Cisco WebEx Mail - the new Exchange and GMail rival

The same day, when Microsoft released Exchange 2010, its competitor, Cisco, impressed the IT world with numerous product introductions across all categories of its collaboration portfolio. The company unveiled the enhanced unified communication system, three new intranet and social software solutions. But the most significant new product is Cisco WebEx Mail that will compete with MS Exchange. It integrates some of the technology Cisco acquired when it purchased PostPath in 2008 and Webex Mail service. The mail difference from Exchange is that it's the SaaS solution. Users can access their mail and calendar through browser web interface or sync it with their mobile client (Blackberry, iPhone, ActiveSync). As for the desktop client, Cisco Webex Mail is intended to use MS Outlook. The developers boast of the complete integration with Outlook, including email, calendar, notes and shared folders.

Just like IBM, that recently unveiled SaaS email iNotes and compared it to GMail, Cisco also focus our attention on the service high reliability (99.9% SLA) and security (it uses HTTPS and SSL for data transfer and SAS70 data-centers for data storage). And, unlike IBM, Cisco also promises super spam and virus protection with the help of Cisco IronPort system. Besides, Cisco Webex Mail will provide more advanced administrative features, than Google Apps mail has.

But Cisco compares the new service not only to Exchange, iNotes and GMail. It also takes on Google Wave. In the nearest future this web-based e-mail application will enable Cisco to eventually plug into its enterprise social networking, collaboration and  unified communications apps. Cisco calls this the "Cisco Inbox." Unlike Google Wave, however, the platform is aimed at today’s enterprise. The Outlook experience is seamless, for example.

Cisco WebEx Mail costs from $3.50/user/month with 5Gb per mailbox.