Skype for Business Reviews, Competitors and Pricing

Engineer at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees

Feb 20, 2013

Very effective communication tool

What is most valuable?

Integration with other MS products such as outlook, OWA, SharePoint Support for various client devices, gateways etc. Support for federation with third party.Lync Client allows users access to presence, instant messaging, voice, audio, video, and Web conferencing

What needs improvement?

Voice telephony and video calls utilize lots of bandwidth.

What other advice do I have?

It's is a very good product to have -- a solution for IM, voice telephony and video communication bundled into one.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.

it_user4401Developer at a transportation company with 1,001-5,000 employees

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Jan 11, 2014

I agree with you, and I would like to add three pros that Microsoft Lync 2013 has. First one is referring to HD video conferencing, because Lync delivers support for 1080p HD resolution for video conferencing, so participants have a sharp, clear display. Second one refers to mobile apps, because Microsoft has developed Lync mobile apps for Windows Phone, iOS and Android. The Lync mobile apps allow users to instant message, call, or join a Lync meeting from virtually anywhere. And the third pro refers to web app, because Microsoft also introduced a web app for Lync.

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it_user776832

Unified Messaging Consultant at a engineering company with 10,001+ employees

Nov 22, 2017

Download

The public telephony feature reduces hard phone costs

What is most valuable?

IM
Audio/video
Federation
Public telephony
RGS

The public telephony feature reduces hard phone costs and RGS is like a call centre feature.

How has it helped my organization?

Reduced the capital cost on the hard phone.

What needs improvement?

End user enhancement: There are few codes in the back-end from the vendor which need to improve, be enhanced, like application sharing for remote party to access the machine, and can be easily accessed by tools, such as CAD design. This is one of the examples.

For how long have I used the solution?

Nine years starting from its 2005 version.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

There have been a few issues working with vendor.

How are customer service and technical support?

An eight out of 10.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

No.

How was the initial setup?

It will depend on the B2B setup.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

It is okay for a large environment.

What other advice do I have?

Think about other parameters, such as monitoring, if you invest in a Microsoft-based monitoring solution.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.

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it_user1020

Head of Data Center at a tech company with 51-200 employees

Dec 1, 2012

Question regarding Microsoft's Lync server

Hi,

I have been tasked to prepare a plan to upgrade our analogue telephone system into a full-IP unified communications system. Since we have a subscription-based licensing deal with Microsoft, Microsoft's Lync server offers a compelling product for this purpose.

For those of you who have experience using this as your IP communications system, I would like to know your experiences with using this product. Any comment or suggestion would be highly appreciated.

Francis

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.

it_user3483Senior Consultant at Unify Square

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Jan 5, 2013

Hi Francis.
It is a really good product (I am sort of Lync fanboy :-D ) and Lync gives a lot of features that other product do not have.
Also, it gives an extremely powerful and easy to use client interface (voice operatons like call parking and call forward, for a example, are really simple to make).

The administrative part is not too difficult and the high integration with Active Directory, Exchange and SharePoint is something you will love if you have the aforementioned products in your company.

The costs, however, are not so low.
a) You have to pay client licenses and they are more costly for enterprise voice
b) You have to pay for every single frontend server and if you use Lync voice you need more than one f.e. for high availability (we want our telephones alway up and running, don't we ? :-P )