VoiceCon 2009: IBM puts Sametime Unified Telephony front and center

ORLANDO, Fla. - IBM has put its Lotus Sametime Unified Telephony (SUT) solution front and center as the enterprise solution for unified communications. The company announced an interoperability testing program and a new consulting service for UC and SUT implementation.

IBM spokespersons are emphasizing SUT's ability to work with existing legacy equipment and the bright and shiny world of IP telephony, as well as its capability to work with multiple vendors - following the highlighting of UC interoperability by Cisco, TANDBERG and others at the show.

Initial companies participating in the Sametime Unified Telephony Validation Program include: IP PBX service providers Alcatel Lucent, Avaya, Cisco, NEC, Nortel, Mitel and Siemens; media gateway vendors Dialogic and NET; plus GN Netcom, Plantronics, Polycom and Psytechnics. Additional partners will be announced in the coming months.

IBM Converged Communications Services for Sametime Unified Telephony is the new service offering designed to provide strategy, assessment, architecture, design, integration and implementation for SUT. Consulting services are going to be key in bringing together SUT and other IP and legacy phone systems.

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