Microsoft Lync Solutions Week in Review

This past week was a relatively calm one for the Lync solutions industry, but there were still some noteworthy events.

First up, Sangoma Technologies Corporation was awarded a 2013 TMC (News - Alert) Labs Innovation Award by INTERNET TELEPHONY, a TMC magazine, for its Lync Express all-in-one Microsoft Lync appliance. Lync Express leverages Sangoma's experience in the telecommunications industry to Microsoft (News - Alert) Lync deployments, facilitating connections to SIP trunks, PBX or legacy PSTN. This makes deploying a Lync system quicker, easier and more cost-effective for installations of up to 1,000 users.

"Sangoma has delivered a truly unique solution that represents major breakthroughs in communications technology," said Tom Keating (News - Alert), TMC Labs founder and TMC chief technology officer.

Next, Proton Media released a new version of its ProtoSphere solution designed to work well on touch-based devices such as the iPad or Microsoft Surface. Essentially, ProtoSphere is a collection of various cloud-based tools that are accessible via Lync in 3D 'rooms.'

The suite has served desktop users well for the last few years and, according to the executive vice president and chief information officer for Proton Media, it will continue to do so on mobile technology: "iPad support and ProtonMedia’s (News - Alert) enhanced mobile strategy accelerate the impact of our award-winning PPD 3D solution, collaboratively developed on the ProtoSphere platform."

Lastly, TMCnet contributing writer Frank Griffin took a look at how Microsoft has been treating its acquisition of Yammer. To start with, Yammer's (News - Alert) user base has increased to more than eight million since its acquisition last year, while valuable partnerships have further increased the social network's value. The next step seems to be Microsoft product integration, such as the replacing of the SharePoint newsfeed in Office 365 with the Yammer feed. Meanwhile, integration with Lync will provide users with a single solution for accessing information from multiple locations.

That's all for this week, but there's plenty more Microsoft Lync Solution News available on the main page.