It came as a surprise to everyone, including The VAR Guy himself, when Microsoft announced that Office Communications Server (OCS) would become known as Microsoft Lync. But it hasn’t taken long for an independent “Lync Forum” newsletter to spring up and start promoting a 2011 Lync Summit in Colorado. Here’s the scoop.

The Lync Forum’s URL is still OCSForum.com and the site looks like a work in progress. All the same, the first Lync Forum newsletter, as sent to The VAR Guy, praises Microsoft’s unified communication offering and its rebranding, singling out the new GUI as “very cool.”

For its part, the Lync Summit 2011 is slated be held from June 15-17 in the Westin Westminster Colorado. Lync Forum is accepting exhibition, speaking, and meeting-training opportunity inquiries, which indicates that the concept is in the larval stage.

That’s all well and good, but who is Lync Forum? They downplay their connection, but it seems to be operated by Telecom Reseller VoIP Networks, an internet telephony-focused news site that describes itself as “The Voice of Unified Communications.”

The VAR Guy’s team will be watching closely to see how the Lync Summit shapes up. No doubt, plenty of hosting providers and channel partners are betting heavily on Lync. Before the rebranding, numerous VARs shared upbeat views on OCS during Microsoft’s Worldwide Partner Conference (WPC10) in July 2010.

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