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Office 365: Lync Online vs Lync On-Premise

One of my customers has been weighing the options of using Lync Online vs Lync On-Premise. There are a lot of questions about the feature sets available between the two offerings. The Microsoft Office 365 community has posted this chart for review.

http://community.office365.com/en-us/w/lync/480.aspx

The following matrix compares features across the delivery models for Lync Server 2010 (on-premises), Lync Online, and Office Communications Online (“OC Online”).

Feature Lync Server 2010 Lync Online OC Online
IM and Presence
1-to-1 and multiparty IM/presence Yes Yes Yes
Address book search Yes Yes Yes
Distribution list (DL) expansion (DLX) Yes Yes Yes
File transfers Yes Yes Yes (inside firewall only)
PC-to-PC audio/video (A/V) dial-out calling Yes Yes Yes (inside firewall only)
Click-to-communicate from Office applications Yes Yes Yes
Interactive contact card in Office 2010 Yes Yes No
Lync skill search in on-premises SharePoint Server Yes No No
Lync skill search in SharePoint Online No No No
Persistent Group Chat Yes No No
Privacy mode Yes Yes No
Lync External Connectivity (Federation and Public IM Connectivity)
IM/Presence and A/V Federation with other organizations running Lync Server, Lync Online, or Office Communications Server Yes Yes No
IM/presence and A/V federation with Windows Live Messenger Yes Yes No
IBM Sametime federation Yes No No
IM/presence federation with Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol (XMPP) networks (including Jabber and Google Talk) Yes No No
IM/presence with AOL and Yahoo Yes No No
Meetings (A/V and Web Conferencing)
Meeting attendee capacity 250 250 No
Desktop sharing Yes Yes No
Application sharing Yes Yes No
White boarding and annotations Yes Yes No
PowerPoint upload for online presentations Yes Yes No
Upload for other Office file types No No No
Polling Yes Yes No
Multiparty PC-based A/V Yes Yes No
Unauthenticated experience in Lync Web App Yes Yes No
Unauthenticated attendee (rich client) Yes Yes No
Authenticated experience in Lync Web App Yes No No
Scheduled conferences (using the Online Meeting Add-in for Lync 2010 in Outlook) Yes Yes No
Outlook delegation for scheduling regular meetings Yes Yes No
Outlook delegation for scheduling online meetings Yes No No
Support for RoundTable conferencing device Yes Yes No
Lobby Yes Yes No
Interoperation with certified partners for dial-in audio conferencing No Yes No
Provisioning for dial-in audio conferencing service for Office 365 direct customers No Yes No
Phone dial-out from scheduled meetings via third-party dial-in conferencing service No Yes No
Client-side recording and playback Yes Yes No
Server-side recording and playback No No No
Generate a link to a scheduled meeting via web page No No No
Schedule an online meeting in Outlook Web App No No No
Schedule an online meeting in Lync Web Scheduler No Yes No
Dial-in audio conferencing on Lync Server Yes No No
Multimedia content upload No No No
Screen shot capture (including annotation) No No No
Backstage/content preview for presenters Yes Yes No
Mute all attendees Yes Yes No
Mute individual attendees Yes Yes No
Unmute all attendees Yes Yes No
Unmute individual attendees Yes Yes No
In-meeting attendee permission controls Yes Yes No
Interoperability with on-premises video conferencing systems Yes No No
Voice and Telephony
PSTN calling (incoming/outgoing calls) Yes No No
Call hold/retrieve Yes No No
PSTN dial-out for meetings Yes No No
Advanced call controls (including transfer, forward, and simultaneous ring) Yes No No
Access to Exchange Online voice mail Yes No No
Team calling Yes No No
Delegation for voice (for example, boss delegates to admin) Yes No No
Call park Yes No No
Outgoing Direct Inward Dialing (DID) manipulation Yes No No
Enhanced 9-1-1 (E9-1-1) Yes No No
Dial plans and policies Yes No No
IP desk phone support Yes No No
Survivable Branch Appliances for branch office resiliency Yes No No
Call admissions control (CAC) Yes No No
Support for analog devices (for example, fax) Yes No No
Response groups Yes No No
Private line (secondary DID for executives) Yes No No
Interoperation with third-party private branch exchange (PBX) Yes No No
Presence interoperation with third-party PBX No No No
Remote call control (RCC) (also known as “click-to-call”) with on-premises PBX Yes No No
Malicious call trace Yes No No
Unassigned number Yes No No
Network Quality of Service (QoS) – Differentiated Services Code Point (DSCP) Yes No No
Media path optimization Yes No No
Phone number management Yes No No
Call detail recording (CDR) and billing reporting Yes No No
Integration with call center solutions (Aspect) Yes No No
Client Support
Lync 2010 Yes Yes No
Lync Web App (for participating in scheduled meetings) Yes Yes No
Lync 2010 Phone Edition (IP phones for Lync) Yes No No
Lync 2010 Attendee client (for joining meetings) Yes Yes No
Lync 2010 Attendant client (receptionist rich client) Yes No No
Lync for mobile devices Yes Yes No
Office Communicator for Mac Yes No No
Office Communicator Web Access (2007 R2) Yes No No
Office Communicator 2007 R2 Yes No Yes
Office Communicator Mobile (for Windows Mobile 6.x phones) Yes No No
IM and media encryption Yes Yes Yes
IM filtering Yes Yes Yes
Anti-malware scanning for meeting content and file transfers Yes (partner solutions) No No
IM archiving (server-side only) Yes No No
Exchange and SharePoint interoperability
Presence interoperation with Exchange and SharePoint on-premises Yes Yes Yes
Presence interoperation with Exchange and SharePoint Online Yes Yes Yes
Exchange Unified Messaging (UM) interoperation with Exchange Online Yes No No
Exchange UM interoperation with Exchange on-premises Yes No No
Hybrid Lync Online and On-premises Administration
Use the same domain for Lync on-premises and Lync Online users No No No
Splitting workloads (for example, running IM/presence/voice on-premises, and conferencing in the cloud) No No No
Windows PowerShell support Yes Yes No
Web-based user interface (Lync Server Control Panel and Lync Online Control Panel) Yes Yes No
Attendee/user reporting No No No
Reporting (using CDR and Quality of Experience (QoE))) Yes No No
Third-party API Support
Client automation APIs (client-side only) Yes Yes No
Server side APIs Yes No No

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