Ganging Up Against Cisco Systems

The unified communications market is quickly organizing itself into two camps: There’s Cisco Systems Inc. … and then there’s everybody else. Sure, that’s a bit of an exaggeration from The VAR Guy. But it’s clear that Cisco’s rivals–from Avaya Inc. to Juniper Networks Inc.–are working with each other to gang up against the networking giant.

And for good reason: Booming demand for IP phones is paving the way for the unified communications revolution. Whether you’re a business user or consumer, unified communications will give you one digital address book, one voice mail inbox and one network identity that will follow you everywhere–regardless of what type of device you’re using (PC, laptop, smart-phone, etc). You’ll no longer have to juggle multiple email and voice mail systems throughout your day.

Eager to keep Cisco from dominating this fledgling market, Cisco’s rivals are now ganging up against the networking giant. Skeptical? Consider these recent moves:

The unified communications free-for-all should be in full swing during May’s Interop conference. Top executives from Avaya, Cisco, Nortel and Microsoft are scheduled to deliver keynotes at the event. By most accounts, this is Cisco’s market to lose. But Microsoft has used its desktop dominance to topple networking companies (from Banyan to Novell) before.