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Can Watson Help IBM Put New Face on UC?Can Watson Help IBM Put New Face on UC?

Leveraging its cognitive smarts, IBM is teaming with communications companies like Genband to elevate its stature in enterprise collaboration.

Jim Burton

October 25, 2016

3 Min Read
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Leveraging its cognitive smarts, IBM is teaming with communications companies like Genband to elevate its stature in enterprise collaboration.

When Microsoft and Cisco each announced their intentions of entering the then newly defined space called unified communications some 10 years ago, IBM already had a compelling product on the market: Sametime. So why isn't this technology giant a major UC player today? First let me provide some history and then a look at why things may be about to change.

When Sametime hit the market, it was already ahead of the planned UC tools from Microsoft and Cisco when it came to most features and capabilities -- with the exception of one critically important component, call control (PBX features). IBM had some good reasons for not building in the critical call control component, but its decision not to do so ultimately limited Sametime's success.

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Most longtime No Jitter readers will remember that at the time, IBM had already failed at several PBX initiatives, including those coming from its acquisition of Rolm (later sold to Siemens, now Unify). Based on that history, IBM was reluctant to try entering the PBX space again. Less known is that some reticence stemmed from IBM's concern about getting into the PBX business and upsetting major partners Cisco and Avaya, together which represented billions of dollars in revenue for other IBM divisions. Another issue at that time was IBM's strategic focus on other areas, diverting attention and resources that otherwise would have helped keep Sametime competitive.

The best example here is the lack of a comprehensive go-to-market strategy for Sametime. IBM never developed a channel strategy for Sametime period, let alone worked to develop converged voice/data channel partners. This left the sales responsibility to an IBM sales organization that had no incentive to sell the Sametime product, since it could sell existing products (Lotus Notes, for example) instead. In addition, the sales organization had no interest in learning a new product and a new market. As a result, Sametime was left to twist in the breeze, as they say.

Over the past 10 years, IBM has worked on several communications and collaboration solutions that have been ahead of their competition, but they have always missed an important component and often lacked a strategy to help them compete in the UC space. This could all be changing. IBM is now leveraging its Watson cognitive computing platform and the IBM Connections Cloud in partnering with other vendors to add additional features, services and, most importantly, distribution for its integrated suite of collaboration solutions.

One of those partners is Genband, which as announced yesterday is providing cloud-based PBX and video capabilities for IBM Connections and Sametime. At long last, IBM can offer a highly reliable and scalable call control solution to augment Sametime.

Genband also brings Kandy, its communications platform as a service (CPaaS) offering, to the table. This rich, extensible CPaaS platform will help partners and even customers integrate communications into many different business processes. Genband and IBM even have a website that covers their joint solution, called Realtime Connections Client.

As mentioned earlier, go-to-market strategy has been an ongoing challenge for IBM in the UC space. But with Genband, which sells to global carriers and service providers and, through channel partners, to enterprises, IBM may finally have solved this problem. The joint offering is an option for service providers that may be looking for alternative solutions to compliment or replace UC solutions based on Cisco or Microsoft, for example.

The other part of this puzzle is Watson, IBM's natural language artificial intelligence capability -- and Jeopardy champion. Watson has opened other distribution opportunities for IBM, and companies that have integrated Watson into business processes are now potential channels for it.

Analytics are hot, and it looks like IBM got into this just at the right time.

About the Author

Jim Burton

Jim Burton is the Founder and CEO of CT Link, LLC. Burton founded the consulting firm in 1989 to help clients in the converging voice, data and networking industries with strategic planning, mergers and acquisitions, strategic alliances and distribution issues.

 

In the early 1990s, Burton recognized the challenges vendors and the channel faced as they developed and installed integrated voice/data products. He became the leading authority in the voice/data integration industry and is credited with "coining" the term computer-telephony integration (CTI). Burton helped companies, including Microsoft and Intel, enter the voice market.

 

In the late 1990s, venture capitalists turned to Burton for help in evaluating potential investments in IP PBX start-ups. He went on to help these and other companies with strategic planning and partnering, including NBX (acquired by 3Com, Selsius (acquired by Cisco), ShoreTel (acquired by Mitel), and Sphere Communications (acquired by NEC). Burton was an investor and co-founder of Circa Communications, an early leader in IP phones. Circa was acquired by Polycom and helped them become a leader in the IP phone market.

 

In the early 2000s, Burton began focusing on wireless services and technologies. In 2005 Burton started helping vendors with their Unified Communications strategy, and in 2006, along with several colleagues, created a website, UCStrategies.com, to provide information for enterprise customers and vendors. In 2018 UCStrategies became BCStrategies to help enterprise customers plan for digital transformation.

 

Burton’s primary focus is to help clients develop strategic partnerships. He helps companies partner with Amazon, Cisco, Google, IBM, and Microsoft with a focus on cloud communications, team collaboration, AI, ML, virtual & augmented reality, and mobility.