IBM gears up for Unified Communications and Collaboration

BANGALORE, INDIA: IBM announced a major new initiative for the unified communications market including a wide range of  investments, product and technology advances and collaboration with leading clients and business partners. Expanding at 38 percent annually, IDC estimates unified communications will reach $17 billion by 2011, representing the next significant frontier for technology growth.

IBM’s software and services offerings make it easy and intuitive for users to enjoy the benefits of unified communications and collaboration capabilities.  IBM’s goal is to make it easy for people to find, reach and collaborate with others through a unified user experience. 

In the next year, the proliferation of IBM software and services enabling anytime, anywhere productivity will expand across devices from desktops and laptops to a range of devices from the likes of RIM, Apple, Sprint-Nextel and Symbian and across major platforms including Mac, Windows and Linux.  Soon, the capabilities of the office will be available to users regardless of their device or location.

IBM's strategy combines unified communications -- the convergence of information technology and telecommunications -- with collaboration to enable a wide range of innovations that can change the way people work together.  IBM sees a future in which sweeping changes will reshape the way businesses communicate and collaborate worldwide across the private and public sectors.

IBM predicts five major trends that will propel demand for unified communications and collaboration over the next five years:

• The Virtual Workplace will become the rule. Desk phones and desktop computers will gradually disappear, replaced by mobile devices, including laptops, that on traditional office capabilities.  Work models will be changed by expanded globalization and green business initiatives that reduce travel and encourage work at home.
• Beyond Click-to-Call to Communication Enabled Business Processes. Companies will go beyond initial integration of communications into their desktops to deep integration with business processes and line-of-business applications, where they can realize the greatest benefit. 
• IM and other real-time tools will become a business expectation. Just as email became a company necessity, younger generations of workers will demand instant messaging (IM) as the preferred method of business interaction.  This will fuel more rapid adoption of unified communications as traditional IM becomes the core extension point for multi-modal communications.
• Proprietary, "Walled Garden" business models will give way to open interoperability across business and public domains. Corporate demand for interoperability and maturing of industry standards will force unified communications providers to embrace interoperability.  Converged, aggregated, and rich presence will allow businesses and individuals to better find and reach the appropriate resources, removing inefficiencies from business processes and daily lives. 
• New models for conducting effective “meetings” will emerge.  The definition of “meetings” will radically transform and become increasingly adhoc and instantaneous based on context and need.  3-D virtual world and gaming technologies will significantly influence online corporate meeting experiences to deliver more life-like experiences demanded by the next generation workers who will operate more efficiently in this familiar environment.

To meet the demand for these shifts, IBM is investing significantly in a range of resources. IBM Research is currently exploring a growing number of social and collaborative software projects with over 70 researchers dedicated to this work in eight research labs worldwide.  In 2008, over 1,300 IBM software developers and technical experts will make innovative contributions to unified communications. New technical skills programs for IBM developers are being used to help accelerate software development, including the teaching of Eclipse-based development. In addition, IBM”s Venture Capital program is working to identify and fuel promising new innovations in unified communications.

Part of this investment also covers a significant expansion of IBM Lotus Sametime software products.  Work has also begun on blending IBM’s social software expertise into the real-time environment. The new IBM Lotus Sametime Advanced software, available March 28, includes community tools that enable users to spend less time trying to figure out who can help solve a problem, by reaching out to reach out to a community of colleagues or experts instantly.  Lotus Sametime Advanced also features sophisticated collaboration features such as persistent group chat and instant screen sharing capabilities. 

Large-scale adoption of IBM’s unified communications and collaboration platform and services is growing. IBM Global Technology Services is assisting clients around the globe to exploit the convergence of voice, video, and data. Among many of our clients, IDEA Cellular, a leading cellular operator and an Aditya Birla Group Company, is implementing a first-of-its-kind unified communications and collaboration solution. IBM is providing the services, assets and skills to deliver consulting, design and architecture, implementation; thereby, seamless integrating the solution into the existing environment. The IBM investments will address clients’ requirements for integration of multi-platform environments and multiple network equipment providers, while masking the complexity of delivering the solution with proven reference architecture to address mission critical business needs.  IBM is making full investment in training our engineers, consultants and services professionals in IBM industry-leading Global Services Method and Reference Architectures, which have been applied to thousand of engagements.

A variety of innovative companies from around the world are working with IBM software and services to deliver new unified communications solutions. For example, IBM and Avaya are developing a state-of-the-art unified communications solution including voice, fax, e-mail or instant message for the Pennsylvania State Employee’s Credit Union. IBM and Forterra Systems are developing a futuristic, unified communications solution code-named "Babel Bridge" that could allow US intelligence agencies to use a common graphical collaboration system to instantly communicate within a virtual world. IBM Business Partner, VBrick is introducing the VBrick Lotus Sametime Video Plug-in, the first product that streams live broadcasts and on-demand digital video content within the IBM Lotus Sametime environment.