Who’s Talking on Lync?

I wouldn’t have thought it but I am actually a big fan of Lync.

For those of you who haven’t heard of Lync it could be likened to a corporate version of Skype with instant messaging, audio/video calling, screen sharing, content presentation and meeting recording capabilities. It can hook in with Active Directory to tie in your Lync account with your Windows domain credentials which streamlines authentication. It also integrates with Microsoft Outlook by allowing you to see the presence of your contacts inside your e-mails (whether they are present, away, busy, etc).

Love it.

However, one issue that you may have on traditional telephone phone conferences is that it can be difficult to determine who is talking particularly if there are people who have never met before present. It can definitely be terribly embarrassing getting someone’s name wrong!

Anyway, in Lync 2013 you can actually see who is talking during a conference call as the main contact pane will update to show the party that is talking provided that everyone has their own Lync account. Some parties may dial in by telephone so if you have two or more people who have used this method they will all typically show as “Guest” which might make things tricky. However, for conferences where everyone uses Lync then this is a welcome feature.