Pricing and Licensing for Lync Server 2010

Microsoft has published on the Lync website its planned price list and licensing for the Lync Server 2010 and related CAL (client-access-license) clients.

As you probably know already, Lync is the name for Microsoft’s Office Communications brand, and new Lync Server 2010 and Lync clients should be out before the end of this year.

Lync Online should be released during the first half of 2011 and earlier this month, Microsoft got out a public Release Candidate test build of Lync.

The software company is positioning Lync as its PBX alternative, Mary Jo Foley reports.

Most prices of Microsoft products are stable according to company's officials, with the forthcoming release of the new integrated instant messaging/audio/video conferencing product.

There is one exception however, the price of the Enterprise CAL is decreasing by 23 percent, according to a spokesperson, who stated that “all other (Lync/OCS) prices are unchanged” from OCS 2007 levels.

“There were numerous improvements across all the Lync offerings, but we focused some of the biggest investments on the Lync Server 2010 Enterprise CAL and the new Lync Server 2010 Plus CAL—separating Audio, Video, and Web Conferencing and adding new Enterprise Voice functionality to the Plus CAL,” explained the spokesperson.

If Lync interests you, check out the Lync website for all the details.

However if you're in a hurry and don't have the time to read all the info, you should know that the Lync Server 2010 Standard Edition costs $699, and the Enterprise Edition, $3,999.

Also, the Standard CAL is $31, Enterprise CAL is $107 and Plus CAL costs $107, and the Communicator 2007 R2 standalone license is $31, according to the site.

Remember you need a CAL for each user or device accessing a Lync Server and you can buy CALs individually or as part of the Microsoft Enterprise CAL suite.

And also, a CAL is not the same as the Lync client software, which has several versions, including a new one for Mac users.