On 9-10 November 2009, Cisco announced 61 new products, road maps and updates for social software and collaboration, including:

• Cisco is offering mailboxes with Outlook (MAPI) and Active Sync support for $5 per user per month, and browser-only mail services (derived from the Zimbra open source Ajax interface) for $3.50 per user per month.
• Show and Share allows users to share and create communities around video.
• Enterprise Collaboration Platform (ECP) provides team spaces and supports communities.
• Cisco Pulse analyzes network traffic to enrich personal profiles with tags derived from the content and contacts.
• Intercompany Cisco TelePresence Directory enables workers to connect Telepresence equipment operated by different companies.
• TelePresence WebEx Engage integrates WebEx conferences into Telepresence sessions.
• Intercompany Media Engine brokers audio and video collaboration between users at different companies.
• Unified Communications v.8.0 adds support for new devices.

The acquisitions of WebEx, Postpath and Jabber signaled Cisco's intent to become a major collaboration player, but a dearth of available products undermined this ambition. Cisco's latest announcements show great promise. They fill in many gaps in Cisco's short- and long-term plans. They include many upgrades of existing products, which don't introduce dramatic new capabilities. WebEx Mail, WebEx Connect (based on Postpath technology and Jabber's instant messaging and presence products, respectively), Show and Share, ECP, and Pulse are new and position Cisco as a new contender in the collaboration and social software markets, where Microsoft and IBM remain the dominant infrastructure players. We believe Cisco will have the strongest impact with its video initiatives, which go far beyond simply putting cameras on PCs. These announcements also represent a competitive move against Microsoft in collaboration.

However, success will not come easily. Cisco's challenges include:

• Late entry into a crowded market with powerful competitors
• Low market credibility as a collaboration or even a software supplier
• Remaining holes in the overall architectural view
• Large internal organizations and channel partners which need to adapt to these new markets
• Minimal ecosystem of independent software vendors and consultants to support the products
• A channel capable of selling add-ons and components but not skilled at building sophisticated collaboration environments

Nevertheless, we believe that Cisco is serious about becoming a major player in this market. The vendor brings considerable resources, market position and organizational discipline to bear. It has described how it intends to address enterprises' collaboration and social software requirements. Now it must execute on this vision, fill in the gaps and engage its competitors in the market.

Enterprises: Consider Cisco collaboration offerings if:

• You are an existing Cisco customer
• You plan to transition to the cloud

But compare these offerings to those of other vendors.

• "Cisco Sharpens Video Focus With Deal to Acquire Tandberg"— This deal emphasizes the value of video to a unified communications portfolio, but it also reflects the importance of infrastructure pull-through of video in the enterprise. By Robert F. Mason, David Mario Smith and Scott Morrison
• "The Gartner Collaboration and Social Software Vendor Guide, 2009"— To help IT leaders find the right supplier to meet their needs, Gartner's vendor guide summarizes the players in the three segments or generations of collaboration software: e-mail, real-time collaboration and social software. By Carol Rozwell and others

(You may need to sign in or be a Gartner client to access the documents referenced in this First Take.)