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IBM's New Telephony Credentials |
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Written by Adam Gosling
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Thursday, 23 August 2007 |
IBM has unveiled the next phase of its unified communication and
collaboration (UC2) strategy by expanding its IBM Lotus Sametime
software into a product family that will include new telephony
integration software.
The company has a new offering, Lotus Sametime "Unified Telephony"
which it says is based on Siemens OpenScape technology. The new
solutions will bring telephony to business applications and make it
possible to manage communications across multiple business telephone
systems and access them through virtually any application.
The
SIP-based system will connect with a variety of back-end and legacy
systems
in a mixed-vendor environment says IBM. The Lotus Sametime Entry
offering is being designed to integrate with a variety of applications,
such as Microsoft Outlook. The systems will also have the ability to
add plugins and mashups, will integrate with public IM networks and in
upcoming version is expected to include point-to-point
video capabilities for Macintosh clients and support for Microsoft
Office and Outlook 2007 integration.
Users will be able to manage incoming calls via their desktop and
providing options on how to handle the call - such as send the call to
a mobile phone or voice mail or answer it through their PC. Users will
be able to set rules on how they would like to handle calls based on
their status. So if a users has a meeting in their calendar all calls
are automatically routed to voice mail and so on.
The system will provide IM presence status integrated with their
Lotus Sametime contact list and will enable them to dial a contact and
talk through VoIP directly from their desktop. Click to call and click
to conference capabilities will be provided directly from their contact
list.
IBM plans to expand Lotus Sametime software from a single offering
to a family of products, building a suite of community broadcast tools,
and new features such as core collaboration capabilities with IM
capabilities, presence awareness, spell check capabilities, emoticon
support, chat history functionality and contact list management
features.
The Lotus Sametime Advanced software has features like
persistent group chat and what IBM says is the industry's first suite
of broadcast community tools that will make it easier to find
information and share expertise in real time.
At the VoiceCon 2007 conference, the IBM System i team is previewing
a forthcoming solution that builds on its portfolio of System i IP
Telephony offerings with a new high-end solution that pairs Unified
Messaging for WebSphere Voice Response with VoiceRite Unified Messaging
Plug-ins for IBM Lotus Sametime and Lotus Notes 8 on a single System i
server. The solution will help enterprise customers combine voicemail,
IM, email, Web and IT infrastructure, application development and
business processing on a single platform that is easier and less
expensive to manage than comparable offerings that require multiple
servers.
Lotus Sametime Standard software is expected to be available in the
fourth quarter of 2007. Lotus Sametime Entry and Advanced offerings are
expected to be available during the first half of 2008. The Lotus
Sametime "Unified Telephony" offering is expected to be available in
mid 2008. Pricing and packaging will be announced closer to
availability.
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