Networking titan Cisco Systems
Using "the network as the platform" -- in an eerie echo of Sun's
Since Cisco likes to work with open architectures and standards, most of these tools run on a variety of platforms, including Microsoft
The well-respected Cisco brand name could help convince some customers to adopt its products, and the company already has sales and support relationships with thousands of the world's biggest and most data-hungry corporations.
Cisco doesn't even bother to break out the collaboration portfolio as a reportable business segment yet, and main rival Microsoft rolls it into the $18.9 billion annual revenue of the business division, which also includes much bigger contemporary fish like Office and Exchange. The growth story in this market has hardly even begun yet, and even a modest market share would give Cisco a welcome boost to its current $39.5 billion in annual sales. The economies of scale and generous profit margins that will turn that extra revenue into boosted cash flows and profits are already in place.
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