Cisco does software

Cisco recently made its most aggressive stab yet at enabling not just IP networks but the things that run over them, launching an array of collaboration products including a new hosted e-mail offering.

The announcements included improvements or new versions of almost 60 Cisco software products, but perhaps most notably an entry into two new markets: enterprise social software and hosted e-mail, dubbed WebEx Mail.

Those new offerings, in particular, put the networking vendor most directly in competition with other software players, including Microsoft and IBM, and ratchets up the battle between those enterprise-focused vendors on delivering a full slate of unified communications (UC) capabilities to large businesses.

And by extension, it also sets up Cisco to potentially both partner and compete with telecom service providers as they piece together their own UC offerings — capabilities that are at the core of how carriers will compete for IP-enabled business customers. Cisco executives emphasized the company's long-term focus of working closely with service providers and highlighted some new products likely to be delivered with the help of operators.

But initially it will go it alone on at least some of its key new products.

“WebEx Mail, at least in the initial release, will be a Cisco-offered hosted service,” said David Hsieh, vice president of marketing for Cisco's emerging technology group, noting that also for now, the service will be available only in the U.S. and Canada. “As we expand that market, we'll be looking at partners,” he said.

Hosted e-mail, in particular, is an important telco application, especially in the SMB market, where many providers work closely with Microsoft to offer hosted Exchange deployments.

Overall, Hsieh said, “one of [Cisco's] great differentiators from our competitors has been our strategy to work [closely] with service providers,” noting that many of the premise-based services it outlined would likely be offered eventually as managed services, possibly with third-party partners such as telecom and hosting providers.

Hsieh pointed to several software capabilities, including a new TelePresence directory that serves as a “white pages” for users of that sophisticated videoconferencing technology, likely to be quickly supported by service providers. To date, eight service providers have partnered with Cisco to offer inter-company TelePresence services, Hsieh said.

One of the key themes in its announcements, Hsieh added, was a “sliding scale” approach to application deployment that “provides as much flexiblity as possible around [deploying] hosted and cloud-based services.”

Overall, Cisco's product announcements comprised new tools or improvements in areas including hosted e-mail, social networking, videoconferencing, instant messaging, and document and video sharing delivered under the Cisco Telepresence, Cisco Unified Communications and Cisco WebEx brands.