One of my customers has been weighing the options of using Lync Online vs Lync On-Premise. There are a lot of questions about the feature sets available between the two offerings. The Microsoft Office 365 community has posted this chart for review.
http://community.office365.com/en-us/w/lync/480.aspx
The following matrix compares features across the delivery models for Lync Server 2010 (on-premises), Lync Online, and Office Communications Online (“OC Online”).
Feature | Lync Server 2010 | Lync Online | OC Online |
IM and Presence | |||
1-to-1 and multiparty IM/presence | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Address book search | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Distribution list (DL) expansion (DLX) | Yes | Yes | Yes |
File transfers | Yes | Yes | Yes (inside firewall only) |
PC-to-PC audio/video (A/V) dial-out calling | Yes | Yes | Yes (inside firewall only) |
Click-to-communicate from Office applications | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Interactive contact card in Office 2010 | Yes | Yes | No |
Lync skill search in on-premises SharePoint Server | Yes | No | No |
Lync skill search in SharePoint Online | No | No | No |
Persistent Group Chat | Yes | No | No |
Privacy mode | Yes | Yes | No |
Lync External Connectivity (Federation and Public IM Connectivity) | |||
IM/Presence and A/V Federation with other organizations running Lync Server, Lync Online, or Office Communications Server | Yes | Yes | No |
IM/presence and A/V federation with Windows Live Messenger | Yes | Yes | No |
IBM Sametime federation | Yes | No | No |
IM/presence federation with Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol (XMPP) networks (including Jabber and Google Talk) | Yes | No | No |
IM/presence with AOL and Yahoo | Yes | No | No |
Meetings (A/V and Web Conferencing) | |||
Meeting attendee capacity | 250 | 250 | No |
Desktop sharing | Yes | Yes | No |
Application sharing | Yes | Yes | No |
White boarding and annotations | Yes | Yes | No |
PowerPoint upload for online presentations | Yes | Yes | No |
Upload for other Office file types | No | No | No |
Polling | Yes | Yes | No |
Multiparty PC-based A/V | Yes | Yes | No |
Unauthenticated experience in Lync Web App | Yes | Yes | No |
Unauthenticated attendee (rich client) | Yes | Yes | No |
Authenticated experience in Lync Web App | Yes | No | No |
Scheduled conferences (using the Online Meeting Add-in for Lync 2010 in Outlook) | Yes | Yes | No |
Outlook delegation for scheduling regular meetings | Yes | Yes | No |
Outlook delegation for scheduling online meetings | Yes | No | No |
Support for RoundTable conferencing device | Yes | Yes | No |
Lobby | Yes | Yes | No |
Interoperation with certified partners for dial-in audio conferencing | No | Yes | No |
Provisioning for dial-in audio conferencing service for Office 365 direct customers | No | Yes | No |
Phone dial-out from scheduled meetings via third-party dial-in conferencing service | No | Yes | No |
Client-side recording and playback | Yes | Yes | No |
Server-side recording and playback | No | No | No |
Generate a link to a scheduled meeting via web page | No | No | No |
Schedule an online meeting in Outlook Web App | No | No | No |
Schedule an online meeting in Lync Web Scheduler | No | Yes | No |
Dial-in audio conferencing on Lync Server | Yes | No | No |
Multimedia content upload | No | No | No |
Screen shot capture (including annotation) | No | No | No |
Backstage/content preview for presenters | Yes | Yes | No |
Mute all attendees | Yes | Yes | No |
Mute individual attendees | Yes | Yes | No |
Unmute all attendees | Yes | Yes | No |
Unmute individual attendees | Yes | Yes | No |
In-meeting attendee permission controls | Yes | Yes | No |
Interoperability with on-premises video conferencing systems | Yes | No | No |
Voice and Telephony | |||
PSTN calling (incoming/outgoing calls) | Yes | No | No |
Call hold/retrieve | Yes | No | No |
PSTN dial-out for meetings | Yes | No | No |
Advanced call controls (including transfer, forward, and simultaneous ring) | Yes | No | No |
Access to Exchange Online voice mail | Yes | No | No |
Team calling | Yes | No | No |
Delegation for voice (for example, boss delegates to admin) | Yes | No | No |
Call park | Yes | No | No |
Outgoing Direct Inward Dialing (DID) manipulation | Yes | No | No |
Enhanced 9-1-1 (E9-1-1) | Yes | No | No |
Dial plans and policies | Yes | No | No |
IP desk phone support | Yes | No | No |
Survivable Branch Appliances for branch office resiliency | Yes | No | No |
Call admissions control (CAC) | Yes | No | No |
Support for analog devices (for example, fax) | Yes | No | No |
Response groups | Yes | No | No |
Private line (secondary DID for executives) | Yes | No | No |
Interoperation with third-party private branch exchange (PBX) | Yes | No | No |
Presence interoperation with third-party PBX | No | No | No |
Remote call control (RCC) (also known as “click-to-call”) with on-premises PBX | Yes | No | No |
Malicious call trace | Yes | No | No |
Unassigned number | Yes | No | No |
Network Quality of Service (QoS) – Differentiated Services Code Point (DSCP) | Yes | No | No |
Media path optimization | Yes | No | No |
Phone number management | Yes | No | No |
Call detail recording (CDR) and billing reporting | Yes | No | No |
Integration with call center solutions (Aspect) | Yes | No | No |
Client Support | |||
Lync 2010 | Yes | Yes | No |
Lync Web App (for participating in scheduled meetings) | Yes | Yes | No |
Lync 2010 Phone Edition (IP phones for Lync) | Yes | No | No |
Lync 2010 Attendee client (for joining meetings) | Yes | Yes | No |
Lync 2010 Attendant client (receptionist rich client) | Yes | No | No |
Lync for mobile devices | Yes | Yes | No |
Office Communicator for Mac | Yes | No | No |
Office Communicator Web Access (2007 R2) | Yes | No | No |
Office Communicator 2007 R2 | Yes | No | Yes |
Office Communicator Mobile (for Windows Mobile 6.x phones) | Yes | No | No |
IM and media encryption | Yes | Yes | Yes |
IM filtering | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Anti-malware scanning for meeting content and file transfers | Yes (partner solutions) | No | No |
IM archiving (server-side only) | Yes | No | No |
Exchange and SharePoint interoperability | |||
Presence interoperation with Exchange and SharePoint on-premises | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Presence interoperation with Exchange and SharePoint Online | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Exchange Unified Messaging (UM) interoperation with Exchange Online | Yes | No | No |
Exchange UM interoperation with Exchange on-premises | Yes | No | No |
Hybrid Lync Online and On-premises Administration | |||
Use the same domain for Lync on-premises and Lync Online users | No | No | No |
Splitting workloads (for example, running IM/presence/voice on-premises, and conferencing in the cloud) | No | No | No |
Windows PowerShell support | Yes | Yes | No |
Web-based user interface (Lync Server Control Panel and Lync Online Control Panel) | Yes | Yes | No |
Attendee/user reporting | No | No | No |
Reporting (using CDR and Quality of Experience (QoE))) | Yes | No | No |
Third-party API Support | |||
Client automation APIs (client-side only) | Yes | Yes | No |
Server side APIs | Yes | No | No |