Hi from Vegas!

The Keynote presentation here at the 2014 LyncConf has gotten the conference off to a great start today.

As expected – having been foreshadowed 12 months ago at LyncConf13 – high-definition video between Skype and Lync participants is imminent. That was demo’d to us this morning, and I see there’s a technical deep-dive session tomorrow…

You can watch the full keynote here. Derek Burney gets to model another of his bright shirts and demo everything from 17:30 in. His first revelation is the new Android tablet app, which will be in the Google Play store by the end of June.

If you belong to the TL:DR category, jump to:

• 27:14 for some new peripheral devices and “wearable technology”.
• 29:00 for the demo of *NATIVE* video interop with Tandberg (due with “our next version of Lync server”)
• 31:40 for a demo of click-to-call via Skype from a Bing search. The “Bing search extensions” will let you place the call, however the recipient (in this case) pays for the call!
• 34:20 is a demo of what has the working title of “J-Lync”: a JavaScript wrapper that will let you embed all modalities into your website.
• 37:00 is a quick demo of high-definition video calling between Skype and Lync (available within “a few months”).
• At 41:00 Gurdeep wraps up the new features by dropping the bombshell that we’ll have 2-way PSTN calling in Lync Online “this year” (although he didn’t say what markets!), and they’ll also be adding support for “large meetings” to Lync Online – and by large meetings he was talking one or two THOUSAND participants!

So far no dates have been announced on any of the deliverables, nor about this fabled “next version”. There’s plenty of conference still to come, and I’m hoping they might be keeping a few surprises for the wrap-up session on Thursday.

– G.

(BTW, apologies if the times have drifted and don’t quite align in your replay of the session).
 
POSTSCRIPT: 25th Feb. I’m home!! Now for the joys of jetlag…

It was a great conference, and I’m going to be spending quite some time watching all of the sessions I missed. Here are a few pages you might like to peruse:

• Carl Olivier, Principal Program Manager, Skype writes in some great technical detail about the forthcoming “v2” of Skype-Lync interop. A “must-read”!
• Tim Woo takes us on a fascinating behind-the-scenes look at the Keynote demo – and drops “by June” as the current due date for Skype-Lync video. (In case you’ve missed it elsewhere, we’ll need to update both the Lync and Skype clients for this, but there will be no server-side work needed)
• Both Matt Landis and Jonathan McKinney blogged throughout the conference, and report much of interest. Thanks guys!