IBM Makes Collaboration Easier, Faster and Universally Accessible

New Version of Lotus Sametime; Support for Active Sync; Lotus Notes Traveler Support for Orange, Samsung and Verizon Wireless

ORLANDO, FL .- LOTUSPHERE - At the annual Lotusphere Conference, IBM (NYSE: IBM) today unveiled its plans to make key business collaboration tools faster, easier and available anytime, anywhere. Plans include a series of partnerships with industry leaders Orange group, Samsung and Verizon Wireless; a new version of IBM’s leading unified communications and collaboration solution, IBM Lotus Sametime; and intended support for Microsoft Active Sync.

The announcements with Orange, Samsung and Verizon Wireless are a key part of IBM’s work to expand its collaboration sales channel to global device and telecommunications carriers. Verizon Wireless and Orange will give their mobile network customers access to IBM Lotus Notes and Domino software on their hand-held devices, expanding Lotus email access up to 85 million users across the US on the Verizon network and 113 million users across Europe on the Orange network. Both wireless carriers are certifying support for IBM Lotus Notes Traveler software, which enables wireless replication of Lotus Notes email, calendaring, and personal information management (PIM) data on select smartphones.

Leading mobile device producer Samsung, will also support IBM Lotus Notes Traveler software. This will enable millions of Samsung smartphone customers to manage their Lotus Notes email, calendars and address books anytime, anywhere.

Lotus to Support Active Sync
IBM today announced plans to support Microsoft Active Sync in a future version of Lotus Notes Traveler. This support will extend automatic synching capabilities for email and calendaring tools to a new range of popular mobile devices. This support is part of IBM’s pledge to provide enterprises the choice and flexibility to select the mobile devices and carriers that best suit their needs.

Saving Businesses Time and Money, One Online Meeting at a Time

In challenging economic times, the ability to collaborate with colleagues, partners and customers from around the world without ever leaving the office is a financial necessity. With the latest version of Lotus Sametime, IBM is helping businesses save time and money by participating in online meetings quickly and easily.

Gone are the days of wasting the first 10 minutes of a meeting sharing meeting details and downloading code just to participate. The latest version of IBM Lotus Sametime features always-ready, reservation-less meetings, a zero-download Web client and the ability to add meeting participants by dragging and dropping names from the instant messaging contact list.

IBM Lotus Sametime’s reservation-less online meetings mean that a person’s password protected meeting room is always ready and a Web conference can be started instantly. Meeting minutes, slides and other documents can be stored in this personalized meeting room for future use. In addition, advanced audio and video features are included, allowing people to select the collaboration style best suited for the task at hand. Once recorded, these files are saved in open formats making them easy to edit and playback.

The new IBM Lotus Sametime comes with a new Web 2.0 look and feel and a redesigned Web 2.0 tool kit that makes it easy for enterprises to build key communications capabilities into their business processes. For example, IBM Lotus Sametime makes it easy for a business to include presence, instant messaging and click-to-call features on their Website. Customers with inquiries could start a conversation with one click from the company’s Website. The business could reduce the costly charges of maintaining a toll free customer support line, while delivering more effective customer service.

IBM Lotus Sametime 8.5 and the new version of IBM Lotus Traveler are planned for the second half of 2009.