Microsoft has released the Microsoft Lync Client for Mac OSX to manufacturing (RTM) and is available to Volume Licensed users today (or
soon will be) and widely available on October 1st, 2011.  You can find some information about Lync on Microsoft’s website (http://www.microsoft.com/mac/enterprise/lync).

Some of the key features that exist with the new Mac Lync client are the ability to schedule meetings in Outlook 2011 for Lync Online Meetings, ability to join meetings automatically from the notification, improved conferencing and better Enterprise Voice features.

Within the realm of Enterprise Voice, we now have the ability to set call forwarding options including Sim Ring and others.  One item that is missing is delegation options.  The client itself, is very similar to the Windows version.  Although there are some items missing, which don’t make a ton of sense.  For example, there is no Activity Feed section, conversation history is still stored locally (and not within Outlook) and Voice Mail is missing.  Activity Feeds missing doesn’t make a ton of sense, considering that you can see everyone’s notes within the Lync client.

Although it is not feature complete when compared to the Windows version, it is a major upgrade over the previous version and hopefully the MacBU will continue to update Lync over the next few months with even more updates.  I’m sure the question everyone is wondering – do Polycom CX600 devices work with Mac Lync?  Not yet, but we can only hope that someday we will get that feature.

So – a solid 4 1/2 stars out of 5 for those who want a rating.  (One thing of note – Mac Lync is broken with the beta of Mac OSX 10.7.2 as of today – but I’m sure we will see fixes through Apple or Microsoft in the coming days.)