Jabber added to Cisco collaboration line-up

Cisco will add increased instant messaging (IM) capabilities to its unified comms portfolio after acquiring Colorado-based presence and messaging software start-up Jabber.

Jabber is familiar to some as an IM aggregator; a programme that allows users of different IM suites such as Yahoo Messenger, Windows Messenger, AOL AIM and Google Talk to interact.

“With the acquisition of Jabber we will be able to extend the reach of our current instant messaging service and the capabilities of our collaboration platform,” said Cisco CSG senior vice-president Doug Dennerline.

Between the lines, the deal has been taken as an attempt to chase down collaboration market leaders such as Google and Microsoft. It also represents a continuation of Cisco’s buy-and-build collaboration strategy that has already seen it pick up web conferencing specialist WebEx and calendar software vendor PostPath, among others

The bulk of Jabber’s 54-strong operation will be folded into Cisco’s Collaboration Software Group on closure, which is expected to take place sometime during the first half of Cisco’s fiscal 2009. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.