IBM Moves to Target SMB Marketplace with Unified Communication Solutions/Partnerships
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This week in two
distinct but likely coordinated strategic moves, IBM has made it clear that the
small and medium business (SMB) marketplace is a significant and important
target for its unified communications offerings:
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IBM
announced the Lotus Foundations Reach product, a new "office in a box"
appliance offering connectivity to telephony in a single solution, which customizes and extends the IBM Sametime Unified Communications and
Collaboration (UC2) capabilities in a single appliance. It is designed specifically
for SMBs that characteristically have limited budgets and little or no IT
skills. IBM’s announcement claims that in approximately one hour a business can
install and configure an entire UC environment in a system that fits under an
office desk. IBM claims Foundations Reach will minimize the need for ongoing human
intervention by the use of self-managing technology that automates IT tasks
such as adjusting to workload demands and conducting proactive system security
and network reliability checks. From a single platform, Lotus Foundations Reach
will be able to combine key UC features such as instant messaging (IM), presence,
e-mail, calendars, contacts, office productivity tools, network security,
remote access, file and print sharing, and backup and disaster recovery. The added
capability to access the functionality from a mobile device makes it even more
convenient for business owners and end users who work remotely and/or travel
extensively. With such simplicity and functionality SMBs will be able to take
advantage of UC applications previously available only to larger, better
staffed and funded enterprises. This
will allow them to reduce costs by decreasing employee travel, supporting remote
workforces, minimizing office space and decreasing long-distance telephone expenses
via the use of VoIP. IBM Lotus Foundations Reach will be available for purchase
in August of this year.
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ShoreTel,
Inc., number one ranked supplier of integrated UC systems to the global SMB
marketplace, announced an agreement with IBM to deliver a UC and collaboration
offering that combines a small business appliance, presence awareness, and instant
messaging. ShoreTel's IP telephony offering will connect to IBM’s Lotus Foundations Reach to provide an all-in-one integrated communications
and collaboration solution. This joint venture supports ShoreTel's commitment
to simple, all inclusive SMB solutions that a customer can quickly implement to
realize the productivity gains and the simplicity associated with UC.
The partners claim their combined solution will bring enterprise-class
reliability, rapid scalability, and lower IT costs to the SMB market, freeing SMBs
from vendor lock-in and expensive and time consuming upgrade requirements.
Under the agreement, ShoreTel plans to integrate the IBM Lotus Foundations
platform with the ShoreTel Director Management platform in a single
"office in a box" appliance. ShoreTel's use of open standards will
leverage IBM's standard-based software to increase employees' productivity, speed business processes, and reduce
overall costs. This open approach also allows smaller businesses to expand
without worrying about upgrade costs or requirements to purchase additional
technology. ShoreTel will supply its UC feature set, which includes telephony
presence, click to call, unified messaging and a single management console for
voice applications to the UC and collaboration capabilities of Lotus
Foundations Reach.
Synergy believes the Lotus
Foundation Reach announcement and the ShoreTel/IBM agreement represents a
significant opportunity for both companies to gain additional market share in
the growing UC sector. The UC sector continues to be attractive to traditional
telecom vendors, as well as major vendors from other related IT fields because
of its rapid economic ROI. IBM will capitalize upon ShoreTel’s significant
market share and footprint in the SMB marketplace; and ShoreTel will, no doubt,
benefit from IBM’s global name and distribution channels. With this
announcement ShoreTel joins a rapidly growing list of partners choosing to
build solutions based on IBM’s Lotus Foundations platform. These include the following:
- EnVision
Solutions, enhanced collaboration package
- NEC, which
is creating a version of its
UNIVERGE Sphericall communications software that can be downloaded to
Foundations to create a complete UC and business collaboration solution
specifically designed for SMBs and branch offices
- NextiraOne
Mexico, which is
extending Foundations Reach with its IP telephony technology to deliver a
complete communications and collaboration offering to help small businesses to
grow
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Speech
Design, a
company that is combining its fixed mobile convergence solution with Lotus
Foundations Reach to create a mobile unified communications appliance to offer
telephony and presence, FMC, messaging, IM, audio and Web conferencing in a
single solution for SMBs
For small and medium businesses with
minimal IT expertise these initiatives could be crucial to their efforts to
join the industry move to UC. From IBM’s perspective these agreements will
provide an entree into the SMB VoIP PBX telephony business, which could be
important to IBM’s UC efforts, given the company’s clear strategy to avoid
competing head to head in the enterprise PBX marketplace.
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