‘Who is Cisco and why trust them?’ – customers wonder who is this new contender for their collaboration dollars

“Who is Cisco and why trust them?” That, according to Burton Group analyst Mike Gotta – as cited in the

Wall Street Journal  – is the question that corporate customers are asking as Cisco attempts to elbow into the collaboration software business that’s dominated by Microsoft and is also now targeted by Google.

Cisco, which describes this market as being worth $34 billion, this week released a host of products for collaboration, including a new release of the company’s unified communications software, a WebEx-enabled product for Web meetings with integrated presence and IM, and TelePresence customer service. It is also providing ‘deeper integration’ with desktops in IBM and Microsoft environments. However, Gotta estimates that it will take Cisco three to five years to make its mark in this area.

The WSJ cites Gotta as saying Cisco’s challenge is to avoid developing products that others already sell, though its current relationship with enterprise customers would help it gain a foot in the door better than Google which has relatively no enterprise experience.

It sounds like Cisco is attempting to reinvent the wheel here but what are its chances against Microsoft’s wide customer base and Google’s knack of creating customer buzz for its applications?

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