IBM Keynote: Mike RhodinIBM Keynote: Mike Rhodin

For his VoiceCon keynote this morning, Mike Rhodin, GM of IBM Lotus Software, introduced the company's new Sametime Unified Telephony.

For his VoiceCon keynote this morning, Mike Rhodin, GM of IBM Lotus Software, introduced the company's new Sametime Unified Telephony.Sametime Unified Telephony is middleware that lets you integrate multiple vendors' IPT systems--basically, you can put it in a network and hook up an Avaya IP-PBX with a Cisco IP-PBX. Call handling rules are stored in Sametime Unified Telephony, integrating presence awareness so that users on the varying IP-telephony systems can share presence status, and the system can be configured to automatically route to a pre-configured mobile or other number if you're logged out of Sametime.

On a related note, Mike Rhodin announced new partnerships with NEC, Ericsson and ShoreTel, as well as VBrick for media streaming and Forterra for "virtual world" (i.e., Second Life-like) technology.

Rhodin also announced Sametime Advanced, which adds persistent group chat and location services, among other capabilities.

The bottom line here is that the voice element of IBM's UC strategy is, as expected, radically different from Microsoft's. It's a true middleware solution, connecting existing systems, rather than the native voice capabilities that Microsoft is building into Office Communications Server. The battle is joined.