IBM follows Microsoft with unified communications push

Following Microsoft's partnership with networking giant Cisco, the unified communications market is heating up even further with IBM's launch of a new range of collaboration products.

IBM has joined forces with Siemens to turn its Lotus Sametime software into a product family that will include new telephony integration software.

The move comes as Microsoft confirmed the October 16 launch of its much-hyped Office Communications Server 2007 for larger enterprises. It plans to sell unified communications to smaller businesses as an on-demand service.

Unified communications pull together voice, video and data communications and a multitude of applications to allow employees to communicate more easily with a range of endpoint devices.

IBM said the new Lotus Sametime product family will make it easier for companies to create a unified communications environment that delivers essential capabilities to users and simplifies back-end integration--without forcing software migration or rip-and-replace decisions.

The central new product in IBM's vision is the Lotus Sametime Unified Telephony software, which is heavily reliant on Siemens' OpenScape communications technology.

The choice of Siemens by IBM has raised many eyebrows because Siemens has, up to now, been a close unified communications partner to IBM's rival Microsoft.

IBM seems to be hedging its bets as to which network suppliers it comes to rely on, as Cisco is also a close partner in getting its Lotus Sametime collaboration offering into the enterprise market.

In addition, IBM is working with Nortel to get yet another unified communications platform into the marketplace by the end of the year. Microsoft has already chosen Nortel as its main hardware provider in supporting Office Communications Server 2007.

"IBM chose Siemens OpenScape technology because of its interoperability with multiple PBX systems and track record of innovation and vision in this field," said Bruce Morse, vice president for unified communication and collaboration at IBM. "Our companies share the goal of developing extensible unified communications solutions that are based on open standards and integrate seamlessly into business processes."

Current OpenScape customers include SAP, Accenture and PepsiCo.