IBM Aims to Burst Microsoft's Office Communications Bubble

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With Microsoft poised to unleash its next collaboration and unified communication (UC) suite next week, rival IBM is launching a preemptive strike by promising a tight level of integration between its own UC platform and its new, free Lotus Symphony productivity suite.

IBM said Sametime customers would soon be able to share and collaborate on presentations, word processing and spreadsheets created in Lotus Symphony, the company’s suite of free business applications released last month. Those users will also be able to conference using Sametime’s on-premises Web conferencing app or IBM’s recently acquired Web-based conferencing application, Lotus Sametime Unyte.

“Office isn’t the only application in the enterprise,” Akiba Saeedi, director of IBM’s Unified Communications and Collaboration division, told InternetNews.com. “We want to offer customers more choices.”

Lotus Symphony’s integration with Sametime versions 8.0 and higher may not arrive until some point during the first half of next year, however. Touting the news early is designed to steal a bit of Microsoft’s thunder comes in advance of Tuesday, when the software giant will launch its much-touted Office Communications Server 2007 (OCS).

Along with its Office Communicator client and Office Live Meeting service, the OCS launch will mark Redmond’s most extensive foray into the UC arena. Office Communications Server 2007 will add Voice over IP (define) to the IM and collaboration features the company had previously marketed as its Live Communications Server.

Microsoft has said the intent is for companies to use OCS for instant messaging and collaboration while being able to retain their existing PBX systems, if they desire. OCS can integrate with these legacy systems as well, in some cases enabling employees to have incoming calls routed simultaneously to both their VoIP- and landlines.

IBM has other ideas, of course. During an interview with InternetNews.com, Akiba Saeedi, director of IBM’s Unified Communications and Collaboration division, said Big Blue may be gunning for similar synergies but it takes a different approach.

This article was first published on InternetNews.com. To read the full article, click here.