Deployment Flexibility

I once had a customer make the following statement: “Give us speed where we need it.” This proves to be a common theme among many organizations evaluating Lync and other UC solutions. Deployment flexibility is a key area in which Microsoft provides greater value than the competition through Lync:

• Integration with Existing Systems—Microsoft believes in integrating with existing systems and augmenting functionality, not ripping and replacing. This allows organizations to utilize their existing investments to their full potential, and then replace when necessary.

• Hybrid Solutions—Microsoft also allows organizations to leverage cloud solutions for hybrid deployments. Organizations can choose which deployment suits their needs best. For most conferencing scenarios, the cloud may be all that is needed for many organizations. When introducing true enterprise telephony, many organizations will look to move on-premises. With Lync 2013, the deployment and migration between on-premises and cloud is seamless for end users.

• “Speed Where You Need It”—Following up on the two previous statements, Microsoft allows organizations to choose at which speed they deploy their solution. If an organization has a desire to rapidly deploy the solution, it can easily be done. However, Microsoft does not force organizations to rip and replace, or upgrade scenarios. Many organizations will treat the core capabilities of UC as a more immediate need (IM, Peer-to-Peer A/V, Conferencing), and then choose opportunistic deployments for enterprise telephony. With the features and flexibility of the on-premises and Microsoft cloud solutions, organizations can truly move at whatever speed they need to, and can be successful with their UC deployment.