Cisco first established itself in the collaboration market with the acquisition of Active Voice Corporation. In addition to internal innovation, our acquisitions have resulted in products and capabilities that have brought long-term revenue growth to Cisco. Collaboration is now a $34 billion market opportunity.
In March 2007, the acquisition of WebEx gave Cisco an immediate strategic position and platform in the collaboration market segment, capturing new market segments with hosted services business models such as software as a service. This acquisition filled out Cisco's collaboration product line and established Cisco as the market leader in the web conferencing market. The WebEx acquisition heralded Cisco's adoption of the hosted services or software-as-a-service business model.
The acquisition of WebEx expanded Cisco's capabilities in unified communications and the small and medium-sized business market. It positioned Cisco solidly in the emerging collaboration market and demonstrated the pervasiveness and extensibility of the network to enable diverse applications. As a result of the acquisition, Cisco became the platform for delivery of multiple third-party software-as-a-service applications and services. WebEx products have been integrated into Cisco’s expanding portfolio of next-generation collaboration products.
Customers can now replace onsite meetings with WebEx meetings, decreasing time away from their desktops and increasing their number of contacts per week.
Key Acquisitions
Active Voice Corporation - Nov. 10, 2000
Active Voice, Corp.is a leading provider of IP-based Unified Messaging solutions for the enterprise and small/medium business customer. Unified Messaging consolidates voicemail, e-mail, and fax messages on a single IP network, accessible independent of location, time or device. Unified Messaging (UM), a key component of Unified Communications (UC), is an important initiative for Cisco that paints a very compelling picture for the future of communications applications and supports our direction with the Architecture for Voice, Video, and Integrated Data (AVVID) for the corporate enterprise. Cisco also delivers UC solutions for the service provider market through its uOne software platform/technology.
GeoTel Communications Corp. - April 13, 1999
The GeoTel software solution integrates enterprise data applications with voice infrastructure devices such as PBXs to deliver integrated data and voice to call centers over an Internet infrastructure and the PSTN. This acquisition furthers our strategy is to create an open data and voice software infrastructure. GeoTel allows Cisco to accelerate the development of applications on the Cisco packet voice architecture by providing a call center infrastructure on which companies like Oracle, SAP, Siebel, Vantive, etc. can build enterprise and service provider applications.
Latitude Communications, Inc. - Nov. 12, 2003
Latitude Communications is a leading provider of enterprise conferencing products with its MeetingPlace audio and web conferencing solution. Latitude MeetingPlace currently integrates with leading enterprise desktop scheduling applications such as IBM/Lotus Notes and Microsoft Outlook, as well as with data collaboration and instant messaging solutions such as IBM/Lotus Sametime. Latitude MeetingPlace also offers significant integration with Cisco CallManager, enabling users to schedule, attend, and manage meetings using the display on Cisco IP phones. Cisco and Latitude also intend to integrate MeetingPlace with Cisco IP/VC for video conferencing capability.
Selsius Systems, Inc. - October 14, 1998
Selsius is a leading supplier of network PBX systems for high-quality telephony over IP networks. Selsius' technology will enable Cisco to accelerate the transition from conventional, proprietary circuit-switched PBXs to multi-service, open LAN systems capable of enabling the next step in data/voice integration.
Tandberg - OCT. 1, 2009
Tandberg, based in Oslo, Norway, and New York, is a global leader in video communications, including a broad range of world-class video endpoint and network infrastructure solutions with intercompany and multi-vendor interoperability. With this proposed acquisition, Cisco will expand its collaboration portfolio to offer more solutions to a greater number of customers, further accelerating market adoption globally.
WebEx Communications, Inc. - March 15, 2007
WebEx is a market leader in on-demand collaboration applications, and its network-based solution for delivering business-to-business collaboration extends Cisco's vision for Unified Communications, particularly within the Small to Medium Business (SMB) segment. WebEx's service portfolio includes technologies and services that allow companies to engage in real-time and asynchronous data conferences over the Internet as well as share web-based documents and workspaces that help improve productivity, performance and efficiency of workers in any size organization. WebEx's subscription-based services strategy has been key to its success, and Cisco plans to preserve this business model going forward.
Key Investments
Act-On Software
Act-On Software, Inc. is an innovative provider of integrated web marketing services for businesses of all sizes.
AppFolio
AppFolio creates complete, easy-to-use, software-as-a-service business solutions for multiple vertical markets.
SoonR
Soonr is a global innovator dedicated to making computer files available and useful to people anytime, through any mobile phone or Internet connected device.
