IBM taking on Cisco and Microsoft in SaaS Web Conferencing

Blogger: Bill Pray

As Mike points out in his blog last week, web conferencing is a technology that seems to become more important to organizations during times of economic difficulty. Mike also accurately describes the challenges associated with user adoption of web conferencing.

IBM acquired WebDialogs last year, adding SaaS web conferencing to the Lotus portfolio and giving IBM the technology to compete with Cisco and Microsoft in the SaaS web conferencing market. IBM recently announced a distribution agreement with InterCall for Lotus Sametime Unyte web conferencing. InterCall will now provide options to use Cisco WebEx, Microsoft Live Meeting, and IBM Lotus Sametime Unyte.

The plethora of web conferencing vendors can make your head hurt if you are trying to select a solution. WebEx and Live Meeting are the solutions with the majority of the market share. The availability of three of the major SaaS web conferencing solutions from InterCall gives enterprises a chance to "buy and try" from a single provider. IBM's agreement with InterCall is a good move to give Sametime Unyte more exposure in the market.

As many organizations look to save on travel and meeting costs, web conferencing can provide an alternative. But as Mike explains, it is really about user adoption. Use case and user experience are keys to user adoption and successful use of web conferencing in the enterprise. This is discussed more in-depth in my web conferencing overview document, which will be published in a few weeks.