For week 2, I’m working off of a Samsung Chromebook.

Let’s Get Right To It

Lync is a core tool for daily communication and collaboration.

My experimentation last week had a caveat with Lync; however, this week (on Chromebook) there’s no hiding behind the fact that Lync (desktop) app is critical to get work done.

• Instant Message – OK – IMs come in as notifications in the top of the page.  After accepting an IM, it opens a new window in IE.  If you IM with a lot of people concurrently, it could be easy to lose the IM windows.  In Chrome, it’s a similar issue except for the fact that you can convert a window into a tab, so you can ‘collect’ them as tabs in a single window.  It helps a little, but still a pain for both platforms.  I would definitely prefer Lync (desktop) or Lync (modern) app on Windows.  If neither of those, I would want IE or Chrome WITH the browser plugin.
• People Search – GREAT – The people search in “Outlook” or “People” apps of Office 365 return results insanely fast.  From there I can easily IM, email or schedule a meeting with someone.  Because this is so fast, it is one of the big reasons I prefer the browser experience over desktop
• Conferencing – GOOD – I can join conferences via the browser with excellent feature parity.  On Windows, I can install the browser plugin and desktop share, join the Lync call (voice), etc.  With Chromebook, I’m definitely sunk.  Without the ability to install the plugin, I can’t desktop share or join the voice call.  I have to use my cell phone for this.
• Desktop Share – BAD – non-existent without browser plugin or Lync on Windows.

Summary

• Without Lync (desktop) installed…I felt hinder.  The browser would be good enough for a quick IM on the go…but not for full day of communication.
• Notetaking was nearly seamless in the browser.  I am a huge handwritten note taker…which I missed.  If I don’t mind opening a laptop for every meeting, I can type my notes just fine.
• Email and Yammer were the best and most seamless experience.  The only challenge I had was the lack of local storage.  Some times I would need to save a file locally to upload to another location (more on next line).
• My biggest concern was the lack of local storage.  Yes, Google Drive was there…but all of the documents placed there would be indexed.  Regardless of the fact that people call it my “personal index” that is data crawled and stored…and give the sensitive of the content I work with…it’s not a viable option for me.
• For the most part, Word, Excel and PowerPoint worked for my needs (creating, editing in the browser).  I had one proposal that needed some fine tune adjustments.  For that, I had to fall back on my Surface.  It was a 5% case.