With all the attention on integrating communications applications and solutions with Microsoft Outlook, to drive unified communications capabilities for the business market, many might forget that IBM still holds a significant share of the market -- depending on whose data you read, IBM's Lotus owns as much as 40 percent of the market.

Much of IBM's customer base is founded in tradition, with many large enterprises reluctant to replace a communications platform that has provided an effective solution for years -- not to mention the costs involved with making the switch to an alternative solution.

The point, though, is that many of the key players that have recently announced compatibility with MS Outlook and Exchange, are also now doing the same with IBM's Lotus Sametime solution. It is not only a testament to the market share still owned by IBM, but also to the continued growth of Unified Communications, which seeks to integrate all enterprise communications applications to enhance access and improve productivity.

Interactive Intelligence is among those IP Communications solutions vendors looking to extend their own market shares with IBM integration, and has announced it is working with IBM to integrate its Customer Interaction Center (CIC) with IBM's Lotus Sametime to create a single unified communications solution extending to both the enterprise and contact center.

By collaborating with IBM, Interactive Intelligence believes it is helping the business world overcome the hype around Unified Communications, and "deliver specific solutions that solve real business problems," according to founder and CEO, Dr. Donald E. Brown.

Interactive Intelligence released its software suite back in 1997, and it has since evolved into the current CIC, which Brown says brings practical, scalable solutions that can be easily deployed to bring UC functionality to businesses. Now, the multi-channel customer interaction processing capabilities from Interactive's solution can be combined with enterprise-wide Lotus deployments to further enhance communications across an entire organization.

The ability to deploy a single solution across an enterprise can significantly enhance the business efficiency within that organization, which is why the integration between CIC and Sametime will be well received by the IBM user base.