I know this is a Cisco focused story, however this is at least peripherally Microsoft related. I follow the unified communications market closely and am a big fan of Microsoft's Office Communications Server product. However, Cisco is one of few companies with the R&D capital and chutzpah to challenge Microsofts place atop the throne.
With Cisco's acquisition of PostPath, they drop in another piece of the UC puzzle. The implications of this acquisition could be very interesting. Between Call Manager, WebEx and now PostPath Cisco has all the pieces of a UC solution, however they currently lack the integration. The potential pitfall is that Cisco isn't traditionally known as a software company, and completing the technology integration might be challenging for them. I'm assuming, of course, that Cisco plans to enter the UC market with these pieces. However, I think it's pretty obvious from this quote from Doug Dennerline at Cisco
"The acquisition of PostPath complements our strategy to develop an integrated collaboration platform designed for how we work today and into the future, providing real productivity gains and a more satisfying user experience."
Hmmm, it sounds like a UC pitch to me. What makes it interesting is that they're taking a cloud approach. Integrating cloud applications with the desktop and other enterprise applications has been a huge gap in cloud computing since its inception. How would you integrate an onsite CallManager deployment with WebEx in the cloud and PostPath potentially in either the cloud or onsite? That's the question Cisco needs to answer before they can present this conglomerate of tools as a UC solution. Believe me, it's a BIG question.
They also lack a client piece. Where's the Microsoft Office Communicator equivalent? My best guess is a web-based client like Microsoft's CWA would be a likely route however again we hit the wall of Cisco's lack of expertise in the end user software arena.
It's a bold move but there's a lot of work to be done for it to be a competitive unified communications offering.
Alex Lewis has been involved in the high tech industry for more than 15 years, from satellite antenna design to to executive IT management. He has been a co-author or contributing author for books on Exchange 2003, Exchange 2007, Windows 2003 R2 and Microsoft Technical Specialist Exam Guides. Alex is a senior consultant at Convergent Computing, an IT consulting firm specializing in Microsoft technologies. Alex is involved in many early adopter and TAP programs, working with new technology often 2-3 years before public release. Alex is also a CISSP and leads Convergent's Security and Unified Messaging practices in the field.
The opinions expressed in this Weblog are those of the writer and may not represent the opinions of Network World.
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Cisco's UC Announcement
Alex: While I agree with all of your points, you should know that Cisco has been doing a lot in the area of a UC client in the past year. Cisco has a team focused on providing a consistent user experience across devices. The group is working to redesign all of Cisco’s UC products to have a common look and feel. I saw some impressive demos of what the new unified user experience will look like a while ago, but I don't know when it will be shipping.
Anyone from Cisco out there?
That's really interesting Blair. If anyone from Cisco's reading this I'd love to get some more information. Heck, I'm 2 miles from "Ciscoville" on Tasman in Santa Clara if you want to setup something in the EBC?
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