Highlighting customer and partner demand for interoperability in the unified communications market, Cisco has announced it is expanding Microsoft interoperability to provide collaborative real-time capabilities for customers using Cisco Unified Communications solutions with Microsoft Exchange 2007, Microsoft Live Communications Server 2005, and Microsoft Office Communicator.
In addition, Cisco confirmed that its broad portfolio of Unified Communications solutions will support Microsoft Windows Vista and Internet Explorer (IE) 7.0.
"Cisco provides an open approach to unified communications, allowing customers to integrate a variety of application vendors, such as Microsoft, into their business environment," said Zeus Kerravala, senior vice president of enterprise research, Yankee Group. "It is clear that Cisco is partnering with Microsoft in unified communications to offer deep integration to joint customers."