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IBM and Cisco announced today that they are teaming up on a platform that blends chat, voice, and video, based on an open standards approach.

The two tech giants will base the unified communications and collaboration client on open technologies such as Eclipse and OSGi (define). IBM said the resulting new client platform frees organizations from the limitations of a locked-in model, helping businesses get richer communication and collaboration environments tuned to the needs of their organization.

At the core of the communications and collaboration platform -- dubbed the UC2² Client Platform -- will be an open set of application programming interfaces (APIs) offered by IBM as a subset of Lotus Sametime collaboration capabilities.

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Some big-name Cisco and IBM clients applauded the announcement.

"The ability to provide our users with a single focal point for the full suite of applications they use every day -- including such things as Cisco CallManager and Unity, Lotus Sametime and Notes -- is very strategic for us," said Ray Repic, chief technology architect at Coca-Cola Enterprises. "The announced platform … will allow us to more fully integrate core applications as well as build additional applications to work with them via open APIs."

The makers of the Blackberry devices also liked the move.

"(The new platform) represents a major step forward in terms of a more open and comprehensive development environment that will allow RIM to further integrate and enhance voice, collaboration, and other business applications for mobile workers," said David Yach, a senior vice president at RIM.

The expanded relationship is also expected to include: joint offerings based on the UC² Client Platform, communication and collaboration products from both companies, and expanded go-to-market activities including Cisco selling Lotus Sametime and IBM selling Cisco Unified Communications Manager, Cisco Unity, and Cisco Unified MeetingPlace.

Other expected features, some not due until later this year, are:

Click-to-Call and Voice Mail integration -- Lotus Sametime users will be able to send instant messages to and from Cisco Unified IP Phones, view and play Cisco Unity voice messages, and click-to-call another user directly from their Lotus Sametime 7.5.1 client.

New joint client offering -- In addition to the above functionality, a combination of capabilities will be offered from Lotus Sametime and a suite of functions from Cisco to include federated presence information, a soft phone, hard phone control, call history, conferencing, and video telephony.

Cisco Unified MeetingPlace and Lotus Sametime and Lotus Notes integration -- Lotus Sametime Web conference integration with and control of Cisco Unified MeetingPlace audio and video conferences, and click to conference capabilities from Lotus Sametime and Lotus Notes.

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