BT rolls out Microsoft Lync across Asia Pacific

BT today announced availability in Asia-Pacific of its converged communications platform, BT Onevoice, with Microsoft Lync (Office Communications Server 2010). By combining BT’s global voice and video services with Microsoft Lync, business customers based in Asia-Pacific will benefit from an innovative suite of collaboration tools which delivers advanced capabilities, significant cost savings and operational efficiencies.

A key advantage of Microsoft Lync is its ability to offer a wide range of collaboration technologies on a single platform – from simple phone calls or chat, to emails, conferencing and much more. This is especially important in a region such as Asia-Pacific, which comprises a vast array of countries and cultures, with many at different stages of technology development and adoption. The growing influence in the work place of the new generation of “digital natives” (also known as “Gen Y”) adds to the comfort level when using platforms such as Microsoft Lync that offers a wide range of connectivity options.

Kevin Taylor, President, BT Global Services Asia-Pacific, said: “This is yet another example of how BT customers around the Asia-Pacific region can benefit from the relationships we have built with world leading players such as Microsoft. The combination of BT’s commercial flexibility, voice solution expertise, and the full range of UC applications incorporated within Lync, provides an end to end communications solution for users across the Asia-Pacific. These innovations reinforce BT’s ability to position telephony services as true applications and deliver high quality global solutions with predictable and flexible commercial packages. They are a key element of the investment programme we announced last year to support our growth ambitions in the region.”

By using Microsoft Lync within BT’s global IP network, customers gain access to the latest telephony, instant messaging, conferencing and presence software in a secure and fully-managed environment. They benefit from BT’s end-to-end experience in providing business-grade voice, video and unified communications, with higher quality of service levels, network performance management and 24 x 7 maintenance and support.

“The partnership with BT represents continued momentum for Microsoft Lync in Asia-Pacific and is further evidence for how Microsoft products are enabling our partners to build and develop innovative new solutions and offerings,” said , Mike Tuohy, General Manager, Asia-Pacific, Information Worker Group. “Customers who deploy Microsoft Lync are finding unprecedented productivity gains – Forrester Consulting found that Microsoft Lync offers customers up to 337% ROI with a payback period of 12 months. With BT, we are confident that customers throughout Asia-Pacific will find that Microsoft Lync will help them connect with their customers, employees and partners in new ways.”

BT launched Microsoft Lync-based managed services in the UK in 2010 and will also be launching soon to the US, with other regions to follow throughout 2011.

BT Onevoice, Microsoft Lync and BT’s wider collaboration portfolio play an integral role in BT’s Asia-Pacific expansion plans with multiple new launches planned for 2011. BT found 80% of its multi-national customers were rapidly expanding in Asia. This rapid growth calls for enhanced collaboration technologies such as Microsoft Lync which provides a cost effective solution that reduces the need for corporate travel across the wide distances in Asia-Pacific, decreases the customers’ carbon footprint and increases corporate productivity.

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About Microsoft Lync
Microsoft Lync is the new family brand for the products formerly known as Microsoft Communications Server, Microsoft Communications Online and Microsoft Communicator, and now also includes Microsoft Lync Web App, and Microsoft Lync Online. Learn more about Lync at www.microsoft.com/lync.
About Microsoft
Founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq “MSFT”) is the worldwide leader in software, services and solutions that help people and businesses realize their full potential.