New to Lync is the handling of “analog extensions”: faxes, courtesy phones, modems, etc.
Prior to Lync, analog devices were typically created and managed through your voice gateways, perhaps with manual routing entries and no control over barring or means of cost recovery. It was far from elegant.
Now you can create the extensions themselves as Contacts in your AD, add a picture, dial them by name, apply Lync voice policies, and even collect CDR when they’re used – so they’re very much now an integral part of the Lync solution.