Networking agency Cisco Systems will add Microsoft’s Teams messaging app to its assembly units, the 2 corporations mentioned on Wednesday, providing customers a substitute for its personal Webex video conferencing app.

Cisco’s Jeetu Patel, head of Security & Collaboration, mentioned the corporate goals to be the {hardware} platform for a variety of conferencing software program platforms.

“The way this market is evolving is very similar to the way that the movie entertainment market evolved,” Patel mentioned, with shoppers having a number of subscriptions to streaming companies like Netflix, Disney, HBO and Hulu.

“There’s going to be times that people want to jump on a Microsoft Teams call, they want to jump on a Zoom call, they want to jump on a Google call.”

Asked whether or not the technique may cannibalize market share for Cisco’s Webex app, Patel mentioned he believed the corporate will profit if clients have a greater expertise utilizing a number of platforms.

Webex, as soon as a broadly used conferencing platform, has misplaced out to a number of newcomers together with Zoom Video Communications, which was based by an early Webex engineer and grabbed a big share of the market through the coronavirus pandemic.

Ilya Bukshteyn, vice chairman of Microsoft Teams Calling and Devices, informed Reuters the Teams Room software program already runs on a number of different {hardware} units and might be out there on Cisco units from the primary quarter of subsequent yr.

Microsoft made the announcement at its annual Ignite convention.

Patel conceded “many people have a misconception of Webex as their granddad’s software” however mentioned within the final two years Cisco has launched many new capabilities, together with real-time translation and transcription of conferences, that might finally enable a multi-language dialog by Webex’s video platform.

© Thomson Reuters 2022