IBM announced on April 2 the availability of IBM Verse, a new cloud-based messaging service that incorporates built-in search and data analytics. IBM says Verse integrates email, calendars, file sharing, instant messaging and social. 

The analytics function aims to automatically “surface” users’ most important people and critical actions to focus on for the day. By learning unique user preferences and priorities over time, IBM Verse provides instant context on people and teams.

 “One of the few things that have changed with email over the past 30 years is the amount of messages being sent and received,” said Jeff Schick, IBM’s General Manager, Enterprise Social Solutions.

“Businesses are sending upwards of 108 billion emails a day and people just can’t keep up. Verse combines things like email, calendaring and file sharing with analytics to provide a system that learns who and what are most important to you.”

With faceted search, IBM says users can pinpoint and retrieve specific information across all the various types of content within their email extremely quickly.

Other features of IBM Verse include:

• Team Analytics - With one click, users can see an organisational graph of the people on their thread and gain insights before responding.
• Calendaring -  the calendar is animated, visible and actionable across the bottom of the landing page. Users can join meetings quickly by merely hovering over the calendar meeting and clicking “Join Meeting” directly from the calendar bar.
• File Sharing - When sending an email, users can choose to easily upload a file from their desktop and share it with the mail recipients in a single action. In addition, owners can track who has downloaded the file and recipients will always have access to the latest version instead of the version that was attached into the email. It is safe, secure and encrypted. These files can be synchronized to users’ desktops, and mobile devices, making sharing and action easy, tractable and also saving space.  ​

Verse is provided on IBM’s SoftLayer Cloud. IBM plans to offer new native mobile apps for Verse that integrate with the IBM MobileFirst platform, including IBM MobileProtect, and starting with IBM iOS for iPhone later this month. IBM will follow that release with apps for Android and iPad in the second quarter.

IBM is also making available a free version, IBM Verse Basic, at www.ibm.com/verse.