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IBM has recently introduced IBM Sametime 8.5.2, a new release of their Sametime application designed to help users contact and collaborate with colleagues, customers, and partners in the most beneficial way.
Included in this new release are audio and video browser-based online meetings that can use either native or third-party telepresence systems; standard-based Network Address Translation support and Firewall traversal for audio and video, making it easy to use audio and video with people outside of your network; bandwidth management tools that protect the network by allocating and managing audio and video usage; and support for dual Telephone Conferencing Service Provider Interface adapters, enabling simultaneous integration with multiple audio and video conferencing systems.
For Mobility, Sametime 8.5.2 comes with a new client for Google Android devices, as well as a new Sametime Meeting client for RIM Blackberry devices. When it comes to telephony, it adds a Sametime Unified Telephony (SUT) Lite Client License, intelligent number recognizers in the chat window, speaker notification in ad-hoc conference calls, and for Google Android devices, a SUT Dialer.
"SUT takes a very different approach to voice by integrating with the PBX behind the scene," says Dave Michels, UCStrategies UC Expert. "The key advantage is an organization with multiple voice solutions can provide a consistent user experience. SUT is effectively a telephony middleware layer. It's a nice vision, but invites some variability as IBM doesn't offer detailed certification testing among its voice partners."
According to Marty Parker of UCStrategies, "IBM Sametime 8.5.2 focuses on major themes of browser-based meetings, video adoption with bandwidth management, expanded mobile device support, and continued interoperability with customers' PBX/IP PBX systems. With these enhancements, IBM is focusing on continued growth in social networks and IM, on mobility and video as new modes and media, and on ease of adoption of Sametime as the enterprise communication interface for most job types and roles. The new SUT Lite client lowers the licensing price by about 50% (to $53 per user list price) for adoption of Sametime as the user's primary interface for all types of communications, including voice telephony. With 150+ million Sametime IM licenses already sold, the expansion to include voice, video, desktop sharing and meetings is a big opportunity for IBM.”
For more information, visit www.ibm.com.