By Irwin Lazar, Principal Research Analyst and Program Director, Collaboration and Convergence, March 16, 2007

Cisco’s (NASDQ: CSCO) acquisition of web-conferencing service provider WebEx (NASDQ:WEBX) demonstrates the growing importance of web conferencing within the overall market for unified communications and collaboration. In Nemertes’ Building a Virtual Workplace benchmark, 79% of enterprises were using web conferencing, making it the most widely deployed communications and collaboration application.

The deal is notable for several reasons. First, Cisco says WebEx will provide it with a larger presence in the small and medium enterprise market, which makes up the majority of WebEx’s customers. By acquiring WebEx, and eventually integrating it with Cisco’s own collaboration and communications products, Cisco says that it will be able to more effectively gain additional market share.

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