In September 2010, Microsoft issued what it termed a milestone update release of itsOffice Communications family of products for unified communications (UC), includingOffice Communications Server 20071. The improved “OCS” product lineup was evengiven a new name — Microsoft Lync. As Microsoft explained at the time, the Lync brandmore clearly reflected the company’s vision to “bring together siloed real-timecommunications systems and create new ways for people to connect.”The OCS updates and revised product name paid off. Today for SMBs and largerorganizations, Microsoft Lync is one of the most acknowledged solutions on the UCmap. With Lync Server 2010 and other products that contribute to the Microsoft Lyncplatform, an organization gets the core messaging, collaboration, and conferencingfunctionality that makes unified communications so appealing. Lync also delivers thevoice capability essential to UC by way of voice over IP (VoIP) via the Lync 2010 clientand interoperability with various telephony PBX vendors. Added up, the Microsoft Lync2010 platform gives most any enterprise a sound foundation for UC implementation.