Customer Success and Industry Recognition Fuel Market Adoption of IBM Collaborative Technologies

Joined by industry leaders Audi, the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration, and SkyWorks Solutions, Inc., IBM (NYSE: IBM) today announced the successful pioneering of new collaboration technologies across multiple industries.

It continues to be a landmark year for IBM’s collaboration business. With new Web 2.0 technologies, business-ready social networking and unified communication and collaboration functionality, IBM is helping organizations of all sizes turn new ideas into tangible business results.

Audi, a brand of the Volkswagen group, has deployed a comprehensive portal platform based on IBM WebSphere Portal to serve as a central, unified and multilingual access point for Audi is more than 53,000 employees worldwide, with content customized to employee roles. The Portal allows Audi to deploy new processes such as Human Resource Management (HRM) tasks. The central platform allows all work and business processes to be handled without re-entering data or switching from one medium to another, making these processes quicker and more efficient.

Skyworks Solutions, a Massachusetts-based wireless semiconductor company, found the Applications on Demand for Lotus Notes service a seamless business solution. The company’s rapid growth, need for 24x7 support for its global operations, and available IT resources placed a premium on adaptability, agility and responsiveness. Working with IBM Global Services, Skyworks receives application management services that enable the company to focus on its core business. This resulted in an 18 percent annual cost savings over the previous model; more responsive and business-focused internal IT resources; and better scalability and flexibility to accommodate changes in the marketplace.

“Working with IBM’s Applications on Demand for Lotus Notes has proven very beneficial for us,” said Louw Kotze, vice president of IT at Skyworks. “We were able to implement, upgrade and manage Lotus Notes software more quickly and effectively than doing it in-house. Our geographic landscape is broad, and using IBM Application Services for Lotus Notes has certainly made managing it easy.”

When a natural disaster damages FAA equipment, the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration’s (FAA) Disaster Response unit needs to get to work fast. With limited personnel on site, communication and collaboration among team members on the ground and at the head office is critical. Response team members often deal with several major issues at once and need to be able to share and track information in real-time securely and quickly. For example, if an engineer is repairing an air traffic control beacon onsite and needs to install a new generator, receipts and descriptions of the generator along with live video feeds of the installation can be added to the appropriate Lotus Connection activity. Engineers at the head office can track progress, save the appropriate documentation for audit and help with the installation by sending feedback through Lotus Sametime instant messaging or a mobile device. In addition, because the FAA also uses IBM WebSphere Portal software, a link to the activity can be easily added to employee’s desktop, providing quick and easy access to relevant information.

IBM’s newly transformed collaboration portfolio is also drawing acclaim from industry observers. In unified communications and collaboration, IBM was recognized as the recipient of the 2007 North American Unified Communication Global Excellence Award from Frost & Sullivan. The award is presented annually to the company that demonstrates global excellence in a given business function.

“With Lotus Sametime IBM offers a true unified communications platform that customers can take advantage of now,” said Melanie Turek, senior analyst, Frost & Sullivan. “Strong partnerships, openness and extensibility and innovation technology developments give IBM a leading position in the collaboration market.”

Wainhouse Research and Osterman Research recently named Lotus Sametime the industry’s leading on-premise enterprise instant messaging (IM) platform. According to Osterman, Lotus Sametime software is the most popular corporate instant messaging platform, beating out Microsoft’s enterprise IM offering for top spot among enterprise users. Additionally, Lotus Sametime product was named the winner of the 2007 Network World Clear Choice product review for corporate IM platforms.

Lotus Connections, Lotus Notes and Domino 8, Lotus Sametime and Lotus Quickr are currently available. Hosted Lotus Notes is currently available and offered by IBM Applications on Demand.