Skype Finds IBM is Becoming an Skype Extras Partner.

At the Skype Developers Conference in June Lou Guercia told his story about how WebDialogs became a Skype Extras Partner with their Unyte Desktop Sharing service and how this partnerships had benefited his business, along with the trial and tribulations of getting to the point where they were seeing some success.

Today WebDialogs passed a significant milestone; according to this report from Dan York, it was announced at VoiceCon 2007 this afternoon that they had been acquired by IBM for incorporation into IBM’s Lotus Software Group. From the IBM press release:

With the acquisition of WebDialogs, IBM is adding a software-as-a-service delivery model to the Lotus Sametime family of products, providing customers with choice and flexibility in how they buy and operate their web conferencing services. IBM will also integrate the service with its industry-leading collaboration portfolio, including IBM Lotus Notes and IBM Lotus Sametime software.

The WebDialogs Unyte services will expand IBM’s offerings in the Web conferencing space, particularly for the small-to-medium-sized business (SMB) segment and departments within larger organizations.

I have personally enjoyed watching as Lou, Gershon and the WebDialogs team build Unyte over the past 18 months into a first class desktop sharing service. Congratulations to them all.

Phil is attending the IBM press conference as I write this; he will probably have more observations later today; perhaps even information on how WebDialogs services will become incorporated into other voice-enabled services beyond Skype.

P.S.: It’s another of Andy Abramson’s clients who is being acquired; last month Google acquired his client Grand Central.

Tags: Skype, Unyte, WebDialogs

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