Microsoft® Lync Online

Microsoft Lync Online is part of Office 365 which includes Microsoft Office Online, Exchange email and Share Point online. Lync Online provides next-generation communications capabilities including instant messaging (IM), presence, and PC-audio, video, Web conferencing and screen sharing.

Microsoft Lync Online is a next-generation cloud communications service that connects people in new ways, anytime, from anywhere. Lync Online provides intuitive communications capabilities across presence, instant messaging, audio/video calling and a rich online meeting experience including PC-audio, video and web conferencing. Transform your interactions with colleagues, customers and partners from today’s hit-and-miss communication to a more collaborative, engaging, and effective experience.

Microsoft Lync Features

Instant Messaging and Presence:

Instant Messaging: Users can start an IM session with a colleague for quick responses to questions. As more engagement is needed on a subject, invite multiple parties to join in on the same conversation. Also, get reconnected to the topic by rejoining existing conversations. Users can also connect with people outside the organization. Server-to-server federation capabilities allow users to utilize presence and IM with other Microsoft Communications Server users outside the corporate network. And the public IM connectivity capability increases reach even further by allowing connections with several public IM networks such as MSN/Windows Live, Yahoo!, and AOL. Microsoft has extensive experience in designing and operating a highly available instant messaging solution. One key component is the Intelligent Instant Message Filter (IIMF) built into Lync Online, which helps protect both the customer network and the Microsoft managed network against the spread of the most common viruses and spam. Presence: Presence is the ability to detect another user's availability. Using Lync, users can display their presence status-for example, Available, Away, Do Not Disturb, or Offline-to let others know their availability for consultation. To easily monitor the presence information of another user, users can add other users to their contact list, and can organize and group these contacts in different ways (by department, for example). Users may also search their company's address book to find other users-which means it is not necessary to add someone to the contact list in order to detect presence or send an instant message. File Transfer/Sharing: The Lync Online service also provides peer-to-peer file transfer capability so users can transfer files as part of a Lync session without using email.

• Lync Audio Conferencing: Audio conferencing is available through approved conference call providers only.
  

• Video Conferencing: Both person-to-person and multi-party video conference (Webcam) sessions are supported (active speaker video only for multiparty sessions). With Lync Online, users can easily schedule an online meeting with video or seamlessly escalate an IM session to a video call.
  

• Web Conferencing: Lync Online provides desktop sharing, application sharing, PowerPoint presentation, virtual whiteboard, annotations, and polling capabilities. Attendees and presenters can participate in Lync online meetings via leading web browsers through the Lync web app. The web client experience enables IM in meetings, high-fidelity desktop, application and presentation viewing, desktop sharing, whiteboard, lobby, and presenter access controls.

Customer Support

• Small Business (less than 50 hosts) = Online Community Support Only. Users can post a question or technical problem to the Lync Online support blog. A Microsoft support representitive will respond within 48 hours.
• Medium Businesses and Enterprises (above 25 hosts) = 24x7 support to IT Administrators only.