Last week in front of an audience of 13,000 partners who attended the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference (WPC), Steve Ballmer called this a special year for Microsoft Lync, the centerpiece of our unified communications solution. He quoted Microsoft COO Kevin Turner who has referred to Lync as “the Kinect of the Enterprise.”

That statement rang true for those of us who use Lync on a daily basis. For our partners, customers and users like me, it is a tool that is present across all of the productivity programs that we use on premises or in the cloud with Office 365.

If you are not familiar with Lync, it gives you rich presence information and communication tools across the PC, phone and browser. If I want to collaborate with a colleague, I have a lot of options – I  can start an instant message conversation, talk on the “phone” (via VOIP), chat on a video conference call, brainstorm on a virtual whiteboard, or share my desktop. And I can do all of this using the Lync interface itself, or through Office, SharePoint and other applications. It has redefined how I think about integration and collaboration, as I no longer send emails to colleagues for “quick questions.” I find it much faster to send an instant message and have a real-time conversation.

One of our customers, Nikon Corporation, found that deploying Lync not only saved the company money on conferences and travel costs, it boosted productivity in some areas by 30 percent, while increasing responsiveness to customers. Michiko Noborisaka, General Manager of the Information System Planning Department at Nikon sees the benefits firsthand. “With Lync, communication is much more efficient because people do not have to switch programs to make a call or join a meeting.”

If you haven’t deployed Lync in your company, it is time to consider it. It is a game changer for communication and collaboration. Your employees, regardless of their work style, will thank you for it. And, if you are using Lync, please share your thoughts. Has it had a significant impact on your business?