For example, Sametime provides the administrator with numerous controls over the use of audio and video bandwidth on the enterprise network, but its IP voice and video do not support NAT and firewall traversal. The Sametime Connect client provides multiparty audio, but it supports only point-to-point video (multipoint video is supported when in a web conference, however). Sametime’s native IP audio will also not interface to a telephony system. Instead, numerous partners, including Avaya, Alcatel-Lucent, Cisco, Nortel, iLink, is-coord, Siemens, Pentos, PhoneSoft, and VoiceRite provide PBX integration with Sametime through Eclipse and the Sametime APIs.
IBM Lotus has purposely not designed Sametime as a softphone or with call routing capability. Additional partners provide third-party video integration, but, like the audio, Sametime’s native video does not integrate with these third-party systems.
Sametime supports federation with other Sametime deployments, and with AOL, Yahoo!, GoogleTalk, and Jabber-based IM systems (although not natively with OCS, so far). This federation allows IM and computer presence information to be exchanged.
In contrast, OCS 2007 now supports multipoint IP audio and video (the predecessor, LCS 2005, only provided point-to-point IP voice and video); however, Microsoft offers few audio and video controls to administrators. Microsoft has built codecs that are quite sophisticated, providing automatic bandwidth throttling in low bandwidth situations, and offering excellent error correction capabilities. There is no notion of call admission control, however, as Microsoft says its codecs degrade gracefully to overcome bandwidth reductions and packet loss. Thus, in a limited bandwidth scenario, as more people connect using voice and/or video, the call experience for everyone could diminish.
Table 2: Comparison of Out of the Box Capabilities
Microsoft also has developed OCS so that it can be securely used over the public Internet. Starting with Office Communications Server 2007, Microsoft's audio and video can successfully traverse NATs and firewalls. Furthermore, Microsoft has designed OCS so that the Communicator client can act as a SIP endpoint when a partner's PBX or a third-party gateway is integrated with OCS. Partner companies include Nortel, Alcatel-Lucent, Avaya, Cisco, Ericsson, Mitel, NEC, ShoreTel, and Siemens.
In addition, vendors like LG-Nortel, Polycom, and others have designed several OCS-compatible, plug-and-play desk phones. (Since Microsoft wrote the specifications for these phones, they all have similar functionality.) OCS also supports federation with other OCS implementations and it can federate with AOL, MSN, and Yahoo! (no Jabber, GoogleTalk, or Sametime thus far).
There are some significant differences in how the clients, and hence, the underlying infrastructure work. For example, while Microsoft OCS/Communicator supports the addition of SIP phones from select third-party vendors (as mentioned above), IBM Lotus does not support SIP voice endpoints.
OCS has tight integration with Exchange and the Outlook calendar right out of the box; similarly, Lotus Sametime has tight integration with Lotus Notes, and a slightly scaled-down version of Sametime even ships with Lotus Notes. Sametime can integrate with Outlook, but OCS does not integrate with Notes.
Each product also has “unique features” the other one does not have that make it useful and valuable for users. For example, Office Communicator has a rich presence model allowing it to display both telephone and computer presence. Also, users can quickly type a note about their current activity, such as “I’m working on the final PPT, ping only if urgent” that displays whenever another person moves their mouse over the first person’s presence icon. Calendar information will also display when OCS is integrated with Exchange.
Similarly, Lotus Sametime has some very nice user functions, such as built-in spell checking while typing instant messages. It also displays a pencil next to the name of anyone who is typing a message during an IM session. Sametime’s broadcast capability lets individuals send a message out to colleagues, and if the broadcast message is a request for information, individuals can choose to respond through an IM window. Unlike Microsoft OCS, Lotus Sametime does not allow you to set your status to “appear offline” while you are really online, as this is viewed in the Sametime world as lying and is a serious breach of IM/presence etiquette.
New to OCS 2007 is premise-based web conferencing (the web conferencing server resides on the premise as opposed to at a service provider’s location), whereas Lotus Sametime has supported premise-based web conferencing almost since its inception. Both Lotus Sametime and Microsoft OCS have the ability to launch an ad hoc web conference right from the contact list. New to Sametime is Sametime Unyte, a hosted web conferencing solution obtained through IBM’s acquisition of Web Dialogs.
