Lync Web App Audio and Video

Another weakness in the previous versions of the product was the fact that a thick client was required for anonymous participants to join any audio or video on their endpoint to the meeting. This requirement often caused confusion for participants using Lync Web App because content-sharing features were available, but audio required PSTN dial-in and video couldn’t be shared. Users could optionally install the Lync Attendee client to use IP audio and video from their workstation, but this was an extra step and never proved to be as popular as the old Live Meeting client.

Lync Server 2013 has rectified this situation by providing IP audio and video within Lync Web App through a browser-based plugin. This change provides anonymous users with a single option for joining conferences with all the functionality that could possibly be used, including the new Gallery View for video conferencing.

The newly revamped Lync Web App no longer uses Microsoft Silverlight and is instead based on HTML and JavaScript standards, although it is not entirely HTML5. Audio, video, and screen sharing capabilities are provided through a small plugin installed while the user joins a meeting. The plugin requires no administrative privileges and works on both PCs and Mac platforms, but there is no support for Linux browsers today.