Saying goodbye to Sametime Connect stand-alone and integrated clients
Tags :Sametime Sametime Connect
After much thought on this, I felt it was time to make the prediction of what is to soon come for the IBM Sametime Connect client, both integrated and stand-alone. There is no insider knowledge, no NDA being broken and nothing that has been shared. It is simple summation from what we are seeing being delivered as well as capabilities in the IBM Sametime family.
With the evolution of the Sametime Proxy client, based on Websphere, there is no need for the stand-alone client to continue. Let me walk through my reasoning:
Deployment
The Sametime Connect client package, both stand-alone and integrated, force hundreds of MB of installation. This is quite prohibitive for small incremental needs and also widescale deployment scenarios.
The new Sametime Proxy as a web interface removes this entire deployment need. Changes are done on the fly. Fixes are instant. Sure you must be ready to know it is all web calls and traffic load. This also means the client will use the embedded browser even more.
If this truly becomes a widget (and not a plug-in) the catalog could push it out. If it is a plug-in, then simply make the update site for the client.
Mobility
Currently Domino Web Access (DWA or iNotes as you wish) had the older stlinks type integration. Now with the Sametime Proxy, you get a fully functional client.
Android and Apple based clients are getting the same web based experience through the Sametime Proxy server. Yes yes there is a download in the marketplace, but it is just a freaking bookmark to the proxy. So I do wish they would stop calling it native, but that is a different posting. Coming in 8.5.3 is native SUT capabilities (see this public blog post from the Sametime team).
Functionality
Really not much is different. With the new widgets and plug-ins it makes it even easier. Imagine a sidebar widget that shows your upcoming online meetings? Done. Rich text in chats? Done. Business Card lookups? Done. Frequent contacts? Yep. You get the idea.
So this means that I can see IBM slowly moving you toward the web proxy interface and less toward the heavy installed client. More development time seems to keep moving into the Websphere based side as the Domino server side gets less updates and even is now called Legacy in some literature for the meeting services.
Thoughts? Discussions?
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On Monday, September 12th, 2011 by Chris Miller
