HCL Sametime vs. Microsoft Teams

Overall, Sametime is a great feature for global teams to communicate, since you can chat quickly and efficiently with Sametime. Also, the file transfer is really fast and it downloads to any folder you choose. The chat history is easy to use and it is easy to find keywords. The feature of creating "emoticons" sometimes can jeopardize the team's efficiency.

Incentivized

Microsoft Teams is ideal for organizations where employees regularly collaborate by sharing files, working on the same documents, updating the progress, etc. This is because different file formats are supported for online editing and collaboration with the help of Microsoft Teams. Additionally, for every file which is shared among the team members, emails are not sent again and again which helps in easily managing and organizing files. It is less appropriate where the team members have to instantly reply to an urgent task as sometimes the notifications are not sent properly which may lead to a delay in the work.

Incentivized

• The license cost is comparatively low so almost all staff have it installed in our company. We can use it to contact all internal staff.
• It’s light and fast with almost no downtime. It also provides easy to use APIs for the user to build automation process on it. We have an internally built robot running on Sametime to answer frequently asked questions and do some repetitive tasks.
• Chat history can be saved as per user’s preference and it is easy to be searched.

Incentivized

• Video calls are great with Microsoft Teams. They've made big improvements over the last year and I rarely have issue with getting on. It's nice when things just work.
• The most used functionality is, of course, the chat feature. It does what it's supposed to do and you can create chat groups from whoever you'd like. We use it a lot when there is a special project and a team from various groups get together for a short period of time to get things done.
• An overlooked function is the ability to search anything within Microsoft Teams. Any photo, document, or chat can be searched and found pretty easily. I can't tell you how many times this has saved me from having to rewrite something or start over.

Incentivized

• The mobile app is not that great for anything outside of straight up messaging.
• We tried video chatting within Sametime without any real success. There were connection issues and the app would crash quite often. We switched to another product and had no problems.
• IBM Sametime just looks outdated. The menus and contact list are not up to date from a UX perspective compared to many other popular chat apps.

Incentivized

• I sometimes have a hard time viewing both the meeting screen and chat window at the same time.
• There have been times when someone in a meeting will totally lose their connection.
• At times the sound quality is not what it should be which makes it hard to hear each other.

Sametime is now an embedded experience for our users. They know it, they like it, they use it, and they expect it to be wherever they are. Because it is pretty easy to use and NEVER goes down, users know they can rely on it and won't be frustrated by it. Sametime is right up with there with Microsoft Office in terms of user adoption and appreciation.

Incentivized

Microsoft Teams is included with our Office 365 subscription and we have no intention of migrating off of Office 365 and Microsoft products. Since Microsoft Teams is included for free with our Office 365 subscription, and since we enjoy all the features, benefits, and functionality, there is no question that our team will continue to use the product

Incentivized

Just about everything works the way you expect it would and it's relatively easy for users to figure out. Sametime was one of those things that we started with only a few people as a "test" and before the test period was done we discovered a few hundred people had figured out how to log in and most got it working all on their own. Many of our users want to use Sametime and do so regularly; we do not have to create policies enforcing its usage. Users find it practical to use Sametime to do things like chat, transfer files, share their screen, and so forth.

Incentivized

The overall functionality of the product is incredible in that it provides a one-stop solution for organization and communication. The product is also very well integrated into Microsoft Outlook and other Office apps. Visually pleasing and very easy to use interface. New features are constantly being added to enhance the user experience.

Typically if Sametime is not available, it's because Windows Updates were done on the servers and they were not rebooted. However, that's not a problem with Sametime -- in fact, if you have Linux you could probably run Sametime for years without any hiccups whatsoever. We have no internal Linux expertise.

Incentivized

Rare, but outages do happen

Incentivized

Generally very good. Occasionally AV or screen-sharing will stutter and every now and then I hear of it dropping out altogether, but in all cases it was easy to re-establish

Incentivized

Sometimes about once a week I get a message that says "Sorry, there seems to be something wrong". But it goes away in a few minutes.

Incentivized

I have to use support for many customers. However, support is generally quite responsive and continues to see an issue through to resolution and I would recommend using their knowledgeable and well-trained staff.

Incentivized

I think Microsoft Team is overall good application for communication, track Project work inter the teams and also intra teams. I have 7 out of 10 because it needs improvements in certain features like video sharing call, call drop, audio quality and connecting problems even after having good internet connection.

I find everything I need for my day-to-day work.

Incentivized

Text chat is text chat. It's not a technically hard problem to solve. It's when you try and move out of text chat into more fully featured applications that allow for audio or video calling, transcripts, etc, it becomes apparent that the developers on Sametime gave up a long time ago. In my organization, Slack has nearly completely replaced Sametime for any and all purposes that Sametime used to fulfill.

Incentivized

We chose primarily because of the promised integration with the Microsoft Business Suite - which it mostly delivers on. That does give Teams an obvious advantage over competitors. IMHO Teams has a richer, more mature feature set, and the experience is more reliable and stable. Although like any of there there is room for imporvement.

Incentivized

Sametime is rock solid. It runs on WebSphere, DB2 and other related IBM technologies. This does mean the back-end is highly complex and very difficult to learn and get comfortable with, however.

Incentivized

It does not appear to have a limit to how many teams and employees we can have using it

Incentivized

• HCL Sametime is affordable thus it is cost-efficient for instant messaging compared to costs of phone calls, especially overseas calls.
• As Sametime is integrated with Lotus Notes it is convenient to use both of these together without separately using them.
• Still need to pay for other apps for effective video conferencing and webinar.

Incentivized

• User experience has been much better than the previous Skype for Business app. It has an easy-to-use interface with persistent chats. The search feature is very fast and useful.
• MS Teams has mostly focused on Collaboration and team building features which are very useful for organisational communications. This in turn has a positive impact on the overall business outcome.
• Scheduling meetings have never been so easy in the past. We can schedule meetings on the go without any hassles
• Since Teams is accessible from multiple platforms like Laptop, Desktop, Mobile phones, etc it has been very convenient from a Mobility perspective.

Incentivized