IBM has committed to investing US$1 billion in its unified communications strategy in the next three years as it sharpens its sword to do battle with Microsoft in a fast-growing market.
Speaking at IBM's Somers, New York, campus, executives including Steve Mills, the senior vice president of IBM's software group, said IBM is ramping up its investment in products such as Lotus Sametime to provide unified communications to the largest business customers, which the company defines as having 1,000 or more employees. This is also the sweet spot for IBM's Lotus Notes collaboration software, the latest version of which includes the Sametime unified communications client.
Unified communications refers to the combination of instant messaging, Web presence, VoIP (voice over Internet Protocol), videoconferencing and other ways workers can collaborate and communicate in real time through one user interface. According to IDC, the market will grow to US$17 billion in annual revenue by 2011.
Microsoft recently unveiled its competitor to Sametime, Office Communications Server, offering it as a hub for unified communications built on a Windows infrastructure. That move has brought IBM out of the woodwork touting its competitive offerings.
IBM differentiates itself from Microsoft in several ways, including its 10-year experience with the Sametime product and its ability to support heterogeneous IT environments.
Sametime is historically a corporate instant-messaging client; IBM claims to have 20 million standalone Sametime users. Two years ago it rearchitected the software on the Eclipse open-source framework to make it easier for third parties to build add-on applications. It also added VoIP and video functionality.
IBM demonstrated some new functionality that will be part of Sametime by the end of the year. Called Unified Telephony, it helps users manage telephone calls from within Sametime by routing calls to various devices and setting rules on how to handle calls based on status. For example, a user can set Sametime to direct calls to a mobile phone if they are working remotely.