Microsoft Lync for Mac 2011 seen in the wild
Microsoft recently made its long-in-the-works Mac client for its Lync instant messaging, presence, conferencing and voice service available to enterprise customers holding a volume license for Office for Mac Standard 2011 and Communicator for Mac 2011.
On the Office for Mac blog, Microsoft in September said the Mac client would arrive in Oct. However, it was released a bit early.
Starting in October, our Mac customers will be able to experience the integrated communications experience that Lync has become well known for. From the updated contact cards to the ability to set up Lync conferences from Outlook 2011 for Mac to enterprise voice features, Lync for Mac 2011 offers Mac users integrated functionality for presence, instant messaging, conferencing and voice and is designed to work with both Lync Server 2010 and Lync Online.
According to the Mac Lync product page, the client will let users create, moderate, and join collaboration sessions and online meetings, and support desktop sharing. Mac users can "set up online meetings from Microsoft Outlook for Mac 2011."
The software will be available as an update to Microsoft Volume Licensing sites that have rights to Communicator for Mac 2011 or the Volume Licensing SKU of Office for Mac Standard 2011.
However, some customers pointed to limitations of the Mac client, such as this comment by Marc on the blog.
Yes, Lync Server has E911 but it is highly dependent on the client for location services functionality. As you can see from the Technet client comparison page, the current Communicator for Mac 2011 client does not support emergency services. Communicator for PC has no location services, only Lync 2010 for Windows. Neither E911 nor location services are mentioned on the Lync:mac pages, and no screenshot or video mentions or contains any location text like the PC client.
Given that it would be a feature many Mac-containing large deployments are waiting for, and they would be sure to mention it, I’d guess that the glaring omission of any mentions means it doesn’t have it. I’d be glad to be proven wrong by someone official or who has actually used the Lync:mac client!