The major issue that Microsoft must face and halt is the erosion of  the Windows Platform dominance which amongst all else is posing a major challenge to the Office franchise. The Office team are constantly being told within Redmond that they have to be ‘first and best with Windows’ but their customers are giving them a very different message. Customers are saying; we still rely on your Office software but we want it to be available on all major devices and operating systems ie Apple and Android.

This problem will not go away in 2012, even if Windows has the most successful launch.  Due to the general lag of the IT industry Android and Apple growth will only increase within the Enterprise in 2012. The calls from enterprise customers are only going to grow louder. How Microsoft respond will be fascinating – do they attempt to stall and give a ‘Wait for 8′ message or do they allow the Office team to invest further in iOS and Andoird?

Microsoft represent the best elements of consumer and Enterprise IT and they are in position to help Enterprise drive into consumerisation of IT but they can not let the dominance of Windows ‘best and first on Windows’ philosophy win out.  Ultimately if the non Windows franchise have to wait and stunt their non-Windows development Microsoft may find that the entire market has moved on without them.

I find Microsoft a fascinating company to observe.   They are so large and such an integral part of consumer and Enterprise IT you see different contradictions and tensions within the same organisation you tend not to see in other technology companies.  There is nothing more interesting than seeing the tension between products that are OS agnostic who wish to exploit the new devices and the Windows machine that attempts to squash this by insisting on the ‘best and first on Windows’.

Ultimately HTML5 may be the answer, it seems to be the one standard that  Apple, Google and Microsoft all broadly agree on.  Perhaps Microsoft developing a rich set of Office applications that work on all HMTL5 browsers and devices could be the big story of 2012.

Finally the iPad and iPhone are fully available within the Apple App store

Anyone seen the Symbian client?

Microsoft Android App now available in the Android Marketplace from here

Microsoft Windows Phone App now available in the Windows Phone Marketplace here

It is worth noting the first warning on the application download that you do need either an On Premise Lync installation with an Edge Server or Office 365 to take adavantage of the mobile clients.

The On Premise Lync pre-requisites will require some effort and skill set to enable. Although there is a wizard, it is misleading, you simply can’t run the wizard and be ready to install. There are other tasks to complete, I’m certainly not skilled enough top explain what these tasks are but a search of twitter on the #lync hashtag will bring up plenty of helpful blog posts.

Office365 also require some changes in the admin panel – the addition of Cnames for lyncdiscover is an example, be sure the read the documentation.

We are still very early into this technology life cycle.  I anticipate MS will attempt to embed Kinect into some of their products slated for a 2012 release such as Office, Sharepoint, Lync, Windows8 and Exchange but these are likely to be further early stage concepts rather than deeply embedded features within the product.

I would anticipate incremental development with Windows8 and a major push to embed Kinect into their post 2012 release of Office products which would be around 2014/2015.  This should give enough time for three important factors to mature which are not available today:

• The sensor technology must improve (and I’m sure it will).  At the moment we all put up with the limitations because we are excited by the potential.  Mass adoption will not be so forgiving.  The technology must work first time, especially if it is to be deployed to business
• A wider developer base will be available so business can exploit Kinect’s potential by hiring developers and service providers to deploy into their specific business environment
• The camera must be smaller and built into laptops/slates.

I emphasise that Microsoft hasto view this as a start of the Lync mobile journey and not an end.  Mobile and Tablet adoption is simply moving too fast within the corporate IT system for Lync to fall behind on these devices.  For Lync to justify its licence fee and be the unified communication platform in an enterprise it must provide feature parity with the desktop version.

This is no easy task for Redmond, especially when the Lync team have to go and invest in non Windows platforms.  While the Lync team understand the need for a broad base of clients I’m not so sure this message is well received by their Windows counterparts.  Future Lync mobile and tablets are for another day, lets take a look what Microsoft will be delivering this week.

First off a broad and comprehensive set of clients, including iPhone, iPad, Android, Nokia and Windows Phone.  The Blackberry client was developed by Blackberry themselves.   The iPad and iPhone clients are probably the stand out in terms of look and overall feel.  The functionality revolves around three core components (a much more detailed feature list and comparison can be found below):

• Corporate address book with the ability to see presence and share instant messaging (individual and multi party).  This is the core element of the clients.
• Call from work – while voice and video calls can not be started the clients do have the ability to initiate a standard GSM call, with the Lync server calling a mobile/cell upon request by the user.  Single number reach can also be enabled.
• One click to join Lync conference calls – this will be very popular, attempting to input conference pins on a mobile is a frustrating experience, as long as you have a data connection the mobile client will take all that entry away from you with a single click.

He said so many great things in his time but this one rings out for me as I talk to people within corporate IT functions:

You can’t just ask customers what they want and then try to give that to them. By the time you get it built, they’ll want something new.

If I hear one more Senior IT manager say ‘well what does the business want’ I think I will explode.  Dear IT manager the company pays you as the expert to know what they want and deliver it before they know it.

We found that there were essentially three skills levels within the organisation relating to Lync:

• Beginners, people who had never logged onto an instant messaging system at work and I would assume at home.
• The majority, people who do use instant messaging and most likely communicate at home with Skype but require information on how to use features such as voice, video and web conferencing.
• Advanced users, possibly the smallest constituents but extremely important.  These guys get the technology and are starting to think how they can embed it in business processes.  They typically push us and Microsoft much harder on what the technology can do eg why can’t Skype and Lync share IM’s now?  Why can’t I get fully featured Lync on mobile and iPad now?

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.

This will be a big win for IT departments wanting to convince senior executives on the value of deploying Lync.  While we know that rational arguments should win out on deploying a large UC system having senior executives, who typically own Macs, seeing and touching Lync in such a feature rich way on their home machine helps to grease the wheels of a large organisation approval process.

Further details can be found here

There is one important point that MS released last week about Lync for Mac.  Full device support will not be available with the client.  While the audio quality will be assured, call control from the headsets will not be.  It will also be interesting to see if the easy switching of multiple devices if supported or not.  For further detail take a look at the blog post from Maura Hameroff here

So why do I think Skype could be a USP for Lync?

Let me start with a perceived problem: Lync is an extremely powerful and stable UC platform with access to millions of Microsoft desktops yet for all the capability and large Microsoft sales and marketing muscle I don’t think Lync’s potential has been fully taken by Enterprise customers yet.  While there are several reasons for this Skype can help change in a couple of different ways:

1. I often think that Microsoft and partners have difficulty explaining what Lync is and can do within an Enterprise.  Often saying it’s the corporate Skype is a good start and then gives you space to explain the full Lync capabilities.  In addition Lync advocates can now explain how Skype and Lync fit together within a UC strategy.
2. Understanding how Skype and Lync fit together really starts to open up the larger opportunities.  When Microsoft integrate Skype and Lync, Lync will be the prime UC technology that works seamlessly and securely with over a billion potential users/customers.  I’ve already had several discussions within the Pharma/Healthcare industry that wish to exploit this type of connectivity:

• Sales Rep with Lync being able to share IM/voice/video and content with Doctors without having to visit
• Scientists within Pharma organisations being able to contact students and lecturers within Universities
• R+D trial leaders being able to contact patients who are taking part in clinical studies

I’m sure every industry could create multiple use cases.  You may also be asking: why couldn’t the Pharma/Heathcare companies just deploy Skype now rather having to deploy Lync?  Most large organisations block Skype due to security concerns and Skype doesn’t sit well with regulatory requirements such as tracking and archiving.

Providing Lync with Skype integration an IT department is enabling significant business value within a controlled and secure communication environment that can meet any regulatory requirements.  Doesn’t that sound like a USP for Lync?