Thursday, 14 September 2006

IBM Ships Lotus Sametime 7.5

IBM has released Lotus Sametime version 7.5, which aims to enable businesses to extend their real-time collaboration beyond instant messaging and Web conferencing to a platform for unified business collaboration.

"Lotus Sametime 7.5 is the first product to deliver a unified collaboration platform that includes instant messaging, Web conferencing and voice capabilities," said Michael Rhodin, general manager, IBM Lotus Software. "Today, customers can take advantage of a unified approach to communications that can be easily extended based on open standards, not proprietary code, putting customers in control of their collaborative environment."

The evolution of instant messaging to a more open and extensible platform also represents a significant opportunity in today’s world. Web 2.0 technologies will enable customers to create new solutions such as mashups, effectively bringing leading capabilities from consumer-focused applications to enterprises.

To make it easier for customers to take advantage of the Lotus Sametime plugin model, IBM is announcing an online virtual showcase of IBM Business Partner and IBM created plugins. Customers will be able to easily search and learn about available third-party technology that integrates with Lotus Sametime. In addition, customers will have direct links to the IBM Business Partners and be able to download their plugins.

Lotus Sametime 7.5 is currently available at a cost of USD 55.00 per user for a perpetual software license. You can have a demonstration here.