Instant Messaging with IBM employees
There are a number of ways for customers and partners to exchange instant messages with IBM employees. They include:
I'd like to take this opportunity to introduce Andrew Trevor-Jones, the new Sametime solution owner for the IBM internal deployment. Earlier this year, I assumed a new role with responsibility for end user computing strategy. Andrew is located in Australia and his contact information can be found in the IBM Employee Directory. Please join me in welcoming Andrew to the team.
- Direct Sametime connectivity, via the Sametime SIP/SIMPLE gateway, with customers and partners that also Sametime. IBM account representatives can access the sign-up form on IBM's intranet. An upgrade to the service, migrating to the newer Sametime Gateway, is planned for 2009.
- Extranet Sametime service. IBM has a Sametime community, extst.ibm.com, on the extranet connected to IBM's internal Sametime community via the Sametime SIP/SIMPLE gateway. Customers and partners can access this service via the Sametime web client on the IBM.com "Collaboration" website or via a standalone Sametime Connect client or Notes client with integrated Sametime. Clients that can be used at this time include standalone Sametime Connect 7.5 and 8.0 clients and Notes 8.0 and 8.0.1 with integrated Sametime. An upgrade to the service is planned for 2009 with the goal of allowing any Sametime client to be used.
- IBM employees are also allowed to use the public instant messaging networks (AIM, Yahoo, Google etc.) to communicate with customers and partners. IBM has an internal pilot for this service which leverages the Sametime Gateway. An upgrade to the service, making this capability available to more IBM employees, is planned for 2009. At the present time, many IBM employees download and install a separate instant messaging client (e.g. AIM Pro). Key advantages of leveraging the Sametime Gateway is that the Sametime Connect client is that additional client code is not required and the user has all their contacts, regardless of network, in a single list.
I'd like to take this opportunity to introduce Andrew Trevor-Jones, the new Sametime solution owner for the IBM internal deployment. Earlier this year, I assumed a new role with responsibility for end user computing strategy. Andrew is located in Australia and his contact information can be found in the IBM Employee Directory. Please join me in welcoming Andrew to the team.
