HCL Sametime vs. Rakuten Viber

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

It's perfect for messaging and group messaging, especially when users in group are from different places, organizations... (unlike slack where you have to be member of same organization to be in same group). The video calls are the weak point of the app, so Viber is not good for conference calls, video calls and especially for group video conference calls.

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

• It is very easy to use and is very user-friendly.
• You can have high quality video and audio meetings with more than 1 person.
• You can upload any type of file in Viber (video, audio, text, GIFs, PDF files).
• It is a very well known messenger so all people have access to it.

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• IBM Sametime just looks outdated.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

• As far as I can tell, Viber lacks the feature to block specific callers/numbers. I've never needed to do this, but I'd like to know I have the option.
• Viber cannot be used without wifi, so it is not possible to connect with contacts who aren't also using Viber. (Unless you want to use the paid service.)
• This isn't a major complaint, but I find the layout of Viber to be a little cluttered. Comparing it to WhatsApp, I don't find it to be quite as user-friendly, and I sometimes stumble around to find my way to a contact to call.

Incentivized

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

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

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

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

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 have not frequently used the support for Viber as I have not had many problems with it on my phone. I did use support one time for problems with the computer application and used the forums to solve my problems. They were fairly easy to follow and I appreciated the online help in that format.

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

Rakuten Viber is overall the best. Hands down!!! Even though the other products have their own use and they are well functioning in the market, but Rakuten Viber is still top notch!

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

• 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

• Rakuten Viber allows me to delete any type of message I've sent
• Rakuten Viber can't access or read my private conversations in the first place, Viber can't sell them.
• Hidden Chats allows me to keep whatever chats I want away from my main chat list, so they don't show up in my main chat list. Only a PIN that I set gives me access to Hidden Chats.

Incentivized