IBM brings IM to the airwaves

IBM today released its Lotus wireless instant messaging software, marking another push by Big Blue into the mobile business space.

Called Sametime Everyplace, the IM solution is designed to let any of IBM’s 80 million Lotus Notes customers send and receive instant messages through PDAs and wireless handsets. Trying to cash in on the popularity of IM in the business space, IBM has developed its own proprietary IM technology, called Sametime, which the company touts as a secure, albeit paid, alternative to the free consumer IM solutions on the market today.

Sametime Everyplace is a logical extension of IBM’s enterprise, PC-based messaging platform and has the advantage of being interoperable with the full suite of Lotus business software, IBM officials said.

“While other companies are developing consumer-based wireless solutions, Lotus has delivered one of the first ‘fit-for-business’ wireless instant messaging solutions,” said Patricia Booth, director of Lotus’ unified communications unit, in a statement.

Wireless instant messaging is a fairly new technology, with developers trying to approximate the IM experience on mobile devices. Most handsets on the market sport embedded browsers and operating systems, meaning the client software necessary to run an application can’t be housed on the device.

Mobile devices such as PDAs can support separate applications, yet they are still inhibited by the nature of their wireless connections. Over a circuit-switched connection, a user spends very little time actually connected to the Internet, nullifying “presence awareness” benefits of IM--i.e. the ability to tell whether a user is on line or off line.

IBM tries to approximate that sort of “buddy list” functionality by augmenting the service with short messaging service, which is independent of a microbrowser or an IM client. A mobile user receives an SMS message indicating someone is trying to initiate an IM session, and then the user logs on to the Internet to start the session.

The application falls shy of true instant messaging associated with PCs, but as packet-switched and high-speed wireless networks are deployed, IBM and other vendors will be able to offer true wireless instant messaging, said Jim Pouliopouslis, senior marketing manager for Lotus Mobile Communications.

“We really needed to find a way to get this stuff to corporate users today,” Pouliopouslis said. “Faster networks will mean better solutions, but the demand for wireless instant messaging is out there now. They’re asking for it today.”