"For example, how can I naturally add collaboration to my call center, or to my branch banking environment?" he continues.

He says that most Workplace customers want to use collaboration, work flow, instant messaging and email in the context of a business application.

IBM has about 16 million users of Sametime, the company's proprietary instant messaging platform, says Bisconti. Compatibility with competing IM platforms is something IBM is considering.

"[It] certainly is something that we are continuing to evaluate. It's a matter of market interest as well as vendor interest" says Bisconti. "But right now we are focused on what we see as the leading providers of instant messaging technology," he says. "The vast majority of customer requests we have had have been for AOL and Yahoo.