HCL Sametime vs. Ooma Office

Sametime is well suited for very quick conversations, where you know the person is an active Sametime user. It also serves as an easy way to reach out to someone you may not know when looking for an answer to a quick question, as they are likely to be a Sametime user. Do not, under any circumstances, attempt to use Sametime for Audio or Video chat. The quality and reliability are horrendous.

Incentivized

We use Ooma Office for everyone in the company including mobile users. It has allowed us to eliminate the spam callers as well give our mobile and remote users the ability to make business calls - from any device, from anywhere, at any time - without having to worry about any long distance charges, or without giving up their personal telephone numbers (at home or cellular).

Incentivized

• 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.

Incentivized

• Ease of IVR customization: Allows my business to adapt quickly to an ever-changing business economy
• Plug and Play application: I was up and running within minutes of opening the box with the equipment in it!
• Find Me, Follow Me for remote access: No matter where I go, I can bring the office with me.
• Simple, Straightforward Billing: I recognized savings from day 1; my monthly invoice stays the same every month!

• 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

Incentivized

• Cell phone app could be a little easier to use.
• Ooma Desktop needs some tweaking to make it more user friendly.
• I would like my 800 number to be assigned to my personal mailbox vs. having to have its own extension.

Incentivized

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.

Incentivized

We have found it very easy to configure, manage, and expand our phone operations with Ooma Office. We needed a reliable phone network as this is the first means of communication for our customers - Ooma has made it a lot easier for us to manage. Their support is also available 24x7 so that's a huge plus.

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.

Incentivized

Their usability is a perfect fit for a small business. We can offer the same features a large company offer their customer at a much more affordable price. The ease of use of the system make it quick to set up and train staff with little time required.

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.

Incentivized

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

Incentivized

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

Incentivized

Ooma Office support is always available. I've never been on the phone with them for longer than 5 minutes. They are knowledgable, have great active listening skills, are able to make recommendations on how to make Ooma Office work even better for you, and wait times to speak with an agent are reasonable and typically less than 1 minute.

Incentivized

Have a plan in place before you start the implementation, open communication with the staff on the changes being made, prepare a reference guide on the system and how to navigate the new setup. Budget and allocate time for helping staff learn the new system. Consolidate and coordinate all the questions internally before reaching out to support.

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.

Incentivized

We went over to Ooma [Office] after having had Intermedia for several years. Intermedia was good, but they were due for an update on many of their systems, which they did after we left. With Ooma [Office], we have our hold music and other basic, easy to use options that fit well for our small business.

Incentivized

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.

Incentivized

• 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.

Incentivized

• System made it one-stop shopping for fax lines and phones numbers and equipment which was convenient.
• It was a shock to see that $39.98 of service manages to result in about $18 of additional “fees” every month. Makes the service significantly less of a bargain than is advertised.