So as most nerds would already know, OCS “14” has been re-named Microsoft Lync Server… and with it comes a new home for the OCS Team blog….

http://blogs.technet.com/b/nexthop/

I attended the OCS/Lync Ignite last week in Sydney (or syd-a-knee if you are president of the IOC). It was the first time i’d gone to anything like this run by MS – and it wasnt too bad. While we all did have to sign NDA’s, i dont think there was anything in there that isnt already public knowledge anyway…. so head over to the new team blog, read up and download the RC.

For me the best bits of Lync are the ability to co-locate more roles than previously (so less servers are required for small environments in particular) and the powershell admin. While im a firm believer that you should be able to do most things via a GUI in MS products – having a standard scripting interface is vital for those of us that like automating things – and the gradual powershell-ing of all server apps is making that happen.