The Sametime Blog

Tidbits for June 30th

John Del Pizzo — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 12:11:44 -0400

Ever wonder what would happen if you combined Austin Powers, School House Rock animation and Sametime in one video? Me neither... but someone in marketing did... and this video is worth the 3 minutes. You can check it out on YouTube or in the IBM Media Library.

A couple of important Sametime updates from the good folks on the Notes from Lotus Support Blog:

A fix is now available to let you integrate Sametime Advanced 8.0 with a Notes 8.0.1 client... which has made CuriousMitch very happy.
Sametime 7.5.1 CF2 is available The latest maintenance release for the Sametime 7.5 code stream was just made available on June 26th. This includes updates to the Sametime server, Connect client and stand-alone Mux packages.

And finally, from "The Journal" (which should not be confused with the Wall Street Journal for us MBA types)...

Radvision announced Thursday major enhancements to its Scopia conferencing solution. Available as a software upgrade, version 5.6 provides added features across the entire Scopia platform, including Scopia MCU, Scopia Desktop, and the iView Management Suite.

The new version provides HD video conferencing, allowing users to view 16:9 widescreen images at 720p resolution, while still sending 480p or CIF images to preserve bandwidth and processing power. In addition, the upgrade gives users recording, playback, and content management capabilities, as well as enhanced integration into IBM Lotus Sametime with support for Domino directory and Notes scheduling.

Hmm. New teeth.... that’s weird.

John Del Pizzo — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 13:30:13 -0400

As many of you recall, Adam Gartenberg, the long serving Sametime Offering Manager, UC guru and all around great guy, recently took on a new role in IBM. I've been tapped to take over for him on the Sametime team. So... hello.... and let me introduce myself.

I've been with IBM for the past five years, largely with the Sensor & Actuator Solutions organization. Our mission was to integrate devices that could sense conditions and/or take actions in the real world with the enterprise systems that run a business. For example, consider an oil pipeline. A flowmeter (the sensor) monitoring the amount of oil passing a given point on the pipeline may register a sudden drop in flow - indicating a potential leak. On a standard pipeline, that leak may cause motorized valves (the actuators) to close, minimizing environmental damage. With our infrastructure, the leak would cause the business systems to determine the impact on customers, quality of service agreements, contractual obligations, profitability or any range of other variables. The entire pipeline network could then be dynamically reconfigured (by opening or closing the valves) to optimize against the business priorities while minimizing environmental damage. It adds a whole new dimension to the term "on-demand business."

As a Global Solution Executive, I worked with IBM's software, services and sales teams to apply our sensor infrastructure to solve specific industry problems.

For example, I bet you didn't know that as much as 1% of the prescription drugs distributed in the United States every year are counterfeit. Or that the World Health Organization has estimated that 8-10% of the global drug supply is fake. (Scary, isn't it?) My last team used Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) and 2D Barcodes to track the movement of drugs (at the unit level) as they moved through the supply chain. By using IBM products based on some key industry standards, we were able to pass this tracking information from manufacturer to wholesaler to pharmacist, making it much more difficult for counterfeits to get to you or me. This same Track & Trace solution also laid the groundwork for improving a notoriously inefficient supply chain.

So, what does all this have to do with Unified Communications & Collaboration? Think about what I just described as "sensor-enabled business processes". Unified Communications is a similar horizontal technology that has virtually unlimited applications. The challenge is to define which processes will benefit from being communications-enabled... and delivering them on a Sametime infrastructure.

Hopefully that helps with those of you who have Googled me and tried to make the connection between drug tracking and Sametime. :-)

On a more personal note, I live in the Research Triangle Park area of North Carolina. I hold a BA in International Relations from the University of Pennsylvania and an MBA in Marketing, Strategy and Entrepreneurship from Carnegie Mellon. (Someday I'll explain how an entrepreneur with an interest in foreign policy ends up working for IBM.) And if you're curious about the subject of this post... it should lead you right to one of my favorite TV shows.

Looking forward to working with all of you!

John

DNUG Bremen keynote

Robert Ingram — Thu, 5 Jun 2008 04:49:29 -0400

I'm in Bremen, Germany this week for the DNUG 2008 conference where I presented the Lotus Sametime strategy and roadmap to a packed standing room only crowd. Although a network problem prevented me from showing live demos, I hope people left with some new insights into the breadth and depth of the current and future Sametime Unified Communications platform. Here is a photo posted on Flickr of the presentations.

Earlier today, Lotus GM Bob Picciano delivered the keynote to a packed room. Bob and Ron Sebastian presented and demoed::

Notes 8.5 running on Ubuntu Linux - the audience especially liked the calendar overlays with UEFA 2008 football events being viewed in Notes calendar
Project "Atlantic" integration between Lotus Notes providing a front end to SAP
The new Eclipse based Domino Designer 8.5 and its new web application xPage capability - web based views looked really slick
Symphony 1.0 - now available on 20+ languages at no license cost (over 1 million beta downloads)
Quickr 8.1 - demo showed publish to Filenet P8 and accessing the document via Notes or Sametime Connect
Lotus Connections 2.0 including running on a Blackberry
Lotus Mashups - very quickly built web reports linking spreadsheet data including company names and Google news pages
Integration of Sametime with Forterra virtual world conference room and Sametime integration - hard to describe the demo in words, but everyone in the virtual room was able to connect into a telephone conference bridge and was able to view a presentation.

As Ed noted in his blog, tonight more bread and beer!

New Sametime articles on DeveloperWorks

Adam Gartenberg — Fri, 23 May 2008 10:58:20 -0400

In case you didn't catch the posts over on the Notes from Lotus Support blog, there are a number of recent articles about Lotus Sametime you may want to check out.

Want to remove those unwanted status messages from your Sametime client? Or looking for sizing information on the Sametime Gateway 8.x? Or how about using Sametime to get instant notifications of network outages?

Read on!

Tech Web TV -- The Evolution of Communication with Bruce Morse

Adam Gartenberg — Tue, 13 May 2008 08:37:25 -0400

Check out Lotus Unified Communications and Communication Vice President Bruce Morse's appearance on Tech Web TV.

Bruce has an in depth discussion on UC², IBM's strategy and what the future holds in this space. UC Strategies analyst Marty Parker is also included in the discussion.

Link: The Evolution of Communication

Welcome to the new Sametime Blog

Robert Ingram — Wed, 7 May 2008 11:15:01 -0400

Welcome to the official blog of the Lotus Sametime Product Management team. If you followed Adam Gartenberg's blog, you will know that Adam has recently moved on to a new role at IBM, but we will try to retain his services as a contributing guest author. If you are want to know what's happening in the world of Lotus Sametime products and IBM Unified Communications and Collaboration, this is your blog. We will do our best to maintain the traditions and high standards that Adam started for Sametime. Adam has even kindly copied all his prior postings related to Sametime for any newcomers to refer back to.

The new blog name was carefully selected after months of trial and market research and we came up with the very creative title - 'The Sametime Blog' !!! We will now have multiple authors from the Sametime team as we simply cannot replace Adam with one person. You can read our team bios here.

Tell your friends and colleagues about our new blog URL.

www.thesametimeblog.com

Lotus Sametime 8.0.1 Fix List now available

Adam Gartenberg — Mon, 5 May 2008 14:17:32 -0400

As Jennifer and Carl have noted, the Lotus Sametime 8.0.1 fix list has now been posted.

As I've seen feedback in the past that our fix list isn't always as robust as, say, the one for Notes/Domino, I'd be interested in feedback if you have any suggestions for improving it.

Link: Lotus Sametime 8.0.1 fix list.

IBM Lotus Sametime 8.0.1 is now available for download

Adam Gartenberg — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 09:38:28 -0400

I've gotten some independent reports that IBM Lotus Sametime 8.0.1 is available for download from Passport Advantage and PartnerWorld. (Thanks Mitch and Stuart.) Actually, I just got an update that there may be some glitches, so if you don't see it out there, check back around noon ET.

See below for links to some of the information that's out there now. I'll update this post with a link to the final readme doc with all the details on what's included in the release, install, etc. once it's out there. ***Update - The Lotus Sametime 8.0.1 Readme link is now posted below ***

Also, there's one item from yesterday's post that I wanted to proactively clarify. The new Web API Toolkit at present requires client-side plugins that are only included in Sametime 8.0.1. I'm working with the developer to get a technote published in the near future with details on how these plugins could be made available to people using Sametime from inside Lotus Notes or pre-Sametime 8.0.1 clients so they can take advantage of this new web integration, as well. No promises, but I'm optimistic.

Links:
Sametime 8.0.1 Readme
Sametime 8.0.1 Detailed System Requirements
Sametime Gateway 8.0.1 Cluster - AIX with NAT

Preview of Lotus Sametime 8.0.1

Adam Gartenberg — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 17:03:56 -0400

In the very near future (e.g. possibly tomorrow, if not shortly thereafter), we should be releasing Lotus Sametime 8.0.1. (It looks like the system requirements have already been posted.)

***Update - As of 4/25, Sametime 8.0.1 is available for download ***

While the main focus is as a maintenance release, there are some new capabilities that we'll be introducing. I'm calling the list below a "preview" (and subject to change as the final readme doc with all the details gets finalized), but this should give you a pretty good indication of what is coming in Sametime 8.0.1.
Citrix support

The Lotus Sametime Connect 8.0.1 client is now supported on the Citrix Presentation Server (4.5) environment. For details on performance and sizing, please see the technote on that topic.
Please note that there are some Lotus Sametime features that are not going to be available from the Citrix environment due to the virtualization approach: Voice/Video chat, geographic location, screen capture, Web API QuickFind, and Microsoft Office integration

Lotus Sametime Web conferencing enhancements:
New higher quality audio codec in meetings

A new, higher-quality codec (GIPS iSAC (http://www.gipscorp.com/files/english/datasheets/iSAC.pdf) is now available for embedded audio inside of the Web conference. (And on a personal note, I've heard very positive feedback from folks inside IBM that have been beta-testing the improved audio!)

Push to Talk

Push to talk provides a mode where everyone who joins the Web conference is muted other than the speaker. Each participant must push (and hold, or lock) a button in order to speak. The moderator can revert to "all live mics" or "request mic" mode as necessary.

Show who's speaking enhancements

The existing "Show Who's Speaking" feature has been enhanced to include a recent speakers option. This option allows sorting of the participants by the people that are talking. The list displays the person speaking, plus up to 5 recent speakers.

AppShare on multiple monitors

Lotus Sametime Web conferencing hosts with multiple monitors can choose which monitor to share with others in the meeting. (See below for a screenshot)

Remove user from meeting

The Remove User feature allows the moderator to remove a participant from a meeting.

Contact List Updates via AdminP Tool

The Domino Admin Process (AdminP) tool can be used to update the Lotus Sametime contact list information whenever a change is made in the Domino Directory. (Yes, this addresses what has been one of the most frequently-requested Sametime items in IdeaJam.)
Please note that at this time this is only supported on the Windows platform. We will make every effort to make this available on other platforms in upcoming releases.

Sametime Connect Web API Toolkit

This new API toolkit provides Web developers with a new method to Sametime-enable their Web pages and applications by proxying the functionality of the locally running Lotus Sametime client (managing contacts, starting chats, presence status). Actions taken on the web page will launch the features of the full Lotus Sametime Connect client. This new API does not replace the existing Sametime Links APIs, but instead provides an alternative that can provide a more seamless integration for people that are running the Lotus Sametime Connect client.

SIP NAT support for Lotus Sametime Gateway

When using Lotus Sametime Gateway, you can now make a SIP path that is TLS/SSL encrypted work with NAT devices.

Kiosk mode

When operating as a kiosk terminal, it is no longer necessary to select "Reset user;" users can just log out and log back in with their ID.

Here's a screenshot of the multi-monitor support that's coming:

Take the new Lotus Sametime Personality Test

Adam Gartenberg — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 21:34:07 -0400

Take the new Lotus Sametime personality test to see what kind of "Sametimer" you are (or should that be "Sametimr?" Hmmm).

See below to take the quiz. And, as if this should be any surprise, here's where I came in.

What kind of Lotus Sametimer are you?
My Result: Super Sametimer

		Wow, you really live in "real time!" Don't forget to step outside and get some fresh air every once in a while! Take What kind of Lotus Sametimer are you? Find more quizzes at Quibblo.com

Action needed if you use Lotus Sametime Gateway to connect to Yahoo! Messenger Network

Adam Gartenberg — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 20:13:19 -0400

Yahoo! is going to be moving the location of their federation gateways, so if you're using Lotus Sametime Gateway to connect to the Yahoo! Messenger network, you're going to need to update your firewalls for the following hosts before April 24 or risk losing connectivity.

Full details

Abstract
Lotus Sametime Gateway will be unable to connect to the Yahoo! Messenger network, beginning April 24, 2008.

Content Yahoo is in the process of moving the location of their federation gateways. This change will prevent all Sametime Gateway deployments from establishing connectivity with the Yahoo! Messenger network.

To avoid possible service interruptions, firewalls protecting the Sametime Gateway must be updated or modified to accept incoming and outgoing traffic for the following hosts on port 5061:
sgw.ibm.msg.vip.ac4.yahoo.com 98.136.112.84
sgw.ibm.msg.vip.sp1.yahoo.com 98.136.56.113
sgw101.ibm.msg.ac4.yahoo.com 98.136.113.23
sgw102.ibm.msg.ac4.yahoo.com 98.136.113.24
sgw103.ibm.msg.ac4.yahoo.com 98.136.113.25
sgw104.ibm.msg.ac4.yahoo.com 98.136.113.26
sgw105.ibm.msg.ac4.yahoo.com 98.136.113.27
sgw106.ibm.msg.ac4.yahoo.com 98.136.113.28
sgw107.ibm.msg.ac4.yahoo.com 98.136.113.29
sgw108.ibm.msg.ac4.yahoo.com 98.136.113.30
sgw101.ibm.msg.sp1.yahoo.com 98.136.43.128
sgw102.ibm.msg.sp1.yahoo.com 98.136.43.129
sgw103.ibm.msg.sp1.yahoo.com 98.136.43.130
sgw104.ibm.msg.sp1.yahoo.com 98.136.43.131
sgw105.ibm.msg.sp1.yahoo.com 98.136.43.132
sgw106.ibm.msg.sp1.yahoo.com 98.136.43.133
sgw107.ibm.msg.sp1.yahoo.com 98.136.43.134
sgw108.ibm.msg.sp1.yahoo.com 98.136.43.135

This migration will be effective on April 24, 2008; therefore it is imperative that this change be made prior to that date to avoid any service interruption.

Aside from these firewall rules, there are no other application-related configuration changes required on the Sametime Gateway.

IBM CIO Office Case Study on the usage of Lotus Sametime

Adam Gartenberg — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 14:13:47 -0400

A new case study focusing on the usage and savings IBM sees from the use of Lotus Sametime is now available.

In addition to all of the productivity benefits that make Sametime a way of life here at IBM, there are hard-dollar cost savings, too, such as an estimated savings of $16.5M USD from reduced phone usage and $97M USD in savings on travel costs from the use of Web conferencing.

See the full PDF for more details and additional explanations and benefits on how this technology has changed the way IBMers work.

Link: IBM reaps business benefits and major cost savings from unified communications and collaboration

New Lotus Sametime VIC Course available for IBM Business Partners

Adam Gartenberg — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 09:55:56 -0400

A new Lotus Sametime course is available for IBM Business Partners in the Virtual Innovation Center (VIC). If you're a Business Partner and are not yet enabled or selling Lotus Sametime, I suggest you go check it out!

Course Abstract:
IBM Lotus Sametime software is the critical component of the IBM UC² strategy. An open, extensible platform, IBM Lotus Sametime offers in-the-box capabilities that can be used on their own or integrated with a large ecosystem of third-party and custom applications.

Link: Lotus Sametime Enablement for IBM Business Partners

bMighty.com - UC for SMB

Adam Gartenberg — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 12:01:38 -0400

bMighty.com recently published a great article on the value that SMBs can get from Unified Communications.

One of the companies they spoke to, Celina Insurance, provides some insight into the value they see and how they got their workforce - with a median age of 56, no less - to adopt instant messaging and UC capabilities.

At first, there was some resistance over things like interruptions. I think Robert Schoenfelt, Celina's CIO, did a great job of responding: "The CIO quashed their annoyance. 'When you can tell me when the phone is going to ring, I'll tell you when you're going to get a message,' he told them."

The article continues to explain other ways they helped spread adoption of IM inside the company.

Then there was the top-down acceptance at Celina when employees realized that the company CEO had learned the technology. "There was a picture of him in his leather jacket and sunglasses [with his identity on the site]. People said, 'If he's going to use it, I guess I'm going to do it, too,'" Shoenfelt laughs.

Ultimately, acceptance came once incoming requests were handled more easily, eliminating backlog, and people could suddenly work at home as efficiently as at the office. "Everybody latched on," Shoenfelt says, adding that Sametime changed the culture of the company.

Akiba Saeedi also brought up an essential point about seeing adoption and value of UC - integrating it into your business applications and processes:

Akiba Saeedi, IBM's program director of unified communications and collaboration, calls it the "stickiness factor." UC is more likely to be accepted when you "inject it into the [existing] business process" to simplify employees' lives.

If you're not familiar with Celina's story, head on over here to read the full case study. They've seen some really remarkable benefits from the use of this technology, including:

50 percent reduction in phone calls and costs due to instant messaging
40 percent reduction in head count while maintaining the same volume of business due to streamlined processes
Policy turnaround times reduced from weeks to days by integrating and automating business processes that span Celina and its agents

Links:

bMighty.com: Smaller Business UC Hurdles: User Adoption, Policies
Case Study: Celina Insurance

Microsoft OCS Futures: Quick, everyone, wait two years!

Adam Gartenberg — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 11:54:43 -0400

I was reading through Michael Osterman's summary of Microsoft's INTERACT08 UC-focused event, and one bullet stuck out for me in particular:

Microsoft admitted that it needs to do a better job at offering voicemail survivability and provide a better means of maintaining function in the event of a loss of connection to the data center, perhaps providing backup capabilities via the public switched telephone network (PSTN). These issues will be addressed in Office Communications Server (OCS) 2010.

Really? Wait two more years for voicemail survivability and assurances that I won't lose my phone system due to a connection problem with the data center?

I guess this is why we're seeing so many people interested in working with us and our telephony, audio and video partners - people that have proven solutions in market today.

Link: Michael Osterman: Microsoft's unified communications future

Tell me what Sametime documentation we’re missing

Adam Gartenberg — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 15:26:58 -0400

Well, I'm glad that got your attention :)

Before I get to the question in the title, though, there's some documentation that I missed posting on.

IBM and VMware have produced a reference architecture on running Sametime in a VMWare Infrastructure 3 environment. (Thanks Jennifer and Carl). If you are already or are considering rolling out Sametime on VMWare, I suggest taking a look.

So, now back to the question in the title....

While writing about the reference architecture, Carl brought up some additional material he'd like to have seen as part of this work:

This workload is fine for IM load but to me it's incomplete. This is the workload that ships with server.load, and it's all about IM, it's missing some key areas where customers feel load. How does the Sametime Meeting Center scale, Audio/Video scaling in meeting, VoIP scaling, P2P video, P2P screenshare, TCSPI scaling , how well does the environment handle resolve requests from thousands of Notes clients etc.

Similarly, there was a request a little while back through the Sametime Forum for a list of the variables that can be defined in the sametime.ini file on a Sametime server.

So my question of the day is: What other documentation would it be helpful for you to have?

Link: IBM Lotus Sametime Reference Architecture in a VMware Infrastructure 3 Environment

Lotus Sametime Unyte now available for purchase through Passport Advantage

Adam Gartenberg — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 14:00:26 -0400

The Lotus Sametime Unyte team announced today that you can now purchase (and for those of you who are IBM Business Partners, sell) access to use the Lotus Sametime Unyte service through IBM Passport Advantage just like other IBM software (well, there are some differences - as it is still a service and not a perpetual license).

When you purchase access to Sametime Unyte this way, you only need to purchase a subscription license for the meeting host. There are three levels of licensing depending on how many participants you would like to be able to attend the meeting for that host - 14 participants, 24 participants, or 99 participants.

And, as always, you can try out a free trial of the Sametime Unyte service, too.

IBM Lotus Sametime Unyte Meeting, an Internet-delivered Web conferencing service, is especially useful outside the boundaries of a corporate firewall. It offers a full-function Web conference capability without the management of on-site software deployment and support. With integrated voice conferencing features, the Lotus Sametime Unyte Meeting service is perfect for any meeting where you want to enhance the dialog by sharing a document, presentation, or application. Lotus Sametime Unyte Meeting Web conferencing provides key features such as presentation and application sharing, annotation, and hand-raising. The Lotus Sametime Unyte Meeting service also goes beyond basic Web conferencing and provides advanced features such as recording, polling, question, and answer session management.

Additional details:

Announcement letter: IBM Lotus Sametime Unyte
Free Trial: Lotus Sametime Unyte Trial
Website: Sametime Unyte

New Lotus Sametime Entry movie

Adam Gartenberg — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 13:50:58 -0400

Check out the new flash movie on Lotus Sametime Entry:

I'm curious for feedback on the style. We tried to take a different approach than with our previous demos/movies (like this one or this one). I believe the phrase that was tossed around regarding our prior efforts was "as much emotion as a cinder block," and so we tried something a little different here. I know the narrator doesn't exactly jump up and down here, but do you find this a more compelling approach?

(And I know already that many of you will respond with "just show us the product!" And keep in mind that for people that really want to see this in more detail, we do have things like this piece.

Link: Lotus Sametime Entry

Update 4/15 3:02 - links fixed

Lotus Sametime Advanced SDK now available

Adam Gartenberg — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 10:02:27 -0400

The Lotus Sametime Advanced SDK is now available. You can find it here.

Second "So you think you know Lotus Sametime" quiz posted

Adam Gartenberg — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 15:53:50 -0400

I've posted another "So you think you know Lotus Sametime" quiz. (Available below and on the Lotus Sametime Fan Page on Facebook.)

The first quiz was focused on trivia, and I'll admit you really needed to have quite a history with Sametime to know all the answers.

Try this one to see how well you know the instant messaging capabilities of Lotus Sametime Standard 8.

I promise this one will be easier :)

View this quiz on Quibblo
More quizzes on Quibblo

And if you haven't taken the first one yet, you can go here to take it now.