Today, Microsoft Lync, the next generation of unified communications, was released to manufacturing (RTM). This is the final engineering milestone before Lync is generally available worldwide on Wednesday, November 17, 2010 in New York City.

Lync brings instant messaging, presence, video and voice capabilities together, making it easier to communicate virtually face-to-face despite location. Any conversation can include video, application and desktop-sharing, and enable people to be fully present in meetings without being physically in the room. Lync capabilities will also be available in Office 365, announced earlier this month, allowing companies to use Lync on premises, in the cloud, or as a combination of the two.
 
Check out Microsoft’s Unified Communications Group Team Blog for the announcement by Kirk Gregerson senior director of product management, Microsoft Lync. Also, download the Lync release candidate for a fully functional version of Lync Server 2010.

The average business user receives over 1800 emails per month, according to analyst firm Basex. Today, Basex selected Office 2010 as the recipient of a Basex Excellence Award, also known as a Basey, recognizing Office as an industry-leading product in the areas of knowledge-sharing and collaboration. This year’s Basey awards focus on productivity and information overload and are presented as part of an online event in observance of Information Overload Awareness Day.

How does Office 2010 help people manage information overload? Check out some of the new features Outlook 2010 offers:

• Conversation View: Condense, categorize, or even ignore entire conversations with a few clicks. Conversation View turns dozens of messages into just a few relevant items. Go to the View tab in the Conversations group and select Show as Conversations.
• Mailbox Clean Up: New conversation management tools allow you to save valuable inbox space by turning dozens of e-mails into just a few conversations using the Clean Up feature. 
• Ignore: Don’t need to see all 27 emails about Bob’s retirement party? Can’t blame you – use Ignore feature to send entire conversations to Deleted Items.

The World is Changing - Is it Overwhelming Your Business?

Office 2010 now ranks as the fastest selling consumer version of Office in history, with more than 6 million copies sold to date - more than 30 copies of Office 2010 being sold every minute. We believe Office has been so popular in part because it helps people stay organized and productive. Read more about how Office 2010 offers solutions for information overload on the Office Matters blog, and more about the new features that help manage your Outlook 2010 inbox here.

“We selected Microsoft Office 2010 for this year’s Basey Award due to innovations in the suite that enhance the ability of knowledge workers to collaborate around documents, as well as for user interface improvements that streamline document processes for knowledge workers and standardize interfaces across applications.” – Jonathan Spira, CEO and chief analyst, Basex