New capabilities in Lync 2013

Highlights of new features and capabilities in Lync 2013 Preview, Lync Server 2013 Preview, and related products.

Communications-enable your applications

Unified communications as software. That summarizes the philosophy of Microsoft. Empowering developers to enable every application they build to become a communications endpoint that cannot only communicate with Lync, but also with networks like Skype, Live Messenger and others..

The upcoming release of the developer platform for Microsoft Lync Server 2013 and the Microsoft Lync 2013 client support that value proposition, strengthening the Microsoft Lync 2013 Managed API and the Unified Communications Managed API 4.0. Both APIs enable developers to use their .NET skills and the Visual Studio developer environment to easily build complex communications experiences in a minimal amount of time, without having to know complex protocols.

With Lync 2013, Persistent Chat has been added as an integrated capability of Lync, and the developer platform has been enhanced with these capabilities both on the client-side as well as on the server-side, so developers can integrate and enhance group chat easily in applications.

Lync Server 2013 will also be the first release to enable extending non-Windows applications, like web or mobile applications, with Microsoft’s unified communications: It will support the Microsoft Unified Communications Web API (UC Web API) which can be used across devices and operating systems using HTML5, JQuery and JavaScript. The UC Web API can also be called from native programming languages proprietary to various operating systems. This API will become available later in 2012.

How to use the Lync Developer Platform?

The power of the Microsoft Unified Communications developer platform is typically used in the following ways:

To customize and extend Lync

At times Lync does not work the way customers are accustomed to compared to legacy systems, or require additional functionality that needs an extension. Being built on a software platform, often such functionality can be added on top of Lync’s APIs.

To empower customer care

Lync offers a powerful multichannel communications platform that can be used to empower unique customer care scenarios. Dozens of ISVs offer great solutions, like web chat, IVR, or contact center to extend the reach of Lync beyond the enterprise.

Communications-enabled business processes

The pinnacle of using Lync’s software platform is to deeply embed communications inside applications and business processes. Building on familiar paradigms like .NET and REST-ful APIs, developers can easily add such functionality to their applications and business processes.

What next?

Familiarize yourself with the new APIs and changes in functionality by taking the Lync 2013 training, or download the SDKs:

Microsoft Lync 2013 SDK

Microsoft Unified Communications Managed API 4.0 SDK

Microsoft Lync Server 2013 Persistent Chat SDK

Note:

• The Microsoft Lync Server 2013 SDK will be available later in 2012.
• Documentation for the Microsoft Unified Communications Web API will be published later in 2012.