Cisco gobbles up Jabber

Cisco said Friday it is buying messaging software company Jabber for an undisclosed sum.

The networking giant will fold it into its collaboration uit, which includes WebEx as well as Cisco's unified communications suite. In a statement, Cisco said the Jabber purchase will "extend the reach of our current instant messaging service and expand the capabilities of our collaboration platform."

Jabber connects a host of instant messaging platforms including Microsoft Office Communications Server, IBM Sametime, AOL AIM, Google and Yahoo. The deal is expected to close in the first half of 2009.

In many respects the latest Cisco move is just another data point in what appears to be a collaboration battle with Microsoft. Cisco said it wants to be the benchmark in collaboration tools.