Communicator for Mac 2011

Updated November 10 with more details on Mac Messenger 8.x for Hotmail.

Updated November 7 with answer re: Enterprise Voice and a question about forums you use -

Updated October 26 with a Volume License reference below

I have received a new Macbook Pro in order to get a first hand experience with the non-Windows communications with Lync Server 2010. The Office:Mac 2011 release introduces a change to the IM client experience by separating the personal and corporate clients as Windows did with Windows Messenger and Communicator. You now have Mac Messenger 8.x and Communicator for Mac 2011. Customers that were using Mac Messenger 7.x will have to upgrade to Mac Messenger 8.x for their personal or Windows Live account, the Communicator for Mac 2011 client only connects to OCS 2007 R2 and Lync Server 2010. At this time I have not used the Mac Messenger 8.x client.

So you should begin seeing some new posts from me about the IM, Meeting, Voice experiences with this new hardware and client. I will share that the first quick call I tried yesterday sounded ok on my side but my peer indicated it was not good quality for him. I think this is nothing more than the use of laptop speakers and microphone just as on my Lenovo T60p laptop. I will test with my USB headset in the future.

Looking for docs: https://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=7c4f539d-eb3c-422a-9b35-022970fc9c34

Customers with a Volume License looking for the new Microsoft Office for Mac 2011 and Microsoft Communicator for Mac 2011 should look for the version that includes Standard in the name – Microsoft Communicator for Mac 2011 Standard. Thanks to Henry for asking about this.

There was an anonymous question about whether Communicator for Mac 2011 is a supported Enterprise Voice endpoint with OCS 2007 R2. Based on my usage and the content of this link the answer should be yes - https://mac2.microsoft.com/help/office/14/en-us/deploy/item/a8a2ef4e-c3b6-4f6d-840f-74f28e186036?category=e189da12-170f-4118-8d02-f66f4fd4c291  For those needing support, have you posted to any forums, if so I want to know what forum you are currently using, I suspect this one https://www.officeformac.com/ProductForums/MacOtherProducts/  and I want to know if this is the forum you expect to use so I can figure out how to handle directing feedback to others for monitoring, also have you contacted support as support calls with voice tend to be more difficult and there is a chance both the Lync/OCS team and Mac team would need to collaborate. You should have seen my email alias one or two times in a post or the OCS forums and you can always use the contact form and I will reply.

TomL