Cisco upgrades Jabber

Cisco Systems has improved its Jabber IM presence and video-conferencing product, as the networking giant continues to push its way into the workplace collaboration market, IT World Canada reports.

Cisco plans to release its first version of Jabber for the iPad and an upgrade of Jabber for Windows desktop and laptop PCs, as well as a telepresence system called TX9000, designed to improve on existing Cisco products of this type.

Jabber software has turned into a universal client for Cisco interactive experiences, including WebEx collaboration, Information Week states.

Cisco acquired Jabber in 2008 for its instant messaging and presence-detection technology.

Industry analyst Maribel Lopez, from Lopez Research, points out Cisco now has a good portfolio of video communications across its products, which is important because video will continue to increase its importance in workplace communications, convergence and collaboration, PC World notes.

Lopez says: "Video will change over time. Most people think of it as face-to-face. While this is interesting, it doesn't take into account that video will be next-generation content.

“Today, content means documents like PowerPoint and Word files. Tomorrow, more content will be video.”