Office 365 is RTW, so what’s the difference between Lync On-Premises and Lync Online?

June 28th, 2011 | Tags: Lync Server 2010, Office 365

Earlier today SteveB announced the release of Office 365, the next iteration of Microsoft’s Business Productivity Online Services or BPOS. As a side note Office 2010 SP1 was also released to the web and can be downloaded here for x86 and here for x64.

As a part of the Office 365 offering comes Lync Online, a hosted version of Lync Server 2010. In actual fact you can even get an on-premises Lync Plus CAL (this includes Enterprise Voice) should you opt for the Office 365 E4 Plan.

So what are the differences between the two on-premises and hosted or live editions of Lync? I found a great feature comparison matrix in the Lync Online for Enterprises Service Description, it even illustrates the difference between Lync Online and Office Communications Online.

Updated table now available here

Features	Lync Server 2010	Office Communications Online	Lync Online
IM/Presence and Lync-to-Lync Calls
1-to-1 and multiparty IM/presence	Yes	Yes	Yes
Address book search	Yes	Yes	Yes
DL expansion (DLX)	Yes	Yes	Yes
File transfers	Yes	Yes (inside firewall only)	Yes
Lync-to-Lync audio/video calls	Yes	Yes (inside firewall only)	Yes
Lync-to-Lync high definition video	Yes	No	No
Presence and click-to-Lync from Office Apps	Yes	Yes	Yes
Interactive contact card in Office 2010	Yes	No	Yes
Lync Skill Search in SharePoint Server (on-premises)	Yes	No	No
Lync Skill Search in SharePoint Online	No	No	No
Persistent Group Chat	Yes	No	No
Privacy mode	Yes	No	No
Lync external connectivity (federation and Public IM connectivity)
IM/presence/audio/video federation with other OCS/Lync Server /Lync Online organizations	Yes	No	Yes
IM/presence/audio/video with Windows Live Messenger	Yes	No	Yes
IBM Sametime federation	Yes	No	No
IM/P federation with XMPP networks (Jabber, Google Talk)	Yes	No	No
IM/presence with AOL, Yahoo	Yes	No	No
Meetings (audio/video/web conferencing)
Meeting attendee capacity	250	No	250
Desktop sharing	Yes	No	Yes
Application sharing	Yes	No	Yes
White boarding and annotations	Yes	No	Yes
PowerPoint upload for online presentations	Yes	No	Yes
Upload for other file types	No	No	No
Multimedia Content Upload	No	No	No
Polling	Yes	No	Yes
Ad-hoc multiparty PC-based audio/video	Yes	No	Yes
Authenticated attendee in Lync Web App	Yes	No	No
Unauthenticated attendee in Lync Web App	Yes	No	Yes
Lync attendee client	Yes	No	Yes
Scheduled conferences (using Outlook plug-in)	Yes	No	Yes
Outlook delegation for scheduling meetings	Yes	No	Yes
Support for RoundTable	Yes	No	Yes
Lobby	Yes	No	Yes
Interoperability with certified partners for dial-in audio conferencing (ACP)	No	No	Yes
Phone dial-out from scheduled meetings via third-party dial-in conferencing service	No	No	Yes
Client side recording and playback	Yes	No	No
Server-side recording and playback	No	No	No
Generate a link to a scheduled meeting via web page	No	No	No
Scheduling an online meeting in Outlook Web App	No	No	No
Native dial-in audio conferencing on Lync server	Yes	No	No
Screen Snapshot (Desktop Annotation)	No	No	No
Backstage/Content Preview for presenters	Yes	No	Yes
Mute all attendees	Yes	No	Yes
Mute individual attendees	Yes	No	Yes
Unmute all attendees	Yes	No	Yes
Unmute individual attendees	Yes	No	Yes
In-meeting attendee permission controls	Yes	No	Yes
Interoperability with on-premises video conferencing systems	Yes	No	No
Voice and telephony
Lync-to-phone (calls with landlines and mobile phones)	Yes	No	No
Call hold/retrieve	Yes	No	No
Dial-out from ad-hoc Lync meetings	Yes	No	No
Advanced call controls (transfer, forward, simul-ring)	Yes	No	No
Access to Exchange Online voicemail	Yes	No	No
Team call	Yes	No	No
Delegation (boss-admin) for Voice	Yes	No	No
Call park	Yes	No	No
Outgoing DID manipulation	Yes	No	No
E-911	Yes	No	No
Dial plans and Policies	Yes	No	No
IP desk phone support	Yes	No	No
Resilient Branch Office Appliance	Yes	No	No
Call Admissions Control (CAC)	Yes	No	No
Support for analog devices (such as FAX)	Yes	No	No
Response groups	Yes	No	No
Private Line (secondary DID for executives)	Yes	No	No
Interoperability with third-party PBX or trunks	Yes	No	No
Presence interoperability with third-party PBX	No	No	No
RCC (click-to-call) with on-premises PBX	Yes	No	No
Malicious call trace	Yes	No	No
Unassigned Number	Yes	No	No
Network QoS – DSCP	Yes	No	No
Media path optimization	Yes	No	No
Phone number management	Yes	No	No
CDR and billing reporting	Yes	No	No
Integration with call center solutions (Aspect)	Yes	No	No
Client support
Lync 2010	Yes	No	Yes
Lync Web App for participating in scheduled meetings	Yes	No	Yes
Lync 2010 Attendee client (joining meetings)	Yes	No	Yes
Communicator for Mac client	Yes	No	No
Office Communicator Web Access (2007 R2) client	Yes	No	No
Office Communicator 2007 R2 client	Yes	Yes	No
Lync 2010 Phone Edition (Lync-based IP phones)	Yes	No	No
Lync 2010 Attendant client (receptionist rich client)	Yes	No	No
Communicator Mobile (Windows Phones 6.x)	Yes	No	No
Lync 2010 Mobile client	No (coming soon)	No	No (coming soon)
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)	Yes	No	No
Exchange/SharePoint interoperability
Presence interoperability with Exchange and SharePoint on-premises	Yes	Yes	Yes
Presence interoperability with Exchange Online and SharePoint Online	Yes	Yes	Yes
Unified Messaging interoperability with Exchange Online	Yes	No	No
Unified Messaging interoperability with Exchange on-premises	Yes	No	No
Lync Online and Lync on-premises, and administration
Server/cloud coexistence (split domain) on user basis (some users on-premises, some users online)	No	No	No
Splitting workloads (for example, IM/presence/voice on-premises, conferencing in the cloud)	No	No	No
PowerShell support	Yes	No	No
Bigfin (web) UI	Yes	No	No
Attendee/user reporting	No	No	No
Reporting (CDR, QoE)	Yes	No	No
Third-party API support
Client-side APIs	Yes	No	Yes
Server-side APIs	Yes	No	No