Following on from my post yesterday about the Lotus Sametime Unyte Meeting announcement, I now have some pricing details…
* Please note, these are in UK Pounds Sterling, are PA base prices, and are obviously subject to change and/or discounts etc. *
| Part Number | Description | Max. number of particpants | Price (GBP) |
| D042XLL | IBM Lotus Sametime Unyte Meeting Host with up to X participants Initial Fixed Term Use 12 Months |
14
|
320
|
| D042YLL |
24
|
493
| |
| D042ULL |
999
|
649
| |
| E04TTLL | IBM Lotus Sametime Unyte Meeting Host with up to X participants Subsequent Fixed Term Use 12 Months |
14
|
320
|
| E04TULL |
24
|
493
| |
| E04TSLL |
999
|
649
|
So, what can we take from this?
a) I think that on first glance this presents great value to customers. Looking at Webex Meeting Centre (which I see as this solutions biggest competitor), the lowest charge they have is 42GBP pm (504GBP pa) for a maximum of 15 particpants per call, with 5 named meeting hosts
b) The licensing model is still rather vague – I note that the descriptions above mention “Sametime Unyte Meeting Host“. So, does that mean that the licence is per named meeting host as per Webex’s model? The announcement does not make this clear, and as yet, there is no licensing agreement available on IBM’s site. If the assumption is made that this is per named host, then in larger corporations, this could work out very expensive given it is a linear model… I hope not. [Update – looking at Adam Gartenberg’s blog post on the announcement, it seems as this is a per meeting host licence. So where all meetings are booked by one PA or office manager, this looks a good model. Where every exec/manager/consultant books their own, it could work out to be very costly… ]
c) The parts are split between “initial” and “subsequent” terms, but there is no change in price, and hence no affect on the cost to the customer. However, the change from a D to an E on the part number is significant as this affects how IBMers and partners are paid commission. It will be interesting to see how IBM ensures folks buy/sell the right agreements 😉
d) It will also be fascinating to see how IBM relates PA agreements purchased and user IDs on the SaaS servers – I’ve not seen this kind of model in action yet, so not sure how IBM will control things…
What do you think, will you be rushing to buy access to the Unyte service?
Other useful links:
- Free Trial: Lotus Sametime Unyte Trial
- Website: Sametime Unyte
