Sametime 7.5 New Features Tour

I just can't wait for Sametime 7.5 to be released. Since IBM announced the new features etc at Lotusphere in Orlando this year I have been looking forward to the beta release. As soon as it is available we will be into it.

As well as the 100's of new features the most exciting news is the fact that it is built on the Eclipse Framework. As such the Sametime client will be extensible. In simple terms this means that 3rd parties, such as us, will be able to build plugins for the product and extend its capability. We have some ideas floating around that I don't really want to give away but essentially it is about leverage the real time capability of sametime into other applications such as MS Office. The potential for collaboration tools is just awesome.

Summary of the new features:

• Brand New modern user interface with great new features.
• Place Awareness. ie When I am logged on at home people will know where I am.
• Emoticons, Spell Check, Time Stamps. Maybe these are little but they add a lot to the experience.
• Apparently it is brandable. I have yet to see this though.
• Fantastic improvements to the web conferencing. I was playing with Microsoft's Live Meeting Server the other day and was very impressed in that it was far more user friendly than Sametime Web Conferencing. However I think IBM will trump Microsoft again with Sametime Web Conferecing 7.5
• Streamlined meeting startup. This has always been a sore point with Sametime particularly when having external parties join the meetings. Hopefully all the JVM compatability issues will be resolved.
• Integration with VOIP & telephone vendors.

Anyway have a look at the tour of the new release and let me know what you think.