Cisco Lights Up Competition For A $34 Billion Market

By Dee Chisamera
15:30, September 24th 2008

Cisco lights up competition with a new collaboration portfolio for companies that want to accelerate their business processes, and at the same time increase productivity and speed up innovation. Through this portfolio, Cisco targets a $34B market and its biggest challenger, Microsoft.

The portfolio reunites Cisco Unified Communications, Cisco TelePresence and a new Web 2.0 application platform, specifically designed to integrate business applications, IT infrastructures and other Web services. At the same time, Cisco also promised this will help developers create customized applications and network-based services.

“Collaboration is the next phase of the Internet,” said Don Proctor, senior vice president of Software Group, Cisco. “Our network platform uses open-standards protocols to expose critical collaboration services such as presence, instant messaging, call control and policy to a broad range of devices and applications.”

With the help of Cisco Unified Communications System Release 7.0, the portfolio will bring improvements in the total cost if ownership, ease of use, and interoperability with business applications. Furthermore, Cisco TelePresence Expert on Demand will offer customer the possibility to benefit from expertise directly from a Cisco TelePresence meeting.

The Web 2.0 platform, Cisco WebEx Connect, is a new software-as-a-service (SaaS) platform that integrates presence, instant messaging, Web meetings and team spaces with traditional author and Web 2.0 business applications.

As Thomas Fenady, senior director, information technology, Activision, pointed out, “having the right collaborative platform helps speed our decision making, increase productivity and improve relationships within the organization and with customers and partners.”

Cisco announced that Cisco Unified Communications System Release 7.0 and Cisco TelePresence Expert on Demand will be available immediately; WebEx Connect is currently available as a desktop and Web-based client, while support for mobile clients will become available early next year.