IBM has announced a new initiative for the unified communications market including a wide range of investments, product and technology advances and collaboration with clients and business partners. Expanding at 38 percent annually, IDC estimates unified communications will reach $17 billion by 2011, representing the next significant frontier for technology growth.

IBM's strategy combines unified communications, the convergence of information technology and telecommunications to enable a wide range of innovations that can change the way people work together. IBM Research is currently exploring a growing number of social and collaborative software projects with over 70 researchers dedicated to this work in eight research labs worldwide. In 2008, over 1,300 IBM software developers and technical experts will make innovative contributions to unified communications. New technical skills programs for IBM developers are being used to help accelerate software development, including the teaching of Eclipse-based development. In addition, IBM”s Venture Capital program is working to identify and fuel promising new innovations in unified communications

Part of this investment also covers a significant expansion of IBM Lotus Sametime software products. Work has also begun on blending IBM’s social software expertise into the real-time environment. The new IBM Lotus Sametime Advanced software, available March 28, includes community tools that enable users to spend less time trying to figure out who can help solve a problem, by reaching out to reach out to a community of colleagues or experts instantly. Lotus Sametime Advanced also features sophisticated collaboration features such as persistent group chat and instant screen sharing capabilities.

IBM Global Technology Services is assisting clients around the globe to exploit the convergence of voice, video, and data. Among many of the clients, IDEA Cellular, a cellular operator and an Aditya Birla Group Company, is implementing unified communications and collaboration solution. IBM is providing the services, assets and skills to deliver consulting, design and architecture, implementation; thereby, seamless integrating the solution into the existing environment. The IBM investments will address clients’ requirements for integration of multi-platform environments and multiple network equipment providers, while masking the complexity of delivering the solution with proven reference architecture to address mission critical business needs.

A variety of innovative companies from around the world are working with IBM software and services to deliver new unified communications solutions. For example, IBM and Avaya are developing a state-of-the-art unified communications solution including voice, fax, e-mail or instant message for the Pennsylvania State Employee’s Credit Union. IBM and Forterra Systems are developing a futuristic, unified communications solution code-named "Babel Bridge" that could allow US intelligence agencies to use a common graphical collaboration system to instantly communicate within a virtual world. IBM Business Partner, VBrick is introducing the VBrick Lotus Sametime Video Plug-in, the first product that streams live broadcasts and on-demand digital video content within the IBM Lotus Sametime environment.