IBM Connections

Amy Ewing, Marketing Manager of IBM, discusses the shift from unified communications to social communications and the value of integrating IBM Connections and IBM Sametime.

Blair Pleasant: Hi, this is Blair Pleasant, I am at IBM Connect and I am with Amy Ewing who is Marketing Manager. We are going to talk about the shift from unified communications to social communications. Hi Amy, what can you tell us about what you are showing here today?

Amy Ewing: Hi Blair. We are talking about the value of Sametime in having social communications capabilities, and how the combination of Connections and Sametime makes the interaction even more social and more aware of all the resources. All the information that is already available so that the real time interactions that take place are better informed, are more specific, and are higher value commutations.

You have already had a chance to look at the profile, the expertise of the person that you are getting in touch with. You have used their files that are available and Wikis or other parts. The other information they have made available. Then with that understanding, you can then connect with them and get amplifications of things that you do not understand... Once you have started the chat you could also decide to bring them into an online meeting, which can be as easy as once you are in the meeting you can find their name and just drag their name into the meeting room.

But if you have voice and video as well, you not only see the content of the screen, but you see the reactions of the person who is speaking and get some of the social information from that as well, which makes the communication better, more effective. You can more easily come to agreements. It is a combination of knowing the person that you are dealing with and the information they have already shared; knowing their availability and whether now is a good time to chat with them. Or, if they are in a one on one meeting or whatever and cannot chat, or whether now would be a good time to share your screen or they are already sharing with other people so you need to be more careful in your communication.

Blair: Okay.

Amy: Again, the idea is the shift to social communications is all about making the interaction higher value with relevant people and the information that they have already shared.

Blair: To do, this customers would need to have Sametime and Connections?

Amy: Yes, and actually, we have an offering called the IBM Connection Suite. Thank you for the prompt, which is the combination of IBM Connection software, Sametime software, Sametime Unified Telephony Live Client, which gives you the softphone and the video endpoint for your video communications. Also, a limited use to Filenet, which gives you some of your document management that helps with the files that you post in Connections. We think that's a nice way to get the value, the synergy, so you have all sorts of social communications including the real time element of it that Sametime brings.

Blair: As you know, I have been pushing for the integration of UC and social for a long time. I am glad to see that IBM is moving forward with this.

Amy: Yes, we have been doing it; we have had integrations for several years; we just continue to look for additional integration points because we know the synergy of the capabilities is so good.

Blair: Thank you very much.

Amy: Thank you, Blair.