Lotus Offers Sametime Via ASP and Toolkit

At its LotusSphere conference in late January, Lotus (www.lotus.com), Cambridge, MA, announced ASP and customization services for Sametime Web conferencing, presence detection and instant messaging software. "Some companies have said they'd like to be able to try out these technologies without a large capital expenditure," said Bethann Cregg, marketing manager in Lotus's advanced collaboration group. "They also like the ease of use of Web-based consumption. They don't really want to take on internal administration for e-meetings and instant messaging."

The toolkit option will let companies embed Sametime features in a portal or another application. For example, with presence awareness added to a document management system, a user reading a particular document could see whether its author or editor was working in the same application. E-meetings could be convened ad hoc within project management software or a partner portal.

The Web conferencing features of Sametime include the ability to share screens, share an electronic whiteboard, audioconference and videoconference. Presence awareness is built in so meeting attendees can see who else is participating in group chats. Instant messaging is also included, so participants can send each other private instant messages.

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