WR Paper - Fulfilling Microsoft Lync's Destiny as a Visual ...

1 Copyright 2013 Wainhouse Research, LLC Page 1 WHITEPAPER Fulfilling Microsoft Lync's Destiny as a Visual Collaboration Solution May 2013 Sponsored by:Providing the missing links for lync video conferencing & collaboration Copyright 2013 Wainhouse Research, LLC Page 2 Introduction Many enterprises today are considering a unified communications (UC) platform as the foundation for a wide-scale rollout of personal video conferencing capabilities. Personal video conferencing promises to give PC-, Macintosh-, smartphone-, and tablet-enabled information workers the ability to connect with colleagues, customers, and partners in a more direct, intimate, and efficient manner, while the UC connection promises anywhere, anytime click-to-call convenience with an IT-friendly architecture. One of the leading platforms, if not THE leading platform, for enterprise deployments of UC is Microsoft lync .

2 Microsoft s current product is lync 2013, the result of at least four major Microsoft UC software upgrades that stretch back over a decade beginning with Live Communications Server and Office Communications Server. Microsoft 's strategy with lync appears to have been based on a long term evolution that began with minimal native voice and video capabilities and a reliance on third party "partners" to bridge the gaps. Over time however, Microsoft has gradually filled in the missing pieces, particularly with respect to audio, telephony, and video, thereby forcing independent partners either to a higher functionality ground or moving them off the OCS- lync reservation altogether. In this vein, lync 2013 introduced a number of video conferencing capabilities that have historically been relegated to dedicated systems and services, while delivering several video conferencing features that have never before been available, including support for scalable video coding (SVC) and continuous presence multipoint displays via a gallery view.

3 Nevertheless, enterprises today still face several significant challenges when the goal is to use lync as the mainstay of their Visual communications deployment. Microsoft lync Overview Microsoft lync is a unified communications platform that provides a consistent, single, unified-client experience for presence, instant messaging, persistent chat, voice, video, and data sharing. lync is available as both a product that can be installed on the enterprise network, and as a service dubbed Office 365. The lync Web App allows PC and Mac users to join a lync meeting from within an HTML5-based browser, and delivers a full lync meeting experience, including multiparty HD video, voice over IP, instant messaging, desktop application, and PowerPoint sharing. lync clients are also available for a variety of mobile hardware devices, including phones and tablets.

4 Federation capabilities extend lync communications to partners, suppliers, and customers who are also using lync . In short, lync simplifies the video conferencing user's experience by incorporating video into the unified client so that scheduling a meeting with video or escalating to video spontaneously is seamless and easy. Microsoft lync Market Reality - 2013 While Unified Communications (UC) solutions in general and Microsoft lync in particular hold great promise for simplifying and unifying the enterprise communications experience, research results suggest that the deployments today are very limited in both depth and breadth. A 2012 Wainhouse Research worldwide survey of enterprise UC users asked about UC features that were deployed to more than 50% Copyright 2013 Wainhouse Research, LLC Page 3 of the user's organization.

5 The results show that UC is still used primarily for presence and instant messaging (IM). In fact, IM was the only feature that more than 40% of the survey respondents put in this category (deployed to more than 50%). Figure 1 Source; Wainhouse Research 2012 survey of enterprise UC users For deployments to 50% of the workforce, only ~25% of respondents claimed that their UC solution was being used for video conferencing, and only 15% answered that their room video systems were integrated with their UC platform. Clearly, the actual benefits realized by UC investments are far lower than the potential benefits. In other Wainhouse Research studies conducted in both 2012 and 2013, video conferencing channel partners were asked about their customers' interest in integrating video conferencing with other enterprise systems. For integrating video with a UC platform; the "high interest" level rose from 17% to 28% while the "no interest" category fell from 19% to just 3%.

6 Integrating with UC in all cases had a higher level of i nterest than integrating with telephony. These results are consistent with other anecdotal data suggesting that many large and small enterprises are looking to bring the video conferencing user experience into the UC fold. These results are also consistent with Microsoft 's recent introduction of the lync Room System reference architecture, a move designed to bring lync into the enterprise conference room directly with support from established AV channel partners. 0%10%20%30%40%50%60%70%Custom integrationContact center integrationIntegration with room videoMobile integrationB2B FederationPBXV ideo conferencingWeb conferencingP2P videoAudio conferencingP2P audioP2P App sharingInstant messagingUC Features by >50% of the OrganizationCopyright 2013 Wainhouse Research, LLC Page 4 Figure 2 Source; Wainhouse Research 2012 survey of video conferencing channel partners Cloud-based services are very much on customers' minds today.

7 The buzz around "cloud" has caused many IT and UC managers to think about the future of hardware- and software-based solutions and the tradeoffs between hosted and CPE solutions. Much of the industry seems to be in transition mode - in fact 25-35% of all respondents in our end user UC survey indicate they are considering hosted services for those UC components that are currently deployed as a CEPE solution. Our data shows that all of the UC communication functions are deployed in a variety of insourced and outsourced support strategies. Figure 3 Source; Wainhouse Research 2012 survey of enterprise UC users 14%11%17%28%5%10%8%11%19%3%24%26%0%10%20 %30%40%50%60%70%80%90%100%Interest in Integrating Video Conferencing No InterestMediumHi Interest0%20%40%60%80%100%Telephony ServiceEmailIM/presenceVideo ConferencingShared WorkspaceContact CenterAudio ConferencingWeb ConferencingCPE Managed Hosted Hybrid Copyright 2013 Wainhouse Research, LLC Page 5 lync 2013 Video Capabilities lync has long supported some form of Visual communications.

8 Perhaps the two most notable enhancements in lync Server 2013 are 1) support for scalable video coding (SVC), an international standard the details of which are beyond the scope of this document, but a development that could make future interoperability with lync much easier; and 2) a form of continuous presence for multipoint video calls (more than two participants) in which images from more than just the active speaker are displayed on a participant's screen. Microsoft 's "Gallery View" displays a strip of up to five remote video windows (the five most recent speakers) rather than the traditional "Hollywood Squares" approach. Pictures, if available, are displayed for all other participants in the second row. People are moved automatically between the first row of video and the second row of still photos when they speak.

9 Other lync 2013 video capabilities include: A participant can check out his or her self-view before entering the conference. The video of the current speaker is highlighted with a blue bar below his or her tile in the toprow. The video portion of the display can be shrunk to give more room to the presentation. Or thevideo portion can be eliminated entirely. The Polycom CX5000 is still supported and provides a panoramic view of a conference room,filling a second row on the display. The presenter's video can be locked on while all other videos are turned off. The meeting host can prevent any attendee from starting video. Participants can pin one or more video feeds to their galleryFigure 4 Video conference with lync 2013 Copyright 2013 Wainhouse Research, LLC Page 6 lync for Enterprise Video Conferencing: Five Challenges Despite the impressive evolution of Lync's communications capabilities, the UC platform is still stuck in a pilot phase with many customers, largely due to the challenges that come with enabling an enterprise s LAN / WAN to support the demands of a mass deployment of desktop video.

10 Enterprises today still face five significant challenges when deploying lync as the mainstream solution for their video conferencing needs. Overcoming these challenges will help lync become the ubiquitous solution empowering information workers, speeding decision making, and enabling the next generation of B2B and B2C communications. with Room Video Conferencing SystemsWell over conference room video conferencing systems remain in use today. These devices almost exclusively support the ITU's protocol and/or the IETF's SIP protocol for signaling as well as and for video compression/decompression. While interoperability between the growing number of desktop lync video users and the installed base of conference room systems has long been a market demand, such interoperability remains a challenge. To solve this problem, several vendors have introduced lync gateways.