Cisco Weaves Its SaaS Web

Tech bellwether Cisco(CSCO Quote) has been beating the Internet services drum at its CiscoLive! event in San Francisco, outlining more of its plans for Web conferencing, voice and video.

The networking giant, keen to open new revenue streams, recently invoked the wrath of partner Hewlett-Packard(HPQ Quote) when it entered the server market. The blade-based Unified Computing System (UCS) is the firm's latest attempt to bring in revenue outside of routers and switches. Cisco has also had a significant Web conferencing presence since acquiring WebEx for $3.2 billion in 2007, and is now pushing this as part of its broader Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) strategy.

"There's lots of really good things we're working on in terms of this market," said Doug Dennerline, senior vice president of Cisco's collaboration software group, during a video conference with journalists and analysts Tuesday.

The executive explained that Cisco is about to launch a new version of its WebEx Connect software, which companies use as a virtual meeting place. The networking giant is bolstering WebEx's instant messaging and video capabilities to compete with other Web conferencing applications, he explained.

Last year, Cisco bought Denver, Colo.-based messaging specialist Jabber to boost WebEx's ability to handle IMs from different systems.

In recent years, the company has also thrown its weight behind telepresence technology, a souped-up version of video conferencing, and Dennerline wants to tie this closer to WebEx.

"It's a little bit hard to join a telepresence meeting via WebEx today -- very quickly we will be adding this capability," he said.