Below is a Voice for Office 365 FAQ and a summary of options for customers evaluating using Lync as a PBX replacement with Office 365.

To deploy Lync Voice for Office 365, the Lync services move out of O365’s datacenters and into yours — whether on-premise facility, Co-lo, Azure/AWS, hosting partner’s datacenter(s), etc. If on-prem / customer managed – you’re responsible for the SIP Trunking / PSTN to enable Lync Voice. If hosting through a Partner – they manage the SIP/PSTN & all other infrastructure services for you. Existing phone numbers can be ported to the new Lync voice system &/or use a combination of new/existing numbers.

 

Pricing — the E4 subscription provides the required Lync voice (user) licensing. The Lync Voice licensing components of E4 are comparable to the traditional Lync Std, Ent & Plus CALs. Further — E3 is comparable to Lync Std & Ent CALs. For customers that may already have Lync Std, Ent & Plus CALs (w/Software Assurance) — you have additional flexibility in terms of credit into the O365 plans &/or using “license mobility” benefits to host in partner datacenters. See here for specific use rights details:

 

With a partner hosted approach your costs will be a model of hosting fees, SIP/PSTN access and ongoing management. Expect all up subscription fees to start in the $20-40 range per user/mo (with discounting based on volume and term length). Pricing can be in the $20s or less if using pay as you go minutes or segmenting voice and conferencing services. Expect more in the $30-$40 range if using unlimited call/conferencing packages. If using on-premise — hw pricing varies depending on architecture, balance of physical/virtual, use of servers or appliances. Add another variable with consulting services — depending on how much you can handle yourself vs. outsource. And — you’ll still need SIP trunking/PSTN access — depending on call usage/incoming calls — you’re likely in the $5-10+/user/mo depending on calling / conferencing usage (pricing varies depending on rate for SIP Trunks, per minute calls and conferencing usage). Note — we typically find the ROI / TCO tilts toward hosted models as its challenging for many IT shops to replicate the ops/cost model of a hosted/managed model.

 

Pricing #2 — Lync Phones/devices run in the mid 200s for top of the line IP phones, low hundreds for usb phones, as low as $50 for headsets. Lots of options/variance here.

 

Exchange integration — In MSFT’s UC solution — Lync is im/presence, conferencing & voice, Exchange is voicemail, calendar, directory. In an E4 scenario — Exchange stays on O365 & you can leverage Exchange Online’s Unified Messaging service for voicemail (& auto attendant and/or directory) services. The integration model is the same/similar whether Lync voice is on-premise or partner hosted (I say “similar” if the hosted Lync voice is multi-tenant vs. single-tenant / private cloud).

 

Sign on — if you use the O365 ADFS/SSO, AD sync service — you can tie in Lync sign on to this. If you use O365’s sign-on, Lync users can have the same sign on, but will typically have a separately managed password or sync’d with O365. That being said — there are many options here to provide an SSO experience. Recent authentication options such as password enabled Dirsync + Azure AD Application Access provide more options / flexibility to this mix.

Feel free to comment or call, email or IM us for questions about all things Hosted Lync Voice for Office 365.