One More Piece in the Collaboration PuzzleOne More Piece in the Collaboration Puzzle

Collaboration has become the buzzword among software suppliers. Vendors, large and small, have been trying to develop platforms so users can share information more easily. Taking dead aim at Microsofts stranglehold on the desktop software, one industry Goliath added another component to its collaboration suite.Cisco as a software supplier? A few years ago, that thought would have been ludicrous. By as the dividing lines between software and networking equipment blurred, revenue and margins in network hardware dipped, and Microsoft became vulnerable, Ciscos interest in software grew. The vendor purchased Jabbar, which had developed presence and messaging software. The start ups software works with presence systems, such as Microsoft Office Communications Server, IBM Sametime, AOL AIM, Google and Yahoo. Jabbers underlying protocol, the Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol (XMPP), has been ratified by ratified by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) as a standard for presence and messaging technologies.

Presence has become an important feature recently. As companies have looked to flatten their organizations and streamline communications, their desire to find and communicate with coworkers has intensified. Cisco plans to integrate the Jabber solution into its WebEx collaboration platform, which has emerged as the cornerstone in its software initiative.

How successful Cisco will be is unclear. The company is certainly investing a lot of time, money, and effort into collaboration software. In addition to the Jabber acquisition, the company recently purchased email vendor PostPath. With the shift to the Software as a Service model, vendors, such as Cisco and Google, view Microsofts hold on the desktop as vulnerable and are trying to loosen it.

To be successful, Cisco will need to overcome many challenges. The company must jury-rig the hodgepodge of tools it has acquired into a cohesive solution. It has to acquire software expertise and build an organization capable of delivering and supporting software solutions. Last, it needs to do a better job of delivering software than Microsoft, which has been able to ward off challengers, large and small, for decades.

How much interest does your company have in collaboration tools? Would you replace your Microsoft collaboration software? What do you think of Cisco as a collaboration supplier?