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IBM, 3Com Develops First Solution To Integrate IP Telephony With E-Mail, Messaging And Core Business Process Applications On A Single Platform


WEBWIRE

IBM (NYSE: IBM) and 3Com Corporation, a leading provider of secure, converged voice and data networking solutions, today announced the industry’s first solution to integrate IP telephony with email, messaging and core business process applications on a single, secure platform.

The System i Integrated Collaboration solution will feature unified communications capabilities to help customers increase productivity, lower costs and streamline operations. Because it runs on a single System i, it is easier and less expensive to manage than competitive Windows-based, multi-server offerings.

Roland Corporation U.S., a leading manufacturer and distributor of electronic musical instruments, recently selected the System i Integrated Collaboration solution to further improve its leading customer service to the music stores and consumers it supports. The integration of IP Telephony with Roland’s ERP applications will arm customer service agents with recent client data, allowing them to respond to customer requests more quickly and effectively.

“The new solution will allow us to further evolve the way we do business. With advanced features like find me, follow me and click to call, our sales team in the field will now be able to be reached quickly from a central location, no matter where they are -- in the office or on the road,” said David Williams, IT Director at Roland. “IBM and 3Com, along with our IBM business partner Sirius Computer Solutions, presented us with a very competitively priced solution that allows us to leverage our investment in existing resources and technical skills.”

The new Integrated Collaboration solution builds on the System i IP Telephony solution IBM and 3Com delivered in November 2006. It uses open standards such as Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) to create a platform for innovation by enabling the 3Com® VCX™ system to be more easily integrated with collaboration and business applications running on the System i.

IBM and 3Com have seen substantial interest from the community of System i solution-providers and business partners who want to exploit this integration. IBM and 3Com expect to work with over 100 Independent Solution Vendors (ISVs) to integrate their applications with the new solution. These ISVs will be able to leverage 3Com’s Open Network™ (3Com|ON) Program and Software Development Kit (SDK) to tightly integrate their business applications with 3Com IP telephony and IBM collaboration applications.

“We considered competitive, Windows-based IP telephony offerings, but we would have required at least 16 stand-alone servers to support the entire suite reliably,” said David Lyall, CIO for Scott & Co. “We chose the System i Integrated Collaboration solution instead because System i is inherently more robust, fully integrated and has a much higher return on investment compared to Windows servers, so we expect to lower our costs considerably.”



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