So Cisco Systems, Inc. is buying WebEx Communications, Inc., as reported at ebizQ, and you may be wondering "Why?" and/or "What the heck has that got to do with BPM?" Both good questions, each of which I'll attempt to answer, at least cursorily.
Cisco said WebEx brings it all kinds of additional goodness to add to its "unified communications" vision, especially for small and mid-sized businesses. Now, when I hear terms like "unified communications," I remember reading what Gandhi said in response to a request for his opinion about Western-style "representative democracy" – "it would be a good idea." But I think I understand what Cisco intends to mean. (And that last sentence reminds me of something Humpty Dumpty said in Lewis Carroll's "Alice in Wonderland" – "I know you believe you understand what you think I said, but what you fail to realize is that what you heard is not what I meant." But I digress.)
Basically, all communications (and, increasingly, all collaborations) other than in-person, face-to-face meetings are enabled by IT and networks, a lot of which rely on Cisco technologies. From Cisco's perspective, then, "unified communications" is shorthand for "matching communications technology mixes seamlessly with how people want and need to communicate." Hence, the BPM connection. (I'm sure Cisco would also add something about doing this in ways that create new and extend existing revenue streams, but perhaps fortunately, that's not my focus here.)
WebEx, meanwhile, has attracted more users to its software-as-a-service (SaaS) collaboration and communications platforms than even Salesforce.com, about which I've written repeatedly here previously. In addition, WebEx recently introduced WebEx Connect, which basically enables developers and enterprises to build and deploy processes and applications atop the WebEx SaaS platform. This is at least conceptually similar to what Salesforce.com has done with its SaaS platform and development tools, and both are very good ways to build processes into frequently used business applications and services. Which, in turn, is, I think, a great way to make processes ubiquitous and invisible, increasing the odds that they will actually get managed effectively.
Now, what makes this particularly interesting is that Salesforce.com has of late been touting Cisco itself as one of Salesforce.com's recent big customer wins. This perhaps sets the stage for some interesting competitions between Salesforce.com and WebEx solutions within Cisco, some interesting integrations of the two environments at and/or enabled by Cisco, or all of the above.
In the meantime, though, this is another prime example of vendors evolving in response to the evolution of user and enterprise behaviors, goals, and needs. Whatever you do and wherever you work, I'm pretty certain you should be tracking what Cisco and WebEx do and plan, as well as what Salesforce.com has in mind. The range and scope of available, on-demand, process-enabled applications is about to start getting pretty big pretty fast, and you want to be ready. Ready or not, let me know what happens, and what you plan to do next.
Michael Dortch has been an analyst, 'information entrepreneur,' speaker, and writer about IT and 'the real world" for the past 30 years. After almost 10 years at the Robert Frances Group (RFG), Michael begins a new position with Aberdeen Group in September.
Dennis Byron is an analyst with ebizQ, focusing on Open Source Software as well as Business Process Management technologies.
