Lotus Sametime vs Microsoft Lync

The geek-developer dream comes true: a full-on collaboration environment with an open API and a name right out of Star Trek. Today at the Lotushpere conference IBM unveiled Project Vulcan - the new cloud platform for collaboration and social tools, that is already compared to Google Wave. But unlike Google Wave, Vulcan - is not a separate application, but an integrated environment for all future and existing Lotus apps, including Lotus Notes and LotusLive. Vulcan will be available to developers in the second half of 2010, and meanwhile it will be available to LotusLive Labs team, which has already shown 4 new projects for LotusLive:

The new version of Lotus Notes 6.5 adds integration with the enterprise messenger IBM Lotus Sametime. From now Lotus Notes client users will be able to see the current online status of their colleagues and start chat with one click for example right in the address book. In addition, with the help of new Lotus Domino Designer 6.5, developers can embed the online status and chat feature in custom apps built on Lotus Domino platform.

Today, IBM unveiled Lotus Sametime, the solution designed for instant messaging and collaboration over the Internet. The solution is built on Ubique aquired by IBM and consists of Sametime Connect Client and Sametime Server. The Lotus Sametime functionality includes a online status monitoring, instant messaging and object sharing, which allows to simultaneously work with documents and applications over the Internet like in Microsoft NetMeeting. The server costs $ 5,000 and client license costs $20 per user. Lotus Sametime is available as a standalone product or as a component of Lotus Notes / Domino.

Today Digium (the developer of the open-source PBX-platform Asterisk) has notified its customers that the sales of its product Skype for Asterisk will be terminated since July 26. Recall, Skype and Digium released this Skype for Asterisk connector back in 2009. It allows companies that use Asterisk-based PBX-systems to integrate them with the Skype network and make / receive Skype-calls using the regular office phones. But the new Skype's owner Microsoft, of course, has no particular desire to support the free Asterisk, that competes with its own product Lync (MS Communications Server). So Microsoft decided not to prolong the contract with Digium. Digium assured that existing Skype for Asterisk users will be able to use their Skype-channels during two more years.

Oh, we didn't rename our products for so long time, thought people in Microsoft and decided to rename MS Office Communications Server to Lync. The new version Lync 2010 with a status "release candidate" is already available for free download and contains a large number of new features as compared to OCS. Most interesting are social features, that we used to see more in social networks rather than in VoIP-solutions. First, the activity feeds that you can subscribe to view contact's status changes. Like in the location-services, Lync can determine the actual contact location by the network point to which he is currently connected. People search allows you to find the right person in the company by name and by the area of expertise. Another interesting feature - context call that allows users to push the conversation subject before making a call, so the contact could better prepair to the conversation.