Headquartered in Osaka, Japan, Sharp Corporation delivers an ever-evolving product line that includes revolutionary multifunction business products, renewable energy-creating solar panels, energy-efficient televisions, and LED lighting. With a globally dispersed workforce, the company relies heavily on audio and video conferencing to help bring teams together to develop and sell products. To provide a better solution for ad hoc collaboration that also included presence awareness, instant messaging, desktop sharing, and enterprise voice, Sharp is planning to deploy Microsoft Lync Server 2010. With this technology, the company expects to improve communication between teams while also reducing costs for hardware, travel, and phone charges.

Situation
Founded in 1912, Sharp Corporation contributes to society by making unique electronic products that meet the new needs of each decade. From the first solar-powered calculator to the largest commercially available LCD monitor, from copiers to solar cells, from air purifiers to steam ovens, and from microelectronics to microwave ovens, Sharp covers all of the needs of the contemporary lifestyle. It employs 54,700 people around the world, and it earned ¥27.5 billion (U.S.$334 million) as of March 2010 fiscal-year end.

With Lync on the desktop and an HD camera, employees can have impromptu video conferencing sessions from any location as necessary. Kazumi Yoshikawa General Manager, IT Infrastructure, IT System Planning & Development Center, Sharp Corporation

To expand its distribution of products and services globally, Sharp needed a communications solution that would help employees communicate better in real time to complete projects and resolve problems quickly. For voice communications, the company relies on an IP private-branch exchange (PBX) system from a domestic vendor. For video conferencing, employees use solutions from Tandberg. Sharp also deployed Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 email messaging and collaboration software. To provide instant messaging and presence capabilities, the company deployed Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007.

At its offices in Japan, Sharp wanted to provide more effective conferencing and enterprise voice capabilities both to increase efficiency and to help reduce costs. So employees could communicate in real time, the company wanted to implement a solution that offered capabilities such as presence awareness and instant messaging. It was particularly interested in a solution that would support high-definition (HD) video conferencing for employees who work together on geographically dispersed teams. “Our teams use video conferencing to display and discuss prototypes and illustrations of products in development,” explains Kazumi Yoshikawa, General Manager, IT Infrastructure, IT System Planning & Development Center at Sharp Corporation. “Our corporate sales team also uses video conferencing to meet with field sales representatives around the world.”

In addition to supporting high video quality, the company wanted a solution that would support interaction between team members through capabilities like desktop and application sharing. If employees could be more productive working with prototypes and design illustrations over video, they could reduce the number of times they had to travel to meet with remote team members. In addition, the company wanted to make it easier for employees to hold ad hoc video conferences from the desktop. Sharp also wanted an easier way for its help desk to offer training and support for the system that employees use to create new products.

Solution
After investigating solutions from several vendors, Sharp decided to deploy a pilot program for Microsoft Lync Server 2010. Lync Server provides enhanced versions of the communications capabilities provided by Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2—presence, instant messaging, robust conferencing, and enterprise voice—as well as improvements in topology, deployment, and management tools. At its offices in Japan, Sharp is developing plans to roll out instant messaging, presence, and ad hoc collaboration and online meeting capabilities. It will also consider enterprise voice as an optional telephony service for employees.

For the deployment, Sharp is considering a standard pool configuration in a virtual environment. By deploying Lync Server in a virtual environment, the company can reduce the amount of required hardware and make it easier to maintain the system without interruption.

With Microsoft Lync 2010, Sharp employees have a single, unified client to access capabilities such as instant messaging, conferencing, and desktop sharing. Employees can view presence information to see if a colleague is available and then initiate a chat session or phone call with a single click. They can easily share a desktop or open a whiteboard session for more interactive meetings. Because some Lync Server capabilities are accessible through the Microsoft Office Outlook messaging and collaboration client, employees can also view presence or start an instant messaging session without having to switch to the Lync client.

To support ad hoc HD video conferencing from the desktop, the company is evaluating the Microsoft LifeCam Cinema HD video cameras to use with the Lync 2010 client. Now, employees will have the option of booking a room for larger meetings, or holding one-on-one or ad hoc video conferences from their computers no matter where they are located. With Lync, employees can easily open a desktop or application session during a video conference to share illustrations, or open a whiteboarding session to take notes or develop new plans. Help-desk operators can also use video conferencing and desktop sharing to train or support employees who need assistance using or troubleshooting issues with computer-aided design (CAD) software.

We think the online meeting features in Lync will help us revitalize communication across the organization, because time and geography are no longer factors. Kazumi Yoshikawa General Manager, IT Infrastructure, IT System Planning & Development Center, Sharp Corporation

Benefits
Although Sharp has experienced benefits from its Office Communications Server 2007 deployment, the company uses Lync Server to provide a more comprehensive communication solution that helps employees communicate better in real time. It can also reduce costs by consolidating its conferencing services and encouraging employees to use the peer-to-peer and enterprise voice features to make calls through Lync.

Improved Communication
“We think the online meeting features in Lync will help us revitalize communication across the organization, because time and geography are no longer factors,” says Yoshikawa. With Lync on the desktop, Sharp employees will have more options for communicating with colleagues all over the world. To get questions answered quickly, they can use instant messaging, and if they need to have more discussion, they can easily move from an instant messaging session to a phone call with just one click.

Employees are also no longer constrained by location when it comes to video conferencing. “With Lync on the desktop and an HD camera, employees can have impromptu video conferencing sessions from any location as necessary,” says Yoshikawa. The HD quality also makes it easier for people to see more intricate prototypes and illustrations.

For larger, more formal meetings, employees can still use the video conference rooms, but with Lync sessions they become more interactive. The meeting presenter can easily open a whiteboarding session to capture notes and ideas, and participants can share their desktops or CAD applications to display designs. “We expect that people will use conferencing more frequently to communicate because it is so easy to access through Lync. They can also share information on the desktop while they talk,” says Motoko Matsufuji, Junior Manager, Network Planning Department, IT System Planning & Development Center at Sharp Corporation.

Reduced Costs
Sharp expects to reduce costs in a number of areas with its Lync Server deployment. “With the HD video support, people can more easily hold meetings with sense of presence and see product designs on screen, so we expect to reduce travel,” explains Matsufuji.

To talk to colleagues inside the office, employees can place calls using Lync instead of their desk phones. For employees who have enterprise voice capabilities, they can also use Lync to call colleagues, partners, or vendors outside the office. Employees who travel can use Lync to call the office, which helps reduce mobile phone charges.

By deploying Lync in a virtual environment, Sharp also avoided additional hardware costs. It can support its environment and even provide redundancy without having to deploy extra hardware.

Microsoft Lync Server 2010
Microsoft Lync Server 2010 ushers in a new connected user experience that transforms every communication into an interaction that is more collaborative and engaging and that is accessible from anywhere. For IT, the benefits are equally powerful, with a highly secure and reliable communications solution that works with existing tools and systems for easier management, lower cost of ownership, smoother deployment and migration, and greater choice and flexibility.

For more information about Microsoft Lync Server 2010, go to:
www.microsoft.com/lync

For More Information
For more information about Microsoft products and services, call the Microsoft Sales Information Center at (800) 426-9400. In Canada, call the Microsoft Canada Information Centre at (877) 568-2495. Customers in the United States and Canada who are deaf or hard-of-hearing can reach Microsoft text telephone (TTY/TDD) services at (800) 892-5234. Outside the 50 United States and Canada, please contact your local Microsoft subsidiary. To access information using the World Wide Web, go to:
www.microsoft.com

For more information about Sharp Corporation products and services, visit the website at:
www.sharp-world.com