Day 2 at the 2012 Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference
Editors Note: VoIP Supply Product Manager, Tom Costelloe, is blogging from Toronto at the 2012 Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference. Click here for his Day 1 recap.
Day two at Microsoft WPC has been put to bed and it felt much busier from where I was standing in the Sangoma booth and walking the floor.
Maybe for the first day people walked the floor to take everything in and today, folks were about meetings and greetings with exhibitors and manufacturers.
The one takeaway I have from the people I have met is that, this really is an international event. Over the last two days, I have meet people from several countries for the first time.
After diving into Lync headsets on day one, I thought that I would take a look at some of the Lync phones that were here on display.
Polycom (Booth #719)
On display from Polycom were the Polycom VVX 500 and 1500 phones as well as some of the CX phones. Polycom offers a variety of phones for both USB connectivity and traditional Ethernet.
The one piece of information I learned from Polycom is that the camera for the VVX 500 will be released before the end of the year (Video: Skip to 1:20 mark for camera demo) and that to expect a lot more to come from them in the Lync endpoint market.
The booth also featured their Lync optimized Video conferencing options but more on that to come tomorrow.
snom (Booth #457)
snom has their complete suite of snom phones as well as their Lync and Lync qualified phones.
The snom 300, snom 370, and snom 821 all can work with Lync installations and SIP based installations. This gives them flexibilty across a variety of installations.
Aastra (Booth #436)
Over at the Aastra booth, featured devices include SIP phones and video solutions.
Pictured here is the Aastra 6725ip IP phone that’s optimized for Microsoft Lync giving users full integration with Outlook, for example, plus PC desktop control of the phone’s standard features.
Additionally, Aastra SIP DECT handsets are featured to highlight their wireless mobility options.
HP (Booth #1319)
The bulk of the HP booth is their laptop and computers but HP does carry two lync phones HP 4110 and HP 4120.
The HP 4120 desktop phone has a 3.5″ color LCD display and two line appearance while the HP 4110 common area phone has the same display and one line appearance.
Both models have been optimized for use with Lync.
Altigen’s Interesting Placement (Booth #336)
The one phone on the EXPO floor that seems a little out of place is the Altigen iFusion.
The iFusion is a Bluetooth docking station for the iPhone that gives your iPhone the feel of a traditional desktop phone.
A great product but a little out of place at the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference.
Next Up for Day 3
Tomorrow we’ll review the video conferencing options with Lync.
