Skype-IBM Lotus SameTime licensing partnership seen as likely

Colleague and friend Jim Courtney of Skype Journal puts up a long post noting that back in August, IBM's Lotus SameTime division acquired Skype Developer Partner WebDialogs, publisher of the Unyte Plus Skype Extra for desktop and application sharing as an escalation of a voice and/or chat conversation:

WebDialogs CEO Lou Guercia and his team at WebDialogs went through many trials and tribulations to make Unyte desktop sharing and other web conferencing products a success. They targeted both retail customers, especially as a Skype Extra, and web conferencing resellers, of whom they had signed up over 50.. Yet, other than for a brief update discussion at the end of September, the WebDialogs team has been low profiles while getting the dust settled and establishing their legs at Lotus SameTime.

Attending a webinar Lou conducted yesterday, Jim noted these here's what we-re planning clues dropped by Lou when the subject came around to Unyte Plus and Skype: When talking about Unyte Plus, Lou had more to say about Skype:

• "Now that the dust has settled with respect to integration into IBM, we are redoubling our focus on partnership development with Skype."
• "Skype is largely a consumer based service."
• "Skype provides the best VoIP to PSTN gateway and points-of-presence on a global basis; Skype has become.the leader in taking voice to PSTN gateways."
• "IBM personifies excellence in technology, support and coverage in market."
• "Does it not makes sense to leverage off and trade off what the combination of Skype and IBM SameTime group are good at to bring to the table and the leverage the SMB market?"
• "IBM is planning on spending more time with Skype and other big brands."

Jim then writes that Lou then mentioned some interesting plans for video conversations over SameTime.

Jim then connects the dots to envision, as he says, a "possible  IBM a licensing partnership for incorporation of Skype technology into its various SameTime real time communications offerings where appropriate?"

I can read the tea leaves, and I think Jim is right. Such a partnership is likely to be attempted.

The only barrier, I'd say, is that you talk to many enterprise IT people, and there's still a widespread disdain for Skype's functionality and security. These same people, of course, are far more positively disposed toward SameTime.

Interesting to see how this one will turn out.