Lync Migration Featured Article

Lync Migration Week in Review: Biamp, Cequens, Sennheiser, IR

By Casey Houser Contributing Writer

The big topic in nearly all tech news this week is Enterprise Connect (News - Alert), the latest industry conference that has all startups to giants in the information technology industry bringing out their best. Related to Lync Migration, major product showcases have come from Biamp (News - Alert), Cequens, Sennheiser, and IR.

Biamp concentrated on high-quality audio with the flagship it showed at the conference. Its new Devio collaboration system includes a small hardware device and microphone to allow participants to use their laptops in combination with the unit. Users plug their laptops into the Devio CR-1 unit by way of USB. Through that connection, they can link to the associated Biamp microphone, the DTM-1, and interface with other conferencing equipment such as speakers or projection screens. The microphone captures audio from the entire room and tries to be the centerpiece of all audio- and videoconferences. Biamp indicated that clear audio drives any collaboration session, so it has placed that foot first.

In a similar manner, Cequens concentrated on videoconferencing at Enterprise Connect. It displayed it new Cequens Room video hardware – a small package of only 4" by 4" – that repurposes Intel NUC hardware and allows users to easily connect to existing setups of Microsoft Lync, Skype (News - Alert) for Business, and Office 365. It offers users connections to the device through USB, mini HDMI, and Ethernet to give them access to such software and any conferencing peripherals that may exist in the conference room. The tiny unit tries to tie together office monitors and generic microphones and cameras in a unified system to which all office members can be a part.

Sennheiser took advantage of the big week by introducing its new PRESENCE Mobile series of headsets and its TeamConnect Wireless conferencing speaker and audio transmission units. The mobile PRESENCE headsets have been engineered to reduce more noise than their predecessors. They can now better adapt to situations inside and outside the office. Keeping activities in the office, TeamConnect Wireless uses its one master cylinder and three satellite units to capture and transmit audio signals to all participants in a conference room. Their collaborators in remote locations will then receive clear audio from the entire group, which Sennheiser says can be as many as 24 participants.

Finally, though IR has also took a seat at the conference, its big news concerned the certification of its Prognosis for Unified Communications (News - Alert) software. Microsoft has awarded that product the honor of certification as an IT Pro Tool, so IR will now join a handful of other partners in that elite program which make their own software available to tackle all manner of network issues. Prognosis (News - Alert), for its part, helps companies prepare themselves for an installation of Skype for Business. It begins with an analysis of client networks and then, when clients pass that test, continues to monitor their networks as Skype installation begins and users take control of their communications. IT administrators can see when systems might overload, so they can correct troublesome situations before they cause noticeable problems for any employee or customer.

Edited by Stefania Viscusi