CISCO'S WATCHING GOOGLE

By M.S.Welles

Cisco Systems Inc. admit the firm is watching closely to monitor Google's foray into the unified communications market.

Cisco plans to respond quickly by boosting the capabilities of Cisco's offerings.

The firm has already started responding to Google by announcing plans to offer some pieces of its IP voice technology as a hosted service.

Cisco executives acknowledged the challenge from Google during the Cisco Live user conference in San Francisco in June.

While initial reports were that Microsoft would be challenged by Google Voice Internet telephony service and Google Wave, a hosted collaboration an d communications service, it now appears that Cisco will also be challenged and will have to rise to meet it.

Although Google is gearing up for a consumer offering, it's anticipated the products will become attractive to small businesses and eventually to large corporations. There are some privacy issues that need to be worked out, but Google is taking a very aggressive stand and analysts expect the company to present a real threat to the other, already established companies.