Cisco IP Phone 6800 Series vs HCL Sametime (formerly from IBM) | TrustRadius

What users are saying about

Score 8 out of 10

Based on 13 reviews and ratings

Score 7 out of 10

Based on 19 reviews and ratings

Feature Rating Comparison

Cisco IP Phone 6800 Series

HCL Sametime (formerly from IBM)

Hosted PBX

Multi-level Interactive Voice Response (IVR)

User templates

Call reports

Directory of employee names

Cisco IP Phone 6800 Series

HCL Sametime (formerly from IBM)

Answering rules

Call recording

Call park

Call screening

Message alerts

Cisco IP Phone 6800 Series

HCL Sametime (formerly from IBM)

Video conferencing

Audio conferencing

Cisco IP Phone 6800 Series

HCL Sametime (formerly from IBM)

Mobile app for iOS

Mobile app for Android

Pros

Audio quality is solid
It is portable and has good distance capability
It's compact and easy to carry
Battery life is decent

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Verified User

C-Level Executive in Professional Services

Information Technology & Services Company, 11-50 employees

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Sametime's web-based interfaces are "zero load", requiring no plug-ins to be installed to join a meeting, launch a meeting, or use chat in a browser. A plugin is required only if you want to share your screen.
Integration with IBM Notes is very tight. Sametime's chat status can change according to your Notes calendar. You can easily see if someone who just emailed you is available to chat. Your chat History is right inside Notes as well.
IBM's mobile apps are top notch. We automated the apps for our users thanks to IBM's work with third party MDMs. This made it very simple for us to deploy the Sametime mobile apps -- Chat and Meetings -- and get new capabilities such as Audio & Video mobilized quickly.
No down time, ever. The rock solid WebSphere back-end of Sametime means the environment is always up. Period.

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Verified User

Employee in Information Technology

Plastics Company, 1001-5000 employees

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Cons

Ability to change ringer based on internal or external call

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Verified User

Employee in Human Resources

E-Learning Company, 5001-10,000 employees

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Not convenient for a large group meeting.
Very basic tool for internal communication only not available for third party communication
Very basic and limited mobile app features.
High speed connection is needed to connect to Sametime

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Mogana Tashiani

Research Analyst and Consulting (Technology)

Frost & Sullivan Asia-PacificManagement Consulting, 501-1000 employees

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Likelihood to Renew

No score

No answers yet

No answers on this topic

HCL Sametime (formerly from IBM) 10.0

Based on 1 answer

Sametime is now an embedded experience for our users. They know it, they like it, they use it, and they expect it to be wherever they are. Because it is pretty easy to use and NEVER goes down, users know they can rely on it and won't be frustrated by it. Sametime is right up with there with Microsoft Office in terms of user adoption and appreciation.

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Verified User

Employee in Information Technology

Plastics Company, 1001-5000 employees

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Usability

No score

No answers yet

No answers on this topic

HCL Sametime (formerly from IBM) 8.6

Based on 2 answers

Just about everything works the way you expect it would and it's relatively easy for users to figure out. Sametime was one of those things that we started with only a few people as a "test" and before the test period was done we discovered a few hundred people had figured out how to log in and most got it working all on their own. Many of our users want to use Sametime and do so regularly; we do not have to create policies enforcing its usage. Users find it practical to use Sametime to do things like chat, transfer files, share their screen, and so forth.

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Verified User

Employee in Information Technology

Plastics Company, 1001-5000 employees

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Reliability and Availability

No score

No answers yet

No answers on this topic

HCL Sametime (formerly from IBM) 10.0

Based on 1 answer

Typically if Sametime is not available, it's because Windows Updates were done on the servers and they were not rebooted. However, that's not a problem with Sametime -- in fact, if you have Linux you could probably run Sametime for years without any hiccups whatsoever. We have no internal Linux expertise.

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Verified User

Employee in Information Technology

Plastics Company, 1001-5000 employees

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Performance

No score

No answers yet

No answers on this topic

HCL Sametime (formerly from IBM) 9.0

Based on 1 answer

Generally very good. Occasionally AV or screen-sharing will stutter and every now and then I hear of it dropping out altogether, but in all cases it was easy to re-establish

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Verified User

Employee in Information Technology

Plastics Company, 1001-5000 employees

View all 1 answers on this topic

Support Rating

No score

No answers yet

No answers on this topic

HCL Sametime (formerly from IBM) 8.4

Based on 4 answers

I have not needed to use the Sametime support team. Our local support team was able to configure it for me.

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Verified User

Analyst in Corporate

Aviation & Aerospace Company, 10,001+ employees

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Alternatives Considered

It's less expensive, more compact but not as robust and well-adopted/supported since Spectralink kind of owns the industry. Cisco needs to make more of these lines of DECT phones in order to compete.

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Verified User

C-Level Executive in Professional Services

Information Technology & Services Company, 11-50 employees

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We use Jabber globally in our company and Symphony (no relevant app in able list) in some of the teams as well. All these are instant messenger tools, but Sametime is the easiest one to be used and its chat history is easy to be searched. Sametime can be used to contact almost all internal staff as it’s included in default computer package. Symphony is used to chat with front end business while Jabber is used for call.

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Verified User

Technician in Information Technology

Financial Services Company, 10,001+ employees

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Scalability

No score

No answers yet

No answers on this topic

HCL Sametime (formerly from IBM) 10.0

Based on 1 answer

Sametime is rock solid. It runs on WebSphere, DB2 and other related IBM technologies. This does mean the back-end is highly complex and very difficult to learn and get comfortable with, however.

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Verified User

Employee in Information Technology

Plastics Company, 1001-5000 employees

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Return on Investment

I set up the desk for new hires in our group - it is super easy to plug in this phone and have them up and running.
Having the ability to pre-program speed dial numbers ensures that new hires are able to reach help without having to search for a number.
The ability to program ring tones is great, so if we are in the shared space meeting and we hear a phone ring, we know who's phone is ringing - the meeting can go on without everyone leaving to check.

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Verified User

Employee in Human Resources

E-Learning Company, 5001-10,000 employees

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Sametime keeps many of our team members in contact throughout the day which leads to increased productivity which makes everyone happy.
We use the team chat room feature every day. This allows a team to stay focused on the task without any extra messages that are not on topic.
The split between IBM Sametime, Slack and Google Hangouts has caused some issues when team members are not checking for messages on a certain app.

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Verified User

Analyst in Product Management

Sporting Goods Company, 501-1000 employees

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Screenshots

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Pricing Details

General

Free Trial

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Free/Freemium Version

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Premium Consulting/Integration Services

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Entry-level set up fee?

No

General

Free Trial

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Free/Freemium Version

—

Premium Consulting/Integration Services

—

Entry-level set up fee?

No

Rating Summary

Cisco IP Phone 6800 Series

HCL Sametime (formerly from IBM)

Cisco IP Phone 6800 Series

HCL Sametime (formerly from IBM)

Cisco IP Phone 6800 Series

HCL Sametime (formerly from IBM)

Cisco IP Phone 6800 Series

HCL Sametime (formerly from IBM)

Cisco IP Phone 6800 Series

HCL Sametime (formerly from IBM)

Cisco IP Phone 6800 Series

HCL Sametime (formerly from IBM)

Cisco IP Phone 6800 Series

HCL Sametime (formerly from IBM)

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