The conference was attended by 1600 participants (up from 800 last year), offered 170 break sessions, 9 Hands-On labs, Lync Room System labs, and a variety of vendors in the Expo Hall.
Keynote Highlights
The keynote was really good, and had some big announcements, but there weren't any earth-shattering announcements this year. Below are some of the highlights.
- Lync has had 38 quarters of double-digit revenue growth
- 60% of enterprises have deployed it
- 1/3 of all global long distance calls occur on Skype
Up and Coming for Lync & Skype
- Speech recognition to control Lync Mobile
- "Show my meetings"
- "Join my current meeting"
- Mobile App for Android tablets
- Share PowerPoint presentations from tablets like iPad
- Anonymous join to meetings from tablets
- Windows 8.1 Modern App - Answer calls without unlocking the device
- Bing call extensions in browsers - Skype calls paid for by the business
- JavaScript wrapper to embed Skype functionality in websites
- Skype video to Lync within the next few months
- Lync Online will be able to make and receive PSTN calls
- Large-scale meetings (1000-2000 participants) will be brought to Lync Online
Gurdeep Singh Pall returned to the stage to wrap up the keynote. He talked about how the last decade has been the push for Unified Communications and has transformed the way we do a lot of things in our lives and the way we work. He feels we have closed out Unified Communications, and for the next decade we are moving into Universal Communications. This includes ideas like contect and application intelligence, global communications reach through the cloud, and video available everywhere.
A big thanks to Microsoft, the speakers/presenters, vendors and everyone involved who put together such a great event. Looking forward to next year!
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