This is the third installment of my unified communications evaluation series. This article examines the UC offering from IBM. Overall, I give IBM a grade of Incomplete. Read on for more.
You can check out part one here and the second installment focused on Cisco here.
For those of you who follow the Lotus group at IBM, the Notes 7 to Notes 8 client (and similiar upgrades throughout the Lotus ecosystem) were a HUGE improvement. That said, their admitted goal was to look just like Microsoft Outlook… While IBM released a product that had the look and feel of Outlook 2003, MSFT was releasing Office 2007… Having a goal of being a full generation behind the competition doesn’t inspire confidence. However, IBM does have some upside as well. Lotus Connections is the clear leader in enterprise social software. It’s a great idea, but I’m not sure yet where it fits in the UC ecosystem.
From a product perspective I’m looking mainly at Lotus Domino/Notes and Lotus Sametime. Sadly, IBM doesn’t have a voice strategy other than to partner with others. Although it touts this as a strength and being flexible, the integration is very loose and still requires multiple clients which can be confusing to end users. Let’s break it down based on the functionality requirements from the first installment.
Presence engine – IBM has a stronger story than Cisco here. The presence engine is mature with multiple states of presence. However I miss the granularity of being able to limit access to availability and contact information based on an ACL or grouping. It also doesn’t seem to update well based on IP telephony integration. If I pick up the phone I want my client to know that and change my status automatically.
Instant Messaging – The IM client is fine. Nothing flashy. Unfortunately persistent chat is only available in the most expensive licensing tier, Sametime Advanced. I see more and more support groups using persistent chat and it needs to be included as basic functionality. the “instashare” function is also only one to one. Adding a third person requires starting a full web conference.
Federation – Federation is there but fairly weak. I’d like to know more of the nuts and bolts of how it works. Since Sametime isn’t natively SIP-based there are some challenges for federated voice and video. At VoiceConSF IBM announced they are developing a non-XMPP gateway to allow federation with a larger group including OCS users and possibly MSN/Live.
Public IM – A good lineup with Yahoo, Gtalk, and AOL on board. It’s text only, but that seems to meet most users needs.
Audio and Video Conferencing from a desktop client – Surprisingly limited. 1-1 conferences only. You have to fire up a web conference to meet between more than 2 people. This is a functionality gap given IBM’s focus on social collaboration. Not SIP based and uses nonstandard video codecs. That makes integration with conference room video solutions like Polycom and Tandberg difficult. IBM needs to step up to the standards plate and play ball.
Web Conferencing – This is another weak area. In fact, the IBM shops I spoke with generally use a service like WebEx instead of the IBM web conferencing tool despite the added cost.
Messaging Platform – Lotus Domino/Notes has some great functionality. For example, they’ve had the ability to fully replicate mail (and app) databases between multiple sites for years! I still find the Notes 8 client clunky and outdated but it’s light years better than Notes 7.
Mobility – The basic find me follow me functionality is there but other UC-enabled mobility functions are limited.
Collaboration – MeetingPlace (on-premise) has some realtime collaboration but lacks important features like document repositories, wikis, etc. WebEx Connect has some promise in these areas but right now it’s clunky and limited.
Extensible API – Most of the Lotus ecosystem is built on Eclipse. It’s a mature and highly stable platform. The downside is it’s also fairly limited. It’s also fairly resource intensive in this application. On an IBM T60 laptop starting an IM session and jumping to a voice call took 40% cpu.
IP Telephony – IBM simply doesn’t have a voice story. That’s inexcusable. They choose to partner with leaders like Nortel and Cisco, but that means yet another client running on the desktop and loose integration at best.
Remote Access – IBM’s remote access strategy is VPN only… or open a bunch of ports on your firewall. I applaud IBM’s support of social software, but this shows they really don’t get it when it comes to understanding how people work.
All in all, I can’t say IBM has a UC solution… They have an email platform that has some pluses some significant minuses, especially from an end user perspective. And they have a serviceable IM platform with limited voice and video capability. That’s not UC. Where’s the IPT? Where’s UM? When it comes to UC, IBM is a few pieces short of a puzzle. …and a few extra pieces (like Connections) that don’t quite fit at all.
Sadly, this quote from Matt Asay in October from The Open Road still rings true,
“IBM is a company that knows better than anyone else how to deliver true enterprise software…in the oldest and worst sense of the word: costly, complex, and clunky.”
