Business Cases for Lync Server 2013 : Why Lync 2013 for Unified Communications

Now that we know what makes up a UC solution, and how UC can drive cost savings in an organization, let’s talk about why you should choose Lync Server 2013 for a UC solution.

1. Software-Based UC

The key to a true UC solution is software. Without intuitive, user-friendly software, a UC solution cannot be successfully deployed. When compared on paper, the UC solutions from companies such as Microsoft, Cisco, Avaya, and ShorTel have the same features. These solutions can perform the functionality that any organization needs for UC. The key difference between Microsoft and the competition is the software. If you look at the list of companies, which one is a software company and not a hardware company? Microsoft.

Hardware vendors are getting better at creating software, either through acquisition or through experience with development. However, these companies are playing catch-up with Microsoft. Since Microsoft Lync 2010, all UC functionality has been available in a single client UI. Even in the latest versions of Cisco’s UC suite, functionality is spread across multiple applications. The complexity that this introduces to end users is a major deterrent to the successful deployment of UC.

For organizations to realize the full benefits of UC, there must be a high rate of adoption. Users are less likely to take advantage of a UC solution that is not user-friendly. Microsoft is the only company that can provide a truly unified communications experience and allow organizations to reach their full potential with UC.

Cisco is typically the biggest competitor of Microsoft Lync. The basic scenario that follows outlines the differences between Microsoft and other vendors’ UC solutions, including Cisco. These differences can have a major impact on user productivity and overall user satisfaction. User satisfaction is critical to the success of UC deployments.

When you are using Microsoft Lync 2013, not only are all modalities (IM, Audio, Video, and Sharing) provided in a single application, but the conferencing experience for these modalities is in the same application. When you want to hold a conference, that conference is held in Lync. If you are in a peer-to-peer session and want to escalate to a conference, it will simply turn that call into a conference in Lync. Cisco, on the other hand, leverages two applications: Jabber for peer-to-peer functionality and WebEx for conferencing. This leads to two separate applications for end users to learn, and a disjointed experience when escalating between peer-to-peer and conference. When you want to turn a peer-to-peer session into a conference, a web page to the WebEx site must be opened. This is where the problem starts for end-user productivity.

In addition to the more intuitive user experience provided in Lync, the integration with Microsoft Office applications cannot be overlooked. Microsoft Office is the primary business application for many end users across the world. Having communication capabilities integrated into your business applications is a major factor for driving usage and enhancing productivity. Microsoft Lync integrates UC capabilities into Office applications, reducing the amount of effort required for end users to collaborate with their peers. Although other vendors can leverage APIs to show Presence and allow click-to-call capabilities from Outlook, they cannot integrate at a deeper level. Examples of this include the following:

• SharePoint Skill Search—The capability to search the SharePoint directory and view results based on skills and other user information, without leaving the Lync client.

• Exchange Distribution List Expansion—The capability to add Exchange Server distribution lists directly to the Lync client contact list as contact groups. These lists will query information directly from Exchange Server, so users do not have to worry about adding new contacts manually.

• Exchange Integration—The Lync client has the capability to display Out of Office messages that are configured by the user in the Outlook client, and stored in Exchange Server.

• Conversation History Search in Outlook—The Lync client has the capability to store conversation history in the user’s Exchange mailbox. Users can also search this conversation history in the Lync client, and in Outlook or Outlook Web App with their mail.

The preceding examples show certain areas that competitors simply do not provide for integration. Office, SharePoint, and Exchange are deployed in nearly every organization, and that is why these features are important.

In addition to integrating with other Microsoft applications, Lync also allows for easy integration with other line-of-business applications. One major benefit to Lync is the development platform it is built on. The software API for the client and server are available to developers, and are currently heavily utilized for many custom solutions. The simplest form of this development is integrating functionality, such as Presence and click to call, to line-of-business applications. Many organizations have also taken advantage of the Lync Server APIs to build custom solutions that enhance business processes. This concept is known as Communications Enabled Business Processes (CEBP) and this is a major differentiator in the market. This ecosystem, which is open and partner-driven, has led many organizations to be more successful with UC than they ever could have imagined.

In summary, a UC deployment relies heavily on the software experience that is provided to users. Although UC includes telephony and IP phones are important to telephony, the true value of UC is seen through the software application providing anywhere access and collaboration. Microsoft Lync is a superior choice for UC because it is a software-based UC platform.

2. Lower Total Cost of Ownership (TCO)

The term TCO refers to total cost of ownership. Various solutions have components that are cheaper than others, but what is really important is TCO. Just because one software license is cheaper doesn’t mean that the overall cost to purchase and run a solution is cheaper. For some time, Microsoft has claimed a lower TCO than the competition. At VoiceCon in 2010, Microsoft was able to provide some truth to this statement. VoiceCon held an RFP competition titled “Who Delivers the Goods?” This competition requested that all major UC vendors provide an RFP response. In the end, the responses were used to provide a TCO comparison between vendors. The results showed Microsoft being nearly 50% cheaper than all other vendors in the competition. Additionally, the Microsoft solution included the full UC stack, whereas other vendors’ solutions were IP Telephony only.

As was mentioned before, TCO is the entire picture. In some of these cases and in my experience, Microsoft and the competition can be similar in costs when it comes to licensing. Microsoft licensing can even be more expensive depending on discount levels to the customer. However, Microsoft offers key advantages that contribute to a lower TCO:

• Hardware Flexibility—Lync allows organizations to choose the server platform as well as the endpoints to be used. This allows organizations to deploy whatever server hardware is right for them, at the right price. This includes the capability to virtualize across the different platforms available to organizations. Traditional “UC” systems will leverage IP phones as the primary endpoint. Not only does Microsoft offer an IP phone solution that is cheaper than the competition, but there are high-quality headsets available at low prices. Many Lync Optimized wired headsets are under $50, and that does not include a bulk purchase discount.

• Leveraging Microsoft Investments—In the RFP competition and in most organizations, Active Directory and Exchange Server are deployed. Lync leverages Exchange for Unified Messaging features, which helps drive a lower cost. In addition to Exchange Server, many organizations are under enterprise agreements with Microsoft that include Lync core functionality (IM/Presence, Peer-to-Peer A/V and Sharing, and Conferencing Join). Because the Lync client also comes with Microsoft Office, organizations that have deployed Office benefit from their investment. This results in clients only needing to purchase conferencing and enterprise voice client access licenses, which is much cheaper than the total licensing cost from the competition.

• Reduced Complexity—Lync is based on other Microsoft technologies that IT Professionals are used to. This often results in a smaller learning curve for existing staff to ramp up on the solution. Additionally, the deployment and management of Lync is greatly simplified compared to other UC solutions in the industry. With this reduced complexity comes reduced maintenance and support costs when compared to other UC solutions.

• Conferencing Cost Savings—In my experience, no other UC solution in the industry is able to provide as great a level of cost savings on audio conferencing as Lync. When directly compared, the architecture and, sometimes, the additional licensing required will make Microsoft up to 50% cheaper than the competition in this area.

• Rapid ROI—Based on what was described earlier in this section, the Microsoft solution delivers a much more rapid ROI. The fact that Lync is a single system as opposed to multiple systems, providing all functionality to users, allows organizations to realize ROI much faster than when deploying a competing UC solution.

The factors just described contribute to Lync having a lower TCO when compared to the competition.

3. Remote Access and Federation

To provide the best UC ROI, organizations must be able to provide UC solutions to end users anywhere, on any connection, at any time. Some organizations have adopted the “living on the net” motto, meaning that their users must be able to do their job seamlessly from any Internet connection. Microsoft Lync is without a doubt the superior solution for remote access in the UC industry. Microsoft Lync was built with the Internet in mind. Not only does it provide users with all functionality over the Internet, securely, without a VPN, but the media codecs used by Lync Server 2013 were built for use on the Internet.

Many organizations can mistakenly discount the importance of choosing a UC solution that was developed for the Internet. Traditional IP telephony relied only on the LAN/WAN networks that were controlled by the organization. However, UC cannot be restricted to the same network conditions as traditional IP telephony. For UC to be successful in an organization, it must provide access to all functionality, from any connection, on any device. This is how organizations will see increased usage of the solution and, ultimately, rapid ROI.

Following on the remote access story, UC federation is a trend in UC technology. Microsoft Lync offers organizations the capability to “federate” and communicate seamlessly with other organizations that are running other versions of Microsoft LCS, OCS, or Lync, and public networks such as MSN, AOL, and Skype. Although competitors can provide IM and Presence federation to other organizations, no other solution allows for full audio, video, and conferencing federation like Microsoft Lync. The capability to seamlessly collaborate with business partners, customers, and now with Skype makes many organizations treat federation as a critical requirement. I have seen customers choose Microsoft Lync over the competition based on the federation capabilities alone.

With the introduction of Skype federation in Lync 2013, these capabilities can now be expanded to the millions of current Skype users around the world. This includes both businesses and consumers. The flexibility this provides organizations for establishing communications with partners and customers is a feature that many users cannot live without. Some critics will discount the importance of UC federation over Internet connections. We are definitely not at the point where federation is going to replace the PSTN; however, many people do believe that this is the path the industry is going down.