With all due respect to a great competitor of ours, I am finding extreme humor in this recent U-turn by Cisco on email. Just one year ago, on August 7th 2007, Joe Burton (Chief Technology Officer) wrote a blog entry asking "Is Your PC Just a Paperweight?". Joe stated:

"The rapidly declining importance of email and the desktop computer is not one that I would have foreseen even as few as five years ago."

Then today I read an announcement by Cisco "Cisco Announces Definitive Agreement to Acquire PostPath". For those that don't know, PostPath offers a Linux-based e-mail, calendaring and collaboration solution.

"The acquisition of PostPath complements our strategy to develop an integrated collaboration platform designed for how we work today and into the future, providing real productivity gains and a more satisfying user experience", said Doug Dennerline, Cisco senior vice president, Collaboration Software Group ..... Under the terms of the agreement, Cisco will pay approximately $215 million in exchange for all shares of PostPath.

$215M may not seem like much, but it is an awful lot to pay for a capability that is of "declining importance". I am wondering what changed. Maybe folks at Cisco found that actually they do spend a lot of time working on their PC, and heck, even doing email. Back in October 2007, we shared some stats on email from a research firm, Harris.

· 61% of information workers cite e-mail as their primary mode of communications at work vs. 31% phone.

· 80% of information workers are most likely to first check their computers each morning for messages vs. 14% phone and 6% cell phone or other.

· On average, e-mail comprises one-half of total business communication and consumes about 25% of a business worker’s workday.

· One in four information workers indicate that e-mail is essential to their job and that “they can’t live without it”, while one in five information workers describe e-mail as “mission critical”.

Coming from the consumer technology world, I am a big believer that the nature of communications is changing. Email on it's own is still a very important capability for most information workers, but potentially even more important is the need for seamlessly integrated communications based on presence (well articulated by Zeus in this article) where I can move from email, to IM, to voice, to video, to conferencing easily. I think this recent acquisition validates the approach but the mix of acquisitions will make it hard for Cisco to offer an integrated experience. Busy work ahead for the recently formed software group, which is playing an increasingly important role in a network company.

Fun times ahead.

From: http://greenupgrader.com/2492/telephone-sheep-exhibit-by-artist-jean-luc-cornec/  

This is a great little video on what ordering a pizza could be like if there is no data privacy. I've always felt very nervous about the amount of data that is out there on people, and the lack of a legislative framework around use. People are very free about ticking the "I Accept" button, but data on the Internet travels much more than a piece of paper so who knows where information about you ends up.