What is Lync?

Update: I’ve since written another, fuller, post titled “What is Lync and Why Should I Care” which is a non-technical introduction to Lync.

This is my first post on Lync, if you don’t count the Who’s In? Who’s Out? post.

I’m soon going to working on Lync a lot, so I wanted to provide somewhere to send family and friends to answer the anticipated question: What the heck is Lync?

(by the way, if you don’t know the origin of the ‘What the heck is THAT?’ phrase, watch this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sv4Hpz-GI3g. You’ll be glad you did.)

I found this video done by Microsoft which sort of explains what it is, without actually explaining what it is. That’s what I think anyway, which probably means it’s a good, non-technical overview of Lync, describing what problems it solves, rather than trying to explain how it solves them, or how it’s made up, or any of the technical things I try and get across to people, resulting in that glazed-over expression.

I think it’s exciting. I think the problems it solves are real, and I think they need solving. Hopefully that comes across in this video, and you can see why it’s cool.

If you’re technical, or just have trouble sleeping at night, you can see the keynote where Lync was officially launched. You can even see Bill Gates using it! Get the video direct from here, or see the Launch Website (for some reason the video’s don’t stream)