Gartner’s Magic Quadrant for Unified Communications – 4 August 2014

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Microsoft in Gartner's Report 4 August 2014 ID: G00262527

 

Figure 1. Magic Quadrant for Unified Communications

 

 

 

Excerpt

Microsoft Lync offers a full suite of UC functionality that Microsoft continues to improve with each release. It integrates with Office applications, Active Directory and Skype. Microsoft has a broad set of additional business applications that will increasingly be leveraged, including Office Graph (which uses machine learning to define the context and connect users with relevant documents, conversations and people) and Cortana (a digital assistant).

The Lync partner ecosystem expanded at a rapid pace; however, more importantly, the partners' skill level and experience in complex deployments that include voice and video also improved significantly year over year. Lync's improved federation capabilities have proven an effective way for groups to collaborate across organizational boundaries. For cloud delivery, Microsoft offers Lync Online as part of the Office 365 suite, as well as in private cloud configurations; in both cases, partners can be leveraged for telephony. However, enterprises should be aware that Lync Online offers only a subset of the on-premises Lync solution, most notably with limited PSTN connectivity.

Enterprises that have a significant number of employees that can benefit from Lync's collaboration model should consider the Lync solution and understand how it might change their business processes and worker productivity. Enterprises considering deploying Lync telephony or video should understand the topology and infrastructure requirements, how they will support branch offices, and (if relevant) how they will deploy and obtain global third-party support. Enterprises with advanced telephony feature requirements should also ensure that the needed functions are supported.

Strengths

  • Microsoft Lync continues to make significant gains in the market and is attractive to a broad range of enterprises. In many cases, it is initially deployed for its IM, presence and Web conferencing functionalities, with gradual incremental deployments of telephony and video added as follow-on phased deployments for specifically targeted groups or regions.
  • The vendor has significantly improved its go-to-market strategy for Lync during the last year, positioning itself to more adequately address the real-time communications requirements of enterprises over the next several years.
  • Microsoft has added video capabilities, including support for Lync room-based video systems and interoperability of standards-based video endpoints.
  • Customers report that Lync functions can be readily integrated into business processes and applications, providing new, different and effective ways to perform tasks. Often, these new functions are achieved by deploying Lync enhancements from a growing list of ecosystem partners.

Cautions

  • Few IT managers report that they have completely eliminated their PBXs in Lync implementations. Typically, Lync IM/presence and Web conferencing are deployed across the broader employee base, while telephony is deployed only for a subset of employees. Microsoft's stated telephony strategy is to leverage partners for functions like endpoints, gateways and contact center; therefore, enterprises interested in PBX-level capabilities should be prepared to also invest in a number of partner solutions to achieve advanced functionality.
  • Gartner clients report users with non-Microsoft endpoints, such as Mac workstations, are not satisfied with the functionality and quality of the Lync UX.
  • Gartner clients deploying Lync with in-house staff often report that multiple partners are required to obtain a complete deployment, and that this poses challenges (for example, different partners for telephones, gateways, servers, remote support and network monitoring); additionally, it can lead to release-level incompatibilities. This can also result in difficulty obtaining an accurate total cost for Lync service and support.
  • Some enterprises express concern that Microsoft's bundling, combined with proprietary protocols, will leave them locked in a closed circle of choices. Bundling includes Exchange, Lync, SharePoint, Office, Skype and Yammer. While the video interoperability is a good sign, it also serves to emphasize the lack of standards-based capabilities in the other areas, such as standard SIP endpoints and WebRTC.