Likelihood to Recommend 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.
Read full review I just deploy WebEx calling for one customer a few months ago and yes there was using an old infrastructure OnPrem on-premise. They have migrated to WebEx calling and they're very happy with this solution because they have some new features that they don't have with their old infrastructure. Now they have some new features even if they don't really pay for it, they have it and they are very happy. For example, they don't own a Cisco Unity server and now it's WebEx calling. They have the SVI function, they have the voicemail function and even if they don't have in mind to merge to WebEx calling in order to have these features, they have these features and they're happy to discover it and now they're using it. So it's very a good experience.
Read full review Pros 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 In addition, Webex Calling makes it simple to add people and manage teams. It also seamlessly integrates with a variety of other applications, making it a versatile choice. Furthermore, it boasts good audio and video quality, making it ideal for conducting meetings and remote communications. Read full review Cons 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 It might be that we didn't have this package, but transcription capabilities were not included. Sometimes, using Webex Calling would make my computer and other programs run slow If screens were being shared, it required a lot of bandwidth and sometimes froze or glitched. Read full review Likelihood to Renew 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.
Read full review because have been using it and its easy to configure and manage
Read full review Usability 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.
Read full review It is a very easy product to deploy and configure and to really take advantage of. It does not matter if you are using it in an office or your home, or for a security office or a collaboration meeting room - you have the right endpoint available for each case and the configuration parameters to improve the functionality you need.
Read full review Reliability and Availability 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.
Read full review Performance 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
Read full review Support Rating I have not needed to use the Sametime support team. Our local support team was able to configure it for me.
Read full review I have been working for a long time with Cisco as a provider and also Cisco TAC and Cisco Support Engineers. The support starts right beforehand in the documentation of the product you are interested in. From the start you have a good, complete, and detailed and easy to read datasheet and there's always someone available to answer any questions.
Read full review Alternatives Considered 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, bu
t 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.
Read full review The differences between both software can be marginal in some aspects,
but for the campaign in a proffessional level it was a clear win to
Webex due the quality and security of the platform, being a Cisco
product has more impact on the final decision, and in the end the
overall experience has been great, having used
Twilio in the past, that
last part is my personal opinion.
Read full review Scalability 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.
Read full review Return on Investment 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 I don't make decisions on ROI, but Webex Calling is used quite widely in the organization. The ease of calling definitely makes it easy to coordinate across teams and geographies. Good performance in low bandwidth situations means that employees with lower bandwidths don't necessarily need to upgrade internet speeds to have video calling. Read full review ScreenShots Webex Calling Screenshots