IBM offers Lotus collaboration consulting services

IBM has discussed new collaboration consulting services at this year's Lotusphere

Lotusphere 2010: IBM will offer customers new consulting services to give them an idea of which Lotus collaboration tools to adopt.

Big Blue made the announcement at this week’s Lotusphere conference taking place in Orlando, Florida.

Lotus general manager Alastair Rennie called the services "IBM's Collaboration Agenda" and said they were the "major announcement" of Lotusphere this year.

According to IBM, the initiative will bring together groups of staff with expertise in vertical industries, software lab specialists and consulting services experts to deliver client workshops that will help customers with their collaboration agenda.

The workshops will provide attendees with ideas on the best collaborative tools they can use for their job function, best practices for adoption and a roadmap for implementation.

"Each industry has unique roles and work patterns that are encumbered by established norms and the inability to find the right expert information, or tool, to get the job done quickly," said Alistair Rennie, IBM Lotus Software general manager.

"Leading companies are asking how they make the greatest impact by freeing people from the hard-wired organisational barriers that slow them and their business results."

The workshops will be available immediately to customers in the US, the UK and Germany.

Examples of the tools IBM will advise customers to take up include instant messaging, online portals and videoconferencing. The workshops will be aimed at specific sectors including healthcare, banking, insurance and government.

James Governor, an analyst at RedMonk, said: "Collaboration tools and methods are very much on the IT agenda right now. Social networking is unavoidable, and IT managers are being asked to deliver it in an enterprise flavour. That is what IBM is responding to.

"Consulting services remains a key IBM business opportunity. The Lotus portfolio is broad enough that customers are likely to need help navigating it, and workshops is a good response to that issue."