Lync On-Premises vs Lync Online
A common question about Lync Online (and the other Office 365 products too, but this post is Lync-centric) is “how is this different from the on-premises solution?” And there is a comprehensive feature comparison available at the Office 365 Community site, but usually the next question I get is “yeah yeah, but what does that really mean for me?”
So here’s a shortlist of the more pertinant features that you don’t get with Lync Online.
- PSTN calling (incoming or outgoing)
- PBX integration
- Advanced call handling (hold, redirection, park)
- IP Phone support (USB only)
- Analog line support (eg. fax)
- Response groups (ie. Direct inbound call to a recipient group)
- Persistent group chat
- Skill search from SharePoint (either on-premise or online)
- Client-side recording
- Dial-in conferencing
- Interop with on-premise video conferencing systems (eg. Polycom suites)
- QoS
- Quality of Experience Reporting
This usually leads to a question like, “ok, so what do they have in common then?”
So for completeness, here’s some of the more popular things you can do with both versions of the product.
- PC-to-PC audio/video
- Address book search
- IMPresence
- Office application integration (click-to-chat)
- Federation with Lync Online, Lync On-Premise, and OCS On-Premise
- Application/Desktop/Whiteboard/Presentation sharing
- Online Meetings
- Guest attendees (via rich client and web client)
- Roundtable support
- Meeting lobby
Hope that’s helpful. Might add SharePoint Online and Exchange Online comparisons too.
2 Responses
Lowell says:
Lync looks wonderful and it is wonderful. But for small business it”s so out of the picture regarding complexity of installation, high cost of requirements (at least 3 server licenses plus resources for 3 servers, more fixed IP addresses, certificates, and so on) it”s sad. Especially compounded by the discontinuing of Microsoft”s amazing Response Point product. I wish that hadn”t been done until they had a smooth, smaller version of Lync to replace RP. Lync Online is awesome, and a great “first step”. I do hope that calling to PSTN from Lync Online (hello Skype?) and receiving calls into it becomes a reality very soon; that would provide a solution for small business that is easy, affordable, and very low maintenance.
October 27, 2011 at 5:26 am
Jeroen Engering says:
Take a look at: http://www.activecommunications.nl/en_nl/unified-communications
The ACS Lync appliance solution takes away all complexity (consolidating server roles, no AD changes – plug-and-play install).
November 18, 2011 at 1:13 am