WebEx Mail

Cisco recently announced WebEx Mail.

What are the implications of Cisco’s entry into the hosted messaging business? Here are two cents on what I think this means:

• I have maintained for a long time that Microsoft faces perhaps more competition from Cisco than it does from Google, despite the formidable competitor that the latter represents. Cisco’s focus on the enterprise with WebEx Mail reinforces that.
• The length of time that Cisco took to introduce this offering has been somewhat surprising. Given that Cisco purchased PostPath nearly 15 months ago and Jabber 14 months ago, and that IronPort and WebEx have been in the Cisco stable for longer than that, I thought that Cisco’s announcement would have been made much earlier this year.
• Cisco’s entry into this market will help decision makers to feel more comfortable about SaaS messaging. With each major new entrant into the market, the underlying objections to SaaS will diminish, albeit slowly, as prospective customers realize that major, trusted vendors are supporting corporate-grade SaaS capabilities.
• The only piece really missing from the Cisco messaging lineup is an archiving capability. Although there are a number of good third party archiving solutions that can be used with WebEx Mail, it makes sense that Cisco would want to acquire its own archiving vendor to make the integration with its other capabilities in WebEx Mail easier. I have a guess as to who that might be, but haven’t heard definitively who might be acquired.