Matt Landis Windows PBX & UC Report: Lync Federation Directory Project Reaches 10,000 Organizations Milestone: Will UC Federation Ultimately Replace PSTN Cloud?

The Lync Federation Directory Project was started September 2011 to make people aware of just how many companies are available to collaborate using Microsoft UC solutions and the benefits of UC Federation. There has been huge interest in this project worldwide and I’m glad to announce that the Lync Federation Directory Project has surpass our goal and milestone of 10,000 organizations! A huge THANKS to the Lync community and Lync administrators worldwide!

Progress at the Lync Federation Directory Project

For all the contributions the community has made I think you are all due an update. I’m very glad to be able to share the below statistics of what has been happening at the Lync Federation Directory Project:

+10,000 organizations: http://bit.ly/lyncfed
11 Months running: Started September 2011
Over 60 Countries represented
Nearly 5,000 downloads of the free Lync Who Can Federate Tool: http://bit.ly/wcftool
32 Five Start Ratings of Lync Who Can Federated Tool
Mentions on TechRepublic, TMCnet, NoJitter and blogs all over the web. (Thanks for each mention!)

Goals of Lync Federation Directory Project?

I’ve just had someone ask again last week, What do you hope to achieve by the Lync Federation Directory Project? Here is my short answer:

To communicate the benefits of UC Federation
To make people aware just how many organizations are available to collaborate via UC Federation
To Evangelize UC Federation’s viability as a future “PSTN Cloud Replacer”

As I’ve said in private discussions, I don’t believe that a “big list” of companies using Lync is the primary benefit of the project: the awareness that it brings is the primary benefit.

New Lync Federation Directory Project Features You May Not Know About

The Lync Who Can Federate Tool can run as a tray app and give you a daily report of people you can federate with: http://bit.ly/wcftool
The Lync Federation Directory how lists entries by top level domains

Vision for the Lync Federation Directory Project’s Future

As we look to the future we can see a time when the Lync Federation Directory Project current objectives will be about as necessary as a mail server directory. ;-) When that time comes, I’ll be glad because our current goals will obviously be achieved. Once the initial goals of the project are achieved what might be some ways it can continue to deliver value to the community? Some requests that I get are:

Is there exchange where Lync administrators can securely connect to each other to negotiate federation arrangements?
Is there a list of Abusive domains?

Yes, as we look to the future we can see a time when the Lync Federation Directory Project current objectives will be about as necessary as a mail server directory…but not yet!

How Can You Help the Project?

Add your organization to this list by {clicking here}
Help yourself and community by seeing who in your Outlook contact list has Lync/OCS by running WCF Tool and submitting entries not currently in Lync Federation Directory Project. Takes 1 min! {click here}
If you have used the Who Can Federate Tool and like it, please take a second to Rate it! (5star of course ;-) http://bit.ly/wcftool
Promote http://bit.ly/lyncfed
Spread the Word: Comment or Tweet how UC Federation helps you.