Cisco, Microsoft kick each other under the table

LONDON, UK: Cisco and Microsoft on Monday held a Webcast and issued a press release re-emphasising the importance of the alliance between their two companies.

Specifically, the two companies stated that they recognized they had not done as good a job as might have done in detailing all the collaborative work going on between the two companies behind the scenes, while their competition on new fronts has arguably been much more high-profile.

The two companies announced seven key ‘areas of collaboration’ across the various markets they serve: IT Architecture, Security, Management, Wireless & Mobile, Unified Communications, Connected Entertainment and Small and Medium-Sized Business (SMB).

They listed specific initiatives and examples of their collaboration in these areas, much of which is at the tactical level or in the early planning stages.

CEOs Steve Ballmer and John Chambers hosted a webcast on Monday morning and it was hard to avoid the sense that they were holding hands while kicking each other under the table, Jan Dawson, vice president, US Enterprise Practice at Ovum, comments in a press release.

“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.

But 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.

The announcement by the companies is therefore driven by the fact that, even though both companies are absolutely committed to winning in this space, ‘customers won’t buy from either one of us unless we interoperate,’ as Charlie Giancarlo of Cisco said in Monday’s webcast. Interoperability also means following and driving industry standards, which will present an interesting challenge for these companies, both of whom have reputations as builders of proprietary systems first and foremost.

Monday’s announcements were useful as a statement of intent from both companies about their plans to interoperate, but don’t go much further than that. The behaviour of Cisco’s and Microsoft’s salespeople on the front lines and their engineers in the backrooms at both companies will be what really drives market perception of their ability to work together.

The tension between seeking competitive advantage through proprietary technology and establishing interoperability through open standards will remain, and both companies will have to make tough decisions about where to draw the line between the two. Hopefully they will both move a little further in the direction of interoperability, but they will both also continue to do their best to create a world where the other isn’t needed.”

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