That just leaves Android and iOS news.  MS confirmed they will have official clients available this year and I still expect this to be the case.  So if you are being asked about when Lync will be available on iPhone or Android you shouldn’t have to wait too long to provide an answer.  I would start to plan some time in Q4 to make sure you have some tech time to provide updates to your Lync servers.

I’ve seen some noise around the Lync twitter channels that voice and video will be available this year.  I have seen nothing from Redmond that has pointed at this.  At the moment I would set expectations that IM/Presence and one click to join conferences will be the available features with voice and video sometime in the future.  There are of course unofficial Lync clients providing voice and video.  I’d welcome any insights as to what the business value voice and video provides on mobile.  I have seen some specific use cases but they are aimed at supporting a new business process rather than just providing voice and video on the move.

I’ve heard that iOS devices (iphone and ipad) are currently in a very limited beta trial, I don’t have any information whether RIM and Nokia are on target to release in Q4 and no information on dates for the official MS Lync Android app – I still can’t quite believe the Lync team are going to release an Android client, is it the only example of Microsoft software on Android?  Finishing off the set Windows Phone 7 is due to support Lync in the Mango 7.5 update which is in line with Q4 2011.

Unfortunately if you want voice and video support you will have to pay extra for 3rd Party releases until some undefined time – thought to be 2012.  This is real shame because Lync voice and video on an ipad works very well with the Damaka client and its holding businesses back not being able to fully exploit Lync services from mobile and tablet devices.

One more quick update on the Mac Lync client.  Mac support is currently on an older Wave13 client release but I’ve heard rumours of a Wave14 Mac client being in beta – I haven’t seen it myself and again no timelines on when or even if it will be seen in public.

Appreciate this is lots of ifs and buts but given the Q4 2011 timeline I’m hoping MS will soon release official information on a major element of the Lync experience.

• Microsoft buy Skype
• Google release Google+
• Microsoft release their Kinect SDK
• Apple announce icloud and Lion
• Apple announce details of iOS5
• Microsoft release more details of Windows 8, beta could be available this year
• Sony Almost everyone gets hacked
• Facebook integrate Skype
• Nortel’s patents are bought for $4.5billion by a consortium without Google
• Office365 comes out of beta

Consumer technology is just iterating so fast it’s hard to keep up with the news.   Pity the poor IS departments who are built for 5 year cycles.  I’ve no doubt the best performing IS departments will be able to work out how they can best ape the consumer cycle but I’m absolutely certain poor performing IS teams will make their CIO look foolish to their business by maintaining working habits and processes that are long since redundant.

I plan a couple more posts over the coming days, one definitely being an update on the Lync mobile client scene and possibly another on my thoughts around the Microsoft – Skype purchase.

Take a look at the case study here and take a look at Rainer’s blog here

“If you look at the technology advancements of the past 20 years, our industry has done a great job creating solutions that make it possible for machines to talk to each other—but has not done much to help people talk to each other quickly and efficiently when there is a question or a problem related to a process,” Regan says. “We have technology that can identify literally in microseconds whether a machine needs maintenance, but it might take hours for someone to decide whether to address the problem immediately or to wait a week. Those kinds of decisions have to be made by people, and industrial software doesn’t easily support decision-making processes.”Wonderware, a Microsoft® Gold Certified Partner, tackled the issue by taking core technologies from Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2 and incorporating them into its manufacturing solutions. These technologies include instant messaging (IM), Web conferencing, and presence, which shows whether someone in a network is online and available to communicate.

While the most ideal scenario is to only run UCMA 3.0 applications with Lync Server 2010, for many of you this is simply not possible.  You may own an application that was written for UCMA 2.0 and you want to upgrade to Lync Server 2010, but the application has not yet been updated to UCMA 3.0.  Likewise, you may want to continue running your UCMA 2.0 application on an Office Communications Server 2007 front end but still want it to be accessible by users homed on a Lync Server 2010 front end.

These scenarios are all possible, but unfortunately the steps to configure them are rather confusing.  In some respects, this is one area where you really need to follow the directions to the exact letter.  Several steps may look rather peculiar but unfortunately must be run exactly as specified.

See the rest of Joe’s blog post here