Cisco Jabber vs HCL Sametime (formerly from IBM)

• As an on-prem solution is possible to have voice access to the organization co workers and the PSTN, using the own extension number, even when connected from internet (using Expressway - no need to have a vpn or lan connection) from any device.
• Easy to collaborate from any device (mobile and personal computers). Multiplatform.
• Administrators able to customize the application's features as much as they need.
• Easy to integrate with Active Directory and Outlook. Unique user and password.
• Voice calls and messaging completely secure.
• Persistence chat for mobile.

Read full review

• 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.

Read full review

• There is some brand confusion that exists between Cisco communication products. This is more relevant to the support personnel and engineers that would be making decisions to implement the product. Cisco has their Spark/WebEx platform that provides collaboration/communication functionality and more to the end users. Cisco has stated at some conferences that I attended that they are committed to maintaining and developing the Cisco Jabber platform still so that is very promising since the product serves different needs.
• Cisco Jabber is a little complex to implement properly in your environment. The larger the communication cluster the more complicated it can become. There are also some additional features like persistent chat that require extra resources like a standalone database for persistent chat.

Read full review

• 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

Read full review

• Jabber has provided a very functional alternative to our company to Lotus Sametime. We had been using Sametime for years, and as we were moving out of the Lotus/Domino ecosystem, Jabber has provided a replacement with the chat system, but also means to do voice and video calls.
• Although handy, intensive usage of Jabber can be a curse for a company (including ours). Every information stored in Jabber is only available to the two people involved in the conversation. Without a proper knowledge management strategy, this can mean that a lot of valuable information can be shared privately as peer-to-peer conversations, and not available to people who need it.
• Another downside of Jabber is that it can multiply stress for some people, who can be contacted very often, and be interrupted at critical moments. This can introduce additional context switching, and reduce the productivity of some people.

Read full review

• 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.

Read full review