Dimension Data, a $6 billion global ICT services and solutions provider, has launched an initiative to sell one million new seats of Microsoft Lync Enterprise Voice, delivered either on premises or in a private cloud by 2017.

 

Microsoft Lync, a popular unified communications tool on the market, is a client application that provides presence, instant messaging, voice, video, ad hoc collaboration and online meeting capabilities through a single interface, said a statement.

 

Peter Menadue, group GM for Microsoft Solutions, said: “While the Lync business for Microsoft is growing 30 per cent year-on-year and advanced workloads like voice growing even faster, globally there are still millions of enterprise employees who would benefit from Lync."

 

About 93 per cent of enterprises had plans or were already using or trialing Microsoft Lync overall last year, which was up from 80 per cent the previous year, while 59 per cent of enterprises were planning or already deploying Lync Voice, up from 45 per cent in 12 months, according to a 2013 study carried out by the T3i Group on the Impact of Microsoft Lync on the Enterprise Voice Market.

 

The delivery models being targeting as part of this initiative will include mature markets where there’s a desire to enable knowledge workers to communicate easily wherever they are; and emerging markets where many organisations are leapfrogging traditional communications tools – particularly where existing infrastructure may be immature, and the desire to drive down cost and prepare for as-a-service is relevant across all markets.

 

Giovanni Mezgec, general manager, Lync Marketing at Microsoft, said: “In today’s highly competitive, global business environment, teams need to collaborate more closely than ever before. Lync brings the future of communication to the enterprise by connecting employees, partners, and customers wherever they are. Only Lync delivers a complete unified communications solution, while giving people a consistent experience for presence, IM, voice, and video across PCs, Macs, phones, and browsers.  This makes communicating easier while reducing costs and increasing productivity.”

 

Other benefits of converging communications with Microsoft Lync include the reduction of costs of traditional phone calls and the elimination the cost of conferencing services; less business travel owing to video conferencing; enterprises will no longer have to maintain a separate telephony infrastructure; and with Lync available on-premises, in the cloud, or as a hybrid solution, enterprises have the option to evolve their IT at the pace they choose. - TradeArabia News Service