IBM just announced new mobile social applications. IBM has been a leader in the social marketplace over the last several years and this announcement continues their leadership status. The announcements cover applications for iOS, Android and Blackberry devices, so they have the major players covered.
Here are the new applications IBM announced:
- New social networking app: Available at no charge, the new IBM Connections app works just like the industry-leading IBM social software with added functionality for Google Android smartphones and tablets, Apple iOS devices and BlackBerry smartphones. In addition to the popular File share application, Profiles, and Activities, Blogs and generate-and-vote-on-ideas features, workers can now take photos with their smartphones and upload them directly to Connections. All three apps are available now in the respective apps stores.
- Partial wipe for Apple iOS devices: New IBM software provides “partial wipe” capability for Apple iOS devices allowing an IT administrator to wipe only the company data from the device while preserving a worker’s personal data, such as personal email, photos, videos and games. Administrators can still initiate a full reset wipe if circumstances warrant it, as an alternative to this new partial wipe option. Traveler enables IBM email, contacts and calendar information to be accessible from the most popular mobile devices.
- Click-to-call from Android OS device calendar: Available in beta now, Lotus Notes Traveler will allow IBM email users to call people listed in their calendar views with just one click.
- Unified Communications for Android devices: IBM’s Sametime software for Android extends presence awareness and instant messaging with new features including text-to-speech which can read incoming messages when the users cannot stop to look at the device, for example, when driving; send photos taken with the device through Sametime chats; and automatically update location status. Workers who also have Sametime Unified Telephony software reduce phone use costs by initiating calls to whatever phone happens to be nearby.
- Online meeting support for BlackBerry: IBM Sametime meetings support allows BlackBerry users to participate in online meetings using their mobile devices.
- Cloud-based meeting support for Android: LotusLive Meetings support for the Android OS is planned to be available later this year.
This is a quite a nice list. For me the Connections applications are the highlight of the list. I was going to include photos here, but they are copyrighted and WordPress won’t allow me to link to them! Go here to see them: http://www.flickr.com/photos/34618718@N06/
