Microsoft announced its Q4 2012 fiscal results last week, reporting $18.6 billion in revenue during April to June 2012. Those are impressive stats, but that record-breaking quarter — the most revenue Microsoft has generated in any quarter in its 37-year history — was tempered by news that Microsoft’s purchase of online advertising company aQuantive (which Redmond took a $6.2 billion write-down for) led also to Microsoft’s first quarterly-loss, a pool of red ink that weighed in at $492 million.
The devil is always in the details, however, and digging further into Microsoft’s earnings report revealed that Microsoft’s Server and Tools Group continues to bring home the bacon, and Microsoft’s Lync unified communications (UC) product experienced some impressive growth. How impressive has Lync’s growth been? Here’s what Peter Klein, Microsoft’s Chief Financial Officer, said about it in the Q4 2012 earnings conference call:
“Our productivity server offerings continue to perform very well, with
double digit growth. Our newest server offering, [Microsoft] Lync, grew
over 45% this quarter. And we’re excited about the unified
communication scenarios that are enabled by new voice, video, and
social capabilities.”
Given that Lync adoption is booming these days, where can you go to get the latest information on Microsoft’s newest rising star? As always, Twitter is a great resource for finding Lync experts, support, and information, so I’ve taken the liberty of putting together a list of some of the Lync resources I found in the Twitterverse.
This list by no means wholly complete or exhaustive, so if you have a favorite resource or expert that I’ve missed — are are one yourself — please add a comment to this blog post with your favorites.
Tom Arbuthnot (@tomarbuthnot)
Based in London, Tom is a Microsoft Lync MVP and a unified communications and collaboration specialist for Modality Systems. He’s a founding member of the Microsoft unified communications user group in London, and writes for his own Lync-focused blog at www.lyncdup.com.
Jeff Guillet (@expta)
Several Lync experts are also well-versed in Microsoft Exchange, and Jeff Guillet falls into that category. He’s authored several books on Exchange, has a host of certifications, and writes and consults as well. Based in California, Jeff posts on his own blog at www.expta.com.
Adam Jacobs (@adamjacobs)
Adam is a global unified communications architect at Polycom, and is co-founder of the Microsoft Unified Communications User Group (@MUCUGLondon). Like many of the other Lync experts on this list, Adam also writes regularly about Lync topics on his own blog at http://imaucblog.com.
Matt Landis (@matthewlandis)
A Microsoft Lync MVP, is also the CEO and founder of Landis Computer, an IT consulting firm based in Ephrata, PA. Matt’s company website can be found at http://landiscomputer.com, while his Lync blog is located at http://windowspbx.blogspot.com.
Tom Morgan (@tomorgan)
While most of the people on this list deal with the administration side of Lync, Tom Morgan deals with Lync development. He’s a .NET developer that also writes the ‘Developing Lync’ blog, which focuses on .NET and Lync development at http://thoughtstuff.co.uk.
Kevin Peters (@LyncGuy)
Kevin is a Lync MVP who works as a unified communications architect at Unify Square (@unifysquare). He also has a blog dedicated to OCS, UC, and Lync topics at http://ocsguy.com.
Cameron Reid (@cloudlync)
Another Lync expert on Twitter is Cameron Reid, a unified communications evangelist at Enabling Technologies. Based in Boulder, CO, Reid tweets regularly about Lync, VoIP, UC, and other IM and messaging topics.
Two more Lync-focused Twitter accounts worth noting are Microsoft’s official Lync product (@msftLync) and Lync team (@DrRez) accounts. The latter tends to interact more with IT professionals and frequently links to and promotes the work of Lync authors, bloggers, and consultants. I’ve also created a Twitter list of Lync experts where you’ll find all the Twitter profiles mentioned here listed.
Know of any Lync resources on Twitter that I missed? Feel free to add a comment to this blog post of continue the discussion on Twitter.
- Follow Jeff James on Twitter (@jeffjames3) and Google+ (add Jeff to your circles)
- Follow Petri IT Knowledgebase on Twitter (@petri_co_il)