IBM and Cisco announced their common effort in creating a unified platform for communications and collaboration.
The idea of this project is to provide the developers of different communication services with one single platform, rather then a series of them and from different vendors. The current platform will be based on Eclipse and OSGi (Open Services Gateway initiative), as stated by the representatives of IBM and Cisco. The new offspring of the two companies will be called UC2, which stands for Unified Communication and Collaboration.
Additionally there were made other announcements on collaborative work. IBM and Cisco are planning to develop a series of application programming interfaces based on the communication APIs from Cisco and on collaboration application from Lotus - SameTime.
The modification for the SameTime planned for this year are integration of such functions as click-to-call and voice mailing. These features will enable instant messaging to and from Cisco Unified IP phones. In addition to this service the companies will offer information on federated presence, a log with calls history and video telephony.
Adam Gartenberg, the offering manager for this software at the IBM Lotus Software Group, said that the UC2 platform will attract many application developers to create various plug-ins for a remote access.
It should be mentioned that Coca-Cola turned out to be among the interested companies and who are willing to implement new software based on this platform into their communication system.
A further step in promoting the software should be a program of certification. The purpose of such program is to certify the UC2 based software, so that it meets the entire range of IBM and Cisco requirements.
A separate announcement from Cisco was that the new UC2 platform will boost up the development of further versions of Cisco's Unified Personal Communicator.
The competitor of IBM and Cisco in the area, and an ally of Microsoft, Nortel Networks, didn't have much success in this field and could not enjoy a great, or any advantage over the ideas suggested by IBM and Cisco.
IBM and Cisco have announced the development of a new platform, based on Eclipse and OSGi (Open Services Gateway initiative), which should unite all communication and collaboration software developers under a single platform.

Before the UC2 (Unified Communication and Collaboration) the unified communication has suffered because of a lack of a platform to be used by all software developers, rather than a series of them and, moreover, provided by different vendors. According to Adam Gartenberg from IBM Lotus Software Group this was the main cause for this partial stagnation.

However, the UC2 is meant to ease the work of software developers. Gartenberg stated that this platform is very flexible and will certainly draw much attention form programmers. They will be able to create different plug-ins and small applications to remotely control other, major application. 

The companies have also unveiled a series of their other joint projects. These project will be based on a set of application programming interface from Lotus (SameTime) and Cisco.

The add-ons planned are integration of a series of additional functions and features into the SameTime software from Lotus. Thus, in a few months, the SameTime users will benefit from such functions as click-to-call and voicemail. This will enable easier instant messaging inside the Cisco's Unified IP phones' system.

The fact that the platform will be based on Eclipse will make the numerous developers create many communications services, mainly for remote users to benefit from a series of new functions of ERP and CRM applications.

Nortel Networks - a partner of Microsoft since last year and Cisco's rival in the area - didn't have much success in the communication services field.

As for Microsoft, the experts are waiting for the reaction of the Bill Gates' company on the ideas and offers made by IBM and Cisco for enterprise communications and collaboration solutions.