Lync voice deployments double in Asia

• Forrester says Lync offers US$6.35 million in hard cost savings over three years
• Organizations of all sizes saving travel, comms cost, claims company

THE number of enterprise Lync voice deployments more than doubled across the Asia Pacific region in the past 12 months, contributing to a 10-fold increase over three years, Microsoft Corp claimed. The company however did not give specific figures.

Organizations of all sizes, from start-up companies to multinational corporations and even government agencies and ministries, are looking for ways to reduce costs associated with travel, long distance calling and IT administration, while at the same time enhancing productivity, the technology giant said in a statement.

“Businesses across Asia are turning to Microsoft for a unified communications platform because they recognize the clear-cut benefits of a cohesive solution versus one that tries to cobble together multiple technologies,” said Andrew Pickup, Microsoft’s Asia Pacific chief marketing and operations officer.

“Microsoft Lync allows businesses to streamline their communications infrastructure and significantly reduce their TCO (total cost of ownership) for communications, while delivering the reliability and quality required for mission-critical business communications,” he claimed.

He said a Forrester Consulting Total Economic Impact study commissioned by Microsoft in 2010 found that for a composite organisation, Microsoft Lync 2010 offers a risk-adjusted ROI (return on investment) of 337%, including US$6.35 million in hard cost savings over three years, with a payback period of 12 months.

Responding to queries from Digital News Asia, Microsoft Asia-Pacific corporate public relations lead Michael Ang (pic) said that with Microsoft Lync, enterprises can connect people and information in real time using instant messaging, web/data conferencing, audio and video collaboration tools, with integrated rich presence functionality.

“… Lync has ushered in a new generation of enterprise communications – it has enabled people to communicate in new ways, increasing productivity wherever they are,” he claimed, adding that Microsoft won the Unified Communications Vendor of the Year category at the 2012 Frost & Sullivan Asia Pacific ICT Awards.