Blue Jeans lets Microsoft Lync play nice with others

In 2011, Blue Jeans Network allowed Skype users to join videoconferences originating from Microsoft Lync systems, something Microsoft had yet to do itself. Now, the company is announcing full-HD bi-directional desktop sharing to and from Lync without any additional hardware or software — a global first.

Essentially, interoperability is beating closed systems.

Previously, while anyone with a $10 webcam in a cheap laptop could start or join a conference via their browser and be a first-class client at the video-conferencing table, Microsoft’s Lync users could only join conferences. They could not share their desktops to users of other videoconferencing systems as they could with other Lync systems.

Now, Lync users will be first-class citizens in heterogenous technology environments too.

“Tens of thousands of Lync endpoints have already participated in Blue Jeans meetings,” Stu Aaron, Blue Jeans Network’s chief commercial officer, said in a statement. “With this new bi-directional HD desktop sharing feature, Lync users can now also share their own desktop content, including presentations and other documents, the way they are used to, in high definition with other meeting participants.”

In other words, the world of video conferencing and desktop sharing is far bigger than the Lync userbase, but now Lync users can use their investment to broadcast and receive from anyone, anywhere, on virtually any system.

Blue Jeans Network, whose corporate goal is flipping the annual 100 billion minutes businesses spend on audio conferencing into video, is not a stranger to first-evers. The company also was the first to integrate video-conferencing tools into Salesforce.com.

Now the company’s technology is often serving as the glue that ties together disparate video-conference systems.

According to one system integrator, Blue Jeans helps businesses integrate room-based conferencing systems with Microsoft Office 365, Lync with Cisco or Polycom hardware, or simple browser-based technology with any of the high-end solutions.

“Blue Jeans acts as a simple, reliable, and scalable solution to allow businesses large and small to benefit from interoperable video conferencing without the headaches of on-premise solutions,” Neil Setchell, CEO of systems integrator and consulting firm ExtraTeam, said.

The new technology is fully implemented in the Blue Jeans cloud, requires no software or hardware, and is included with every Blue Jeans subscription, the company said.

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