Let's set the groundwork:
Mac OS X 10.8.2 (Mountain Lion)
Lync 2011 14.0.4 (also seen with 14.0.2 and 14.0.3)
Outlook 2011 14.3.1
When Lync and Outlook are run concurrently Lync 2011 will, after a brief period of time, report extremely high CPU utilization (over 150% CPU on a Core i7 CPU). At the same time, Outlook 2011 will report high (40% and above) CPU usage. Threads used by Lync
2011 will go up to about 85 (from 24 when running by itself).
During this time Lync will remain responsive, but Outlook 2011 will be effectively unresponsive (command-Q will quit Outlook after a delay of 10-15 seconds). Inspecting the Lync or Outlook process via Activity Monitor will show abnormally large numbers of Mach
Messages, System Calls, and Context Switches.
Quitting either Lync or Outlook will return CPU utilization and other indicators to normal levels.
This behavior has been going on for several months. It's not a crashing issue, but it makes it impossible to run Lync and Outlook at the same time.
I've deleted and rebuilt ~/Documents/Microsoft User Data/. I've done a clean re-install of Mac OS X on my Mac. I've confirmed that another user in my company is seeing the same behavior on their computer. I've also read the other threads here: this is not the"I had 10K messages in my Deleted Items folder" error - I've long cleared that. My total Exchange Server storage is 610MB, with the largest single subfolder at 100MB (1,569 items). Inbox is typically between 75 and 300 items, with no subfolders.
No other processes report abnormal CPU usage during this time. This includes Microsoft Database Daemon and mdworker (Spotlight). I am using Activity Monitor to view All Processes, not simply My Processes.
This is not transitory. Once the high CPU utilization phase begins, it's been seen to go on for as long as 20 minutes (at which point I gave up and quit processes) - so it's not just a "spike" from an indexing process.
I had high hopes for the Lync 14.0.4 update, but the issue remains. Any assistance would be appreciated.