Lync Server 2010, Lync 2010 and SDKs Release Candidate Available Now

At TechEd 2010 US, I presented a session called Building Communications Enabled Business Processes with Microsoft Communications Server “14” on developing solutions for the upcoming release of Office Communications Server “14” and Office Communicator “14”.

I have some interesting news to share. 

First, Office Communications Server “14” and Office Communicator “14” have been renamed Lync Server 2010 and Lync 2010 respectively.  Lync Server 2010 and Lync 2010 provide the infrastructure and the client for an integrated communications experience, where it’s easy to find contacts, get presence information and communicate from your PC, browser and mobile device.  You can get more details on what’s shipping in this version on the Lync product page.

Second, release candidates of Lync Server 2010, Lync 2010 and the SDKs are available for download today. 

When developing solutions for Lync Server 2010, you can create communication enabled services with support for presence and communications via the Unified Communications Managed API 3.0 Release Candidate. 

If you’re interested in integrating Lync 2010 presence, contact information and communications into your clients, you’ll want to check out the Lync 2010 SDK Release Candidate.  More details on how you can build solutions for Lync can be found on the Lync Platform Extensibility page.

So, what’s next?  Well, I’m working on getting Lync development training on Ch. 9 to compliment the SharePoint 2010 and Office 2010 training courses.  Along with these training courses, we’ll have a virtual labs environment and Hyper-V virtual machines to make it easy to get up and running with Lync development quickly.

I’ll share details on this blog as soon as possible. Stay tuned!