Two bits of related news from Cisco as it gets regulatory approval for its pending acquisition of videoconferencing vendor Tandberg and lands a deal with Bank of America for its largest telepresence deal yet, with 200 multiscreen telepresence units deployed across the company. On the regulatory front, Cisco won European Commission approval of the deal; based on that approval, the U.S. Department of Justice said they will not challenge the proposed acquisition.
That regulatory approval, it turns out, was based on some intriguing commitments from Cisco, according to the press release announcing the deal:
The European Commission’s decision takes into account Cisco’s commitments to enhancing interoperability between its multi-screen video conferencing products and competitive products. Cisco’s commitments to the European Commission include divesting ownership of its TelePresence Interoperability Protocol (TIP) and the library of open source software useful to implementers of TIP to an independent industry body. Cisco will also provide the industry body with all other rights necessary to implement TIP and authorize the industry body to license those rights to any interested party, royalty-free. The independent industry body will evolve TIP with the benefit of participation by others in the industry. Cisco will also make available royalty-free information about Cisco’s own implementation of the protocol that will facilitate efforts to interoperate with Cisco multi-screen TelePresence systems.
Connected Planet’s take, Rich Karpinski:
Cisco’s very early and aggressive support of IP video and videoconferencing was always viewed as an advocacy position that would drive network traffic to help it sell its core router products (which, in their latest incarnation, have grown in size and scale to support a video-driven Internet). But Cisco’s Tandberg acqusition changed the equation a bit, putting it in a position to dominate an important application area while also playing a huge role in the network itself. Give the EC and DOJ credit for playing relative hardball with Cisco on this front, then.
But the fact that Cisco was willing to make concessions on telepresence demonstrates that even as that technology moves ahead (including its largest installation ever at BofA), it’s not likely to be mainstream enough any time soon to have a material impact on its business. For Cisco, then, giving away a bit of control its telepresence intellectual property now and ensuring interoperability with other desktop video systems isn’t so much a loss as a win, helping to grow an emerging market it’s likely to dominate anyway — whether it has monopoly status in the market or not.
That’s our take on this. Let us know what you think in the comments section below: