Daily Archives: July 12, 2011

Microsoft, Tech

Microsoft plans big Skype/Lync integration

Ballmer promises Lync won’t be harmed by Skype purchase

Skype will be thoroughly integrated with Microsoft’s Lync communications software, assuming regulators approve the $8.5 billion acquisition, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said this week.

 

Best Microsoft MCTS Training, Microsoft MCITP Training at certkingdom.com

 

Lync, which is being sold both as a server product and a cloud-based service, will not lose any prominence in the Microsoft software lineup once Skype comes on board, Ballmer said in a keynote at the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference in Los Angeles.

Microsoft Lync: Take to the cloud or keep it in-house?

“With the combination of the power of Lync and Skype under the same umbrella, we think we’re going to be able to do even more fantastic things together,” Ballmer said.

Small businesses and enterprises deploying Lync will gain a secure form of communication with consumers and businesses because of integration between Lync and Skype, the latter of which offers Internet-based chats and voice and video calls, he said.

“I’ve been asked by partners if this Skype acquisition somehow means we’re not serious or enthusiastic about Lync,” Ballmer said. “Quite to the contrary. One of the great motivations in acquiring Skype is to enable the enterprise to have all the control it wants in communication and collaboration through Active Directory and Lync, and yet be able to connect people within enterprises to consumers, businesses and trading partners around the world. Lync, in some sense with Skype is a strategy that will allow the consumerization of IT to really proceed with full vim and vigor.”

Microsoft’s purchase of Skype is still waiting for regulatory approval, so the integration between Lync and Skype can’t happen yet.

“Just like with any big acquisition, we have contact with Skype, certainly,” Kirk Gregersen, Lync senior director, told Network World in an interview after Ballmer’s speech. “We just can’t start the integration until regulators have approved things.”

Gregersen says he’s not a Skype user himself, but that “for a lot of people there is obviously great value, for the 600 million Skype users out there. As Steve said, connecting all these people is great value both for the enterprise customers and those consumers out there.”

Lync Server is positioned as a replacement for legacy PBX phone systems, and Ballmer praised the product’s momentum. Lync provides “eye candy” to enterprise customers just as Xbox Kinect does to the consumer market, he said.

“Seventy percent of the Fortune 500 is now on Lync,” Ballmer said. “Certainly if you look at a product from Microsoft that is growing most quickly, it is Lync in the enterprise.”

While the exact nature of Skype’s future integration with Lync remains unclear, there is also uncertainty over when the cloud-based version of Lync will become as robust as its on-premises sibling.

Lync Online, part of Office 365, is not yet a full PBX replacement, Microsoft acknowledges. The company’s advice for Office 365 customers who want a robust unified communications platform is to deploy Lync Server within their own networks.

Lync provides three types of workloads: messaging and presence, conferencing, and voice, says Ashima Singhal, Lync group product manager. Lync Online users get the same IM, presence, and audio, video and Web conferencing capabilities – including desktop sharing – as customers who deploy Lync in-house, but the cloud-based voice capabilities are not as robust, she says.

Microsoft, Tech, Windows 7, Windows 8

7 free Windows tune-up tools and tips

You don’t need to spend money to keep a Windows computer running in top form. Here’s how to fix, clean and maintain Windows using programs you can download now for free.

The following software and tips generally apply to Windows 7, Vista and XP, and are listed in the order you should use them for the first time on a computer you suspect may be infected with malware or running slower than it should.

Best Microsoft MCTS Training, Microsoft MCITP Training at certkingdom.com

 

1. Update Windows itself with Windows Update.

Though this should be a no-brainer, many Windows users don’t install the latest updates for the OS provided by Microsoft (which are usually issued every Tuesday). Either they ignore the update notices that Windows sends them, or their Windows setup doesn’t have automatic updating turned on. But ensuring that your installation of Windows has the latest updates and patches is one of the easiest ways to keep it functioning well.

That said, we’re partial to not having Windows set to automatically download and install updates. After all, you could be using your computer online when unexpectedly both your Internet connection and computer slow because Windows is downloading and installing updates. Instead, we prefer leaving the automatic updating feature off, and visiting Windows Update once a week to manually check for updates.

2. Scan for malware with Malwarebytes Anti-Malware.

Chances are, if you cannot visit the official Malwarebytes site (either the domain is blocked, or you’re forwarded to another domain), then your Windows system has already been infected by malicious code. That is a testament to how effective Malwarebytes Anti-Malware is — many malware writers try to block you from using this specific tool.

If you’re trying to clean out malware from an infected Windows computer that is obviously preventing you from visiting the Malwarebytes site: You’ll have to download the tool from another, un-infected computer and copy its installation file onto a USB flash memory stick or USB external drive. We suggest renaming the Malwarebytes Anti-Malware installation file to whatever you like before you run it on the infected Windows computer — there have been malware known to delete the installation file, recognizing that it’s Malwarebytes’ tool by its file name.

Furthermore, even if you can successfully install Malwarebytes Anti-Malware, the malware may immediately delete the executable (mbam.exe) before you have a chance to start it. If that’s the case, you’ll then have to copy over mbam.exe from another computer, renaming it first to another name of your choosing, and then clicking on it directly to run it on the infected computer.

Can’t use the USB ports of the infected Windows computer because the malware has blocked access to them? Try copying the installation file to a writable CD or DVD. The malware has managed to prevent you from even accessing the infected computer’s media disc drive? Then you’ll have to physically take out the hard drive from the infected computer, connect it to another Windows computer as a slave or external drive, and have this second system run Malwarebytes Anti-Malware to scan and clean the drive.