty impressive with gleaning new fixtures, plenty of glass and unusual “hangouts” for impromptu meetings. One thing that is hard to miss in the entrance of Building 5 is the “in your face” Skype video wall and signage.
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UC Video and Vanity
September 27, 2013
It’s not technology holding back video
By Alan Percy, Senior Director of Marketing, AudioCodes
A couple weeks ago I participated in a discussion at ITExpo West, discussing some of the aspects of “Living with Lync” – essentially a group of experienced Lync users, sharing their experiences with those that are early in their deployments. These conversations almost always start with discussing presence and exploration of etiquette on when it is appropriate to call or contact someone. Does green mean I can just call, or should I send an instant message first?
The Cloud and Lync Survivability
August 21, 2013
Migrating to the cloud requires a clear survivability strategy
By Alan Percy, Senior Director of Marketing, AudioCodes
As businesses examine their options for migrating to Unified Communications with Microsoft Lync, many are looking at cloud-based solutions as a means to reduce capital expenditures and shift to a pay-as-you-go subscription model. With Lync 2013, there are a number of hosted cloud, dedicated cloud and hybrid cloud options that move the communications solution from the end-customer premise and into the cloud.
However, moving to the cloud does put a significantly greater dependency on the wide area network (WAN), and without a survivability strategy, a simple firewall miss-configuration or network interruption can put even basic voice communications out of service.
Making Money with Lync - Part 2
August 2, 2013
A guest blog by Kevin Kieller (a member of the UCStrategies team)
In part one of this article, I discussed three ways you can make money selling Microsoft Lync solutions:
1. Hardware sales
2.
Call Recording for Lync with SmartTAP - A Deeper Look
July 17, 2013A guest blog by John Weber (TsooRaD)
Lync 2013 has the ability to record IM’s, meetings, and conferences. IM gets recorded either by the archive server or by the user in their conversation history. Meetings and Conferences require the user to initiate and then manage the subsequent recording. But it requires that the user to start the the call, then start recording, then after the call - manage the recording, and in the end, remember to do all that each and every time this action is required.
Making Money with Lync - Part 1
July 2, 2013
A guest blog by Kevin Kieller (a member of the UCStrategies team)
I had the pleasure of leading the first session at the UC Summit 2013 along with my UCStrategies colleague Jon Arnold: The Elephant in the Room: Lync. In this session, Jon set the stage by providing a high-level overview of the different “flavors” of Lync and he then highlighted several areas you need to consider when you are thinking about Lync. I then detailed how you as a consultant, value-added reseller, or systems integrator can make money either selling Lync or selling against Lync; we wanted to provide balance.
As it turned out, through a show of hands, at least 80 percent of the audience was interested in considering selling Lync. Only one audience member indicated that he had already decided not to sell Lync. While the session is now two months ago, I still get asked the question, “can you make money selling Lync?” As such, in this article, I am going to expand on the topic of how to make money with Lync.
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Is a WebRTC Lync Client in your Future?
June 29, 2013
Don’t put a WebRTC client for Lync on your Christmas List for 2013
By Alan Percy, Senior Director of Marketing, AudioCodes
I just wrapped up a three-day visit to WebRTC Conference and Expo held at Atlanta’s Cobb Galleria and organized by the effervescent WebRTC promoter, Phil Edholm and his partner Chris Vitek with the TMC team providing event operations and logistics support. A great technology event of learning and sharing by some of the early technology experts, adopters and vendors – The event included almost eight hours of demonstrations over two days – some were outstanding peeks at what is possible, while others were painful to watch as Murphy’s first law of demos invaded the stage and squirming presenters talked around technical SNAFUs.
The simplest way to explain WebRTC is that it’s a web technology that would extend the native capabilities of web-browsers to allow them to offer voice, video and data sharing without separate client or plug-in software.
