Customer pressure pushes Cisco and Microsoft together

Stuart Corner
Tuesday, 21 August 2007 11:13

IT Industry - Deals

Expanding on the scope of their collaboration, Ballmer said: "There are seven initiatives where we are focusing our joint investments, ranging from security, where we have been cooperating on integration of Cisco's Network Admission Control and Microsoft's Network Access Protection since 2004, to network infrastructure optimisation, where the two companies are working to develop a joint architectural blueprint that will help customers reduce costs by deploying solutions that combine Microsoft and Cisco products in a consistent way.

"For our government customers, we recently announced a jointly developed reference architecture that will help government agencies communicate with each other while better-protecting sensitive information. And we're working together to make it easier for consumers to move TV and digital video wirelessly in the home."

According to Chambers, in total, Cisco and Microsoft have invested close to $US40 million in their joint work and have over 140 people around the globe who have been involved in these efforts.

Commenting on their performance, the VP of Ovum's US Enterprise Practice, Jan Dawson, said: "It was hard to avoid the sense that they were holding hands while kicking each other under the table...We, along with others, have suggested that a war between Microsoft and Cisco is breaking out, especially in the unified communications market. Cisco's purchase of WebEx was the latest major salvo in this war, but the two companies are increasingly shaping up as the two major competitive forces in this market. Both companies' legendarily aggressive sales forces have been feeding this notion as they seek to sell their UC solutions in the market."

Dawson added: "Customers on the whole want to mix IP telephony infrastructure from Cisco (or its competitors) and messaging software from Microsoft (or its competitors), and don't want to be forced into an all-or-nothing approach from either vendor. VARs and systems integrators who are selling UC solutions to customers today are already seeing the need for interoperability between these solutions and are no doubt putting significant pressure on Microsoft and Cisco in this department.