Cisco and Microsoft face tension in their peace quest

Technology giants Cisco and Microsoft may have declared a truce of sorts yesterday by pledging their commitment to ensuring interoperability, but analysts have suggested there may be trouble ahead.

Deciding to act on both a co-operative and competitive level may work in theory, but the act of unison displayed by chief executives John Chambers and Steve Ballmer may cause tension in reality, particularly as the competitive pace hots up between them in the unified communications market, according to analyst Ovum.

The united stance taken by the two industry heavyweights during yesterday's website was described as the two companies "holding hands while kicking each other under the table", in a research note by Jan Dawson, head of Ovum's US enterprise practice.

"Monday's announcements were useful as a statement of intent from both companies about their plans to interoperate, but don't go much further than that. The behaviour of Cisco's and Microsoft's salespeople on the front lines and their engineers in the backrooms at both companies will be what really drives market perception of their ability to work together," she said. Indeed Ballmer even acknowledged this issue himself during the webcast, when he suggested that engineers' egos can sometimes been misconstrued as competitive behaviour.

Dawson added: "The tension between seeking competitive advantage through proprietary technology and establishing interoperability through open standards will remain, and both companies will have to make tough decisions about where to draw the line between the two. Hopefully they will both move a little further in the direction of interoperability, but they will both also continue to do their best to create a world where the other isn't needed."

In addition to being driven by customer demand, Cisco and Microsoft's renewed friendliness has been spurred on by systems integrators and value added resellers (VARs) who have been calling on the two companies to ensure unified communications interoperability, according to Dawson.

"The announcement by the companies is therefore driven by the fact that, even though both companies are absolutely committed to winning in this space, 'customers won't buy from either one of us unless we interoperate,' as Charlie Giancarlo of Cisco said in Monday's webcast," added Dawson.

"Interoperability also means following and driving industry standards, which will present an interesting challenge for these companies, both of whom have reputations as builders of proprietary systems first and foremost."

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