IBM’s Forays in the Cloud
Target Web Conferencing
After introducing its new breed of
cloud computing
services last month, now the company is offering cloud-centric solutions
for Web conferencing. The spotlight will be on its online meeting
software Lotus Sametime Unyte, as it has signed a distribution agreement
with conferencing player InterCall.
According to IBM, InterCall
will deliver Lotus Sametime Unyte's intuitive online meeting capability
to InterCall customers worldwide.
IBM believes that as more
companies are investing in collaboration technology, Lotus Sametime
Unyte brings an affordable, easy-to-use option for businesses that need
to work together across cities and continents, just as they would in the
same room.
The added support for open
document formats, such as Lotus Symphony, along with support for nine
languages ensures companies in emerging and established markets can
collaborate by paying a monthly subscription, says IBM.
The integrated Sametime
Unyte services will be available to InterCall users on January 1, 2009.
According to researcher
Gartner, with 22% hop, the worldwide
web conference and team
collaboration software market revenue is expected to reach $2 billion in
2008, Tech convergence and workplace communities are among the factors
for growth.
And research firm IDC says
spending on IT cloud services will grow to reach $42 billion by 2012.
IBM is eyeing this market
growth by offering an array of cloud-based services. The marketing and
sales partnership with InterCall is a step in that direction. It wants
to leverage the Lotus Sametime Unyte's reach and language support to woo
big enterprises and SMBs for conferencing services.
"At a time when companies
are becoming more environmentally aware and focused on reducing travel
expenses without slowing their growth, IBM's new partnership with
InterCall shows how we're helping businesses 'go global' at a minimal
cost," says Sean Poulley, vice president, online collaboration services,
IBM Lotus.
Lotus Sametime Unyte can be
accessed through any Web browser with no downloaded software required.
IBM has also integrated
Sametime Unyte with Lotus Notes and Lotus Sametime, allowing users
working by email or instant messaging to join a Web conference. The new
features also include a participant "waiting room" to gather attendees
before the call; improved alerts for meeting organizers; new support for
the FireFox 3.0 browser; as well as the ability to share or publish PDF
and ODF files, in addition to PPT, DOC and XLS files.
