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HCL Sametime vs Office 365 comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

HCL Sametime
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
5
Ranking in other categories
Virtual Meetings (15th)
Office 365
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.1
Number of Reviews
153
Ranking in other categories
Content Collaboration Platforms (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

While both are Messaging and Collaboration solutions, they serve different purposes. HCL Sametime is designed for Virtual Meetings and holds a mindshare of 1.6%, up 0.4% compared to last year.
Office 365, on the other hand, focuses on Content Collaboration Platforms, holds 8.6% mindshare, up 6.3% since last year.
Virtual Meetings Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
HCL Sametime1.6%
Zoom Workplace Business7.8%
Webex5.5%
Other85.1%
Virtual Meetings
Content Collaboration Platforms Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Office 3658.6%
Google Workspace8.1%
Dropbox Business - Enterprise7.9%
Other75.4%
Content Collaboration Platforms
 

Featured Reviews

Bogdan Chechlowski - PeerSpot reviewer
Kierownik Biura Informatyki at EIB SA
Stable product, communicate very fast and allows to see who's online in the office or work environment
It was used for communication through text messages, primarily Being able to see who was online and communicate very fast was a good feature.  The security was quite good. However, when we tried to implement it for email at a high level, we had to use another solution, FortiMail Gateway. I view…
Anubrata Ghosh - PeerSpot reviewer
Technical Manager at Landmark Group
Teams streamlines collaboration but Outlook experiences occasional slowness on Mac
Teams is a really good collaboration tool. You can work basically at any part of the world and communicate and collaborate with anybody, as long as they are connected to the internet. It helps with remote work, and although I don't work remotely, I have offices in Dubai and different geographical locations. It helps me connect with my colleagues and team who are not in the same geography as I am in Bangalore. Teams can facilitate team meetings, screen sharing, and organizing meetings.Regarding security, we have two-factor authentication governed by organizational policy. When trying to login to Office 365, Teams, or any Office 365 app, we are required to provide a password and use Microsoft Authenticator to sign in using a code. This is how two-factor authentication is implemented in our organization. Office 365 offers a suite of apps including OneNote, though I don't use it very often. In terms of integration with Microsoft ecosystem, it offers everything needed to get work done without any hassle.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"Audio and video calls provide faster communication than chat."
"A very good communication and real-time collaboration software, it is simple, fast, reliable, keeps history and the best feature of all is its intelligence."
"I can view the status and availability of colleagues or team members, which makes it easy to approach them when they are available."
"This solution saves time and cost in communicating with team members, streamlines tasks in my organization by encouraging us to chat directly with the relevant person, and strengthens professional relationships through increased communication among peers."
"The security was quite good."
"The most valuable features are its usability and interoperability; I can switch between multiple devices and continue my documentation seamlessly, saving it to the cloud and reusing it anywhere without searching or saving it separately."
"Microsoft 365 operates seamlessly in the background, allowing us to perform tasks across different Microsoft applications."
"It's inexpensive to license."
"Office 365 is scalable and easy to integrate with APIs, which is very beneficial for the operations we conduct."
"Office 365 brings a very strong return on investment through time savings and different efficiencies."
"I find Office 365 convenient and easy to use, primarily because I have been a Microsoft product user for a long time, and its user-friendly interface and consistent workflow across various Microsoft products are particularly notable."
"I love all of the applications being interlinked. I do not have to separately work on an independent system when it comes to file storage, email, and other tools."
"Teams is the most productive feature out of everything in Office 365, thanks to the combination of chat with meetings and centralized file sharing, along with the ability to embed other applications within Microsoft Teams."
 

Cons

"Sametime hangs sometimes and therefore needs to get restarted."
"The webinar should be integrated into Sametime for a larger number of participants."
"It seems that the software might in the future, support the software telephony exchange but at the current time, it is not doing that and because of that one key feature of real-time communication is missing from it."
"The interface is too colorful and looks like Windows XP."
"It lacks some features compared to modern solutions. For example, it doesn't allow sending screenshots or other files."
"The issue arises when I need to ask Microsoft directly for support, and I have had delays, such as with a SharePoint issue that took two weeks to resolve, and another instance where the ticket was mishandled and sent to the wrong queue, which delayed the response even further."
"Office 365 should improve data synchronization, especially when data is accessed through the web interface and SharePoint portal."
"The reason it is not a ten is because of the complexity of managing the vast array of admin settings, which requires a specialized IT team."
"Data protection and email security are almost the same for all the organizations, irrespective of their segment (SMB or enterprises), with standard subscription at least basic Data loss prevention and Advance threat protection can be enabled for SMB segments, it is available in enterprise version / Premium versions."
"Sometimes the synchronization between the desktop and online is a little bit slow."
"Sometimes the configurations of the error troubleshooting are pretty problematic and there are a lot of issues that happen even if you follow the step-by-step guides."
"There is something called Office Script in Excel, which is not very user-friendly."
"Improvements can be made to the products generic offering. It's not customized for health care. It doesn't understand the meaning of health care related concepts. Providing a greater degree of industry specificity would make the tool much more unique and valuable."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"For the moment, we are paying on a monthly basis because we are still adapting the support and how we want to proceed. I think we will move to paying for the annual license."
"Good reporting and good value subscriptions for international calls."
"The pricing is good for all the features that we receive, e.g., Skype for Business."
"The pricing is not really high, but one can get the software with the license key for free."
"The price of Office 365 is very expensive."
"I think that we pay $9.99 USD per user, monthly."
"I would rate the solution 3 out of 5 for the price. I think Microsoft presents a good solution concerning the price."
"The pricing is high and has actually caused us to limit the number of licenses we purchase due to budgeting."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Financial Services Firm
15%
Computer Software Company
10%
Construction Company
9%
Outsourcing Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business63
Midsize Enterprise31
Large Enterprise70
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with HCL Sametime?
I view it as part of HCL Notes and Domino, and my opinion is similar to those products. It lacks some features compared to modern solutions. For example, it doesn't allow sending screenshots or oth...
What is your primary use case for HCL Sametime?
It was used for communication through text messages, primarily.
What advice do you have for others considering HCL Sametime?
Overall, it was quite good. I would rate it an eight out of ten. It's a better product than some others from HCL, but overall, I wouldn't recommend it, given the availability of superior alternatives.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Office 365?
My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing for Office 365 is that it is moderate.
What needs improvement with Office 365?
Office 365 could be improved or enhanced in some ways. It would be better if it were more simple to find the points, or sometimes there are so many possible configurations that it makes you confuse...
What is your primary use case for Office 365?
Teams and Outlook are important for us, and Teams is central to our operations. I utilize Power Automate for streamlining repetitive tasks in our organization, but not for large tasks. For tasks su...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

Lotus Sametime, IBM Lotus Sametime
Microsoft Office 365, Office 365 Enterprise, Office 365 Enterprise E1, Office 365 Enterprise E3, Office 365 Enterprise E5, Office 365 ProPlus, Office 365 Business, Office 365 Business Essentials, Office 365 Business Premium, Office 365 F1
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Connect2Cloud, Superior Group, Daifuku Co. Ltd., Seaward, The City of Fort Worth, Christian Brothers Services, Berlitz, Deutsche Notes User Group, Danske Fysioterapeuter, Slumberland, La Vacanza, Rheinmetall AG
Me & the Bees Lemonade
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893,311 professionals have used our research since 2012.