PowerPoint Sharing with Office Web Apps

Lync Server 2013 introduces a complete overhaul to the PowerPoint sharing experience in conferences. In Lync Server 2010 PowerPoint content was delivered using the Web Conferencing Service. Although this worked, it provided limited functionality. PowerPoint presentations were often delivered at low quality, and given the Silverlight requirements in Lync 2010, the content was not viewable on a wide range of devices. In Lync Server 2013, Office Web Apps Server is used to provided PowerPoint sharing in conferences.

Office Web Apps Server is a product designed to deliver browser-based versions of Microsoft Office applications. This server is required in any Lync deployment using conferencing. Without this server role, users will not be able to share PowerPoint presentations.

Using Office Web Apps Server for PowerPoint sharing in Lync Server 2013 has the following benefits:

• Support for more devices—Because Office Web Apps Server is designed to work with products that support the Web Application Open Platform Interface protocol (WOPI), nearly any device with a web browser can now view PowerPoint sharing in Lync Server 2013. Additionally, with the introduction of the HTML5-based Lync Web App, this functionality is natively integrated to that experience, and allows for conferencing support on many endpoints.

• More PowerPoint Functionality—Lync Server 2013 allows users to share high-resolution PowerPoint presentations that include slide transitions and animations. In Lync 2013, the transitions and animations play during the presentation; this functionality was not available in previous versions of Lync. In Lync Server 2013 conferences, users with appropriate privileges are able to scroll through a PowerPoint presentation independent of the presentation itself. Additionally, if videos are embedded in a PowerPoint presentation, Lync conferences support synchronous playback of videos to participants.

The Office Web Apps Server or Server Farm used by Lync Server 2013 does not have to be a dedicated deployment. Organizations can leverage a shared infrastructure to support their SharePoint, Exchange, and Lync deployments that require Office Web Apps.