October 30th, 2006
Why Cisco's Orative buy is more important than most people think
It continues to surprise me that the technology press as well as the VoIPosphere is not as excited about Cisco's purchase of Orative as they should be. I mean, we didn't even cover it.
But I am about to put a stop to that.
First, a backgrounder. Orative makes cell phone software that hooks up mobile phone users to IP PBXs and associated messaging systems.
The Orative Client software lets users on GSM networks to log on to an enterprise Cisco VoIP network. Once authenticated via SSL, these users can pretty much do anything they could if they were back in the office. We're talking voice mail, presence, or even corporate directory access.
I take this as a shot across the bow at proprietary systems such as Avaya PBX and IP PBX and Divitas, as well as managed Asterisk-based solutions.
Orative is already compatible with Symbian OS phones (i.e., Nokia, Samsung and Ericsson), BREW devices and BlackBerry.
I am thinking the reason for the lack of excitement over this deal is the fact that Orative already is a Cisco partner, and that the acquisition went down for "only" $31 million. But please realize that in terms of platform integration and further development of solutions, there's a tangible difference when all the answers are in your own shop, as opposed to via vendor alliances.
Russell Shaw is an enterprise computing journalist, analyst and author based in Portland, Oregon. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
