Keep An Eye On Cisco
So Cisco is looking to partner with IBM, according to Jim Duffy in a Network World article posted today. According to the article, IBM has been resistant thus far. John Chambers is scheduled to deliver a keynote at Cisco Live! today.
It will be interesting to see if anything else gets revealed. My feeling is that we are seeing some tactical comments and we may get some more before the day is through. Note that Cisco’s approach to Unified Communications is very much a network model and a partnership with IBM would somehow put them in line with IBM’s Lotus-based software model. In Duffy’s article it is mentioned that Cisco is looking at EMC and VMWare for deeper relationships. Cisco Systems is clearly looking at some heavyweights here and trying to break away with the lead.
Cisco has been in the business of delivering VOIP and Unified Communications for a while now. This is an interesting battle brewing here. I believe that Microsoft’s product will eventually come out on top as some of its main advantages include leveraging interoperability with existing PBX hardware, in addition to their existing desktop and enterprise presence. This integration allows for flexibility in adoption of Unified Communications technologies, so we will likely see more alliances with Microsoft as well from many sectors.
However, there is no doubt Cisco is a big player in the game so keep watching out for news.