Cisco WebEx Mail

In the light of the recent HP story, it's interesting to watch what's happening in another IT giant - Cisco. Like HP, Cisco was built on manufacturing computer hardware. The peak success of the company came in the early 2000's when Cisco passed Microsoft and became the most valuable company in the world. It was then called "the company that is building the Internet" because more than 80% of routers in the Internet were manufactured by Cisco. But then the company became the victim of it's own success.

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.