Siemens delivers VoIP for IBM

Integrated features set to arrive mid-summer

Last week Siemens and IBM announced they would team up to support IP phone calls directly from IBM's email and collaboration software.

The integrated features are expected to arrive this summer, with the Siemens portion of the collaboration delivered through its HiPath 4000 and 8000 softswitches, which are part of its HiPath portfolio of IP communication systems.

The features will be available on Lotus Notes, Domino, Lotus, Sametime and Workplace Collaboration Services, and will enable users to have one-click telephony contact, which would also allow click-to-conference, without interrupting their work.

Lotus Notes users will be able to click on an inbox contact or a Lotus web conferencing portal or even a Lotus Sametime instant messaging chat session to initiate an IP phone call. The new call features will interoperate with other IP-PBXs and legacy time division multiplex (TDM) systems and will have Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) support.

Siemens said that the HiPath 8000 softswitch is aimed at larger enterprises, and is a turnkey system that can run on standard Linux servers, and can scale to support 100,000 users.

"Businesses are beginning to demand systems using converged audio and PC-based collaboration tools," said Ken Bisconti, IBM vice-president for Workplace, Portal and Lotus collaboration products. "Our collaboration with Siemens and others enables [firms] to seamlessly transition between email, message, web conferencing and phone conversations, without having to replace their existing IT infrastructures."
However, observers pointed out that this is probably the minimum that IBM needs to do just to catch up with rivals such as Microsoft, which currently offer more advanced presence-based systems.

Mark Blowers of analyst company Butler Group said, "Collaboration between IP service hardware vendors and collaboration software vendors aimed at implementing 'presence' across software suites is growing. The trend is for integration of IP services into collaboration tools. Although it's just an extension of VoIP, any collaboration software needs to be able to allow users to move seamlessly between voice, video conferencing and be able to share documents over IP.