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Cisco buys collaboration software startup Worklife

Cisco said it intends to combine the Worklife platform with Cisco Spark, which runs on the company's collaboration cloud.
Written by Natalie Gagliordi, Contributor
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Cisco

Cisco said Monday it has acquired Worklife, makers of meeting productivity and collaboration software. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Based in San Francisco, Worklife is known for its virtual meeting platform that lets co-workers collaborate in real time on things like documents, notes, agendas, and tasks.

Cisco said it intends to combine the Worklife platform with Cisco Spark, which runs on the company's collaboration cloud, in an effort to bolster existing features of the platform.

"With the Worklife team onboard, we see an opportunity to build on the virtual meeting experience that the Cisco Spark platform currently provides, and enhance meeting productivity across the board," said Rob Salvagno, head of Cisco's M&A and venture investment team, in a blog post.

For Cisco, the acquisition builds upon its existing efforts and past acquisitions surrounding workplace collaboration -- an area it's been focused on for years with WebEx and Spark. Last May, Cisco bought Tropo, a company that provides a cloud application programming interface platform, to further what the networking giant calls a collaboration platform-as-a-service.

In November 2015, Cisco bought Acano, a London-based tech firm that made collaboration infrastructure and conferencing software, for around $700 million. Through that deal, Cisco said it planned to increase development in the key areas of interoperability and scalability. Then in March of this year, Cisco bought Synata, makers of application search tools, to further expand search functionality on Spark.

As for Worklife, the startup was founded in 2014 by Dave Kashen, a former startup CEO coach, and Val Agostino, former CEO of Britely and Mint. For now, Worklife's online meeting software will still be offered as a standalone, free service. The Worklife team will merge with Cisco's Cloud Collaboration Technology Business Unit under SVP Jens Meggers.

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