思科正在开发一个协作软件平台，这个平台使企业能够在一个界面上整合社交网络、在线状态、内容和交易应用。
据思科IT副总裁Sheila Jordan透露，企业协作平台预计将在11月初对外宣布，届时该平台将进行公测。思科在内部已经开始使用它的一些元素。她还说道该产品能与其他主要厂商的软件一起运行，如微软的Exchange和流行的CRM和ERP软件包，但只局限于每类软件最主要的三四种。
思科设想将该平台的主屏幕打造成为当员工早上开始工作时他首先要看的东西，在这个平台上，员工可以了解到他们的公司发生了什么以及他们的任务是什么。屏幕的上方会显示来自CEO的视频信息，两边的专栏能显示雇员的主要联系人状态和与组织内其他部门的联系状态，屏幕的下方可以用他们使用的主要应用软件界面来填充。
Jordan说，公司可以锁定某些元素，如CEO的视频信息，同时允许每个员工个性化其余部分的页面。她还说该平台将支持思科的WebEx PC-based协作平台和网真高清视频会议系统，以及大多数企业使用的电子邮件和日历应用程序。该平台将包括一个单点登录，可通过它获得所有可用资源，该功能是利用CA的SiteMinder技术开发的。
思科仍在解决该软件的某些方面的问题，比如安全、政策，以及如何处理由它产生的各种形式的沟通问题。例如，该平台将处理即时信息，如电话通话，而不是被视为商业记录的电子邮件。思科还将解决软件成本以及销售渠道问题。
Jordan说，思科还计划将其软件扩展到移动设备，但这是后话。
消费品公司宝洁战略项目主任Laurie Heltsley说道，即将到来的平台很有吸引力，因为它结合了许多本身并不具有吸引力的组分。
Heltsley说，“我认为它的力量在于整合”。宝洁公司目前是思科的客户协作咨询委员会成员，该委员会由7家公司组成，就其协作战略向思科提供反馈意见。思科的Jordan说，这些公司应该在大约60天内获得企业协作平台的公测版本。
附英文原文：
Cisco preparing new collaboration platform
Cisco is developing a collaboration software platform that will allow enterprises to combine social networking, presence, content and transactional applications in a single interface.
The Enterprise Collaboration Platform is scheduled to be announced in early November and should be available in a beta-test form around that time, according to Sheila Jordan, vice president of IT at Cisco. The company is already using elements of it internally. The product will work with software from other major vendors, such as Microsoft's Exchange and popular CRM and ERP packages, though only the top three or four in each category, she said.
Cisco has been building toward such a package for a few years, emphasising the importance of rich communication for organisational productivity. But this announcement goes one dateg further.
The company envisages the home screen for the platform as the first thing employees see when they start work in the morning and the place they go to find out what's happening in their company and their business tasks. The top of the screen might show a companywide video message from the CEO, columns on the sides could show the status of the employee's key contacts and links to their communities in the organization, and a lower part of the screen could be taken up by an interface to the major applications they use.
A company could lock in some elements, such as the CEO's video message, while allowing each employee to personalise the rest of the page, Jordan said. The platform would interoperate with Cisco's WebEx PC-based collaboration platform and Telepresence high-definition videoconferencing system, as well as the e-mail and calendar applications that most enterprises use, she said. The platform will include a single sign-in for all the resources available through it, developed using CA's SiteMinder technology.
Cisco is still working out some aspects of the software, such as security, policies, and how to deal with each form of communication that would be produced by it. For example, the platform will treat instant messages like phone calls rather than like email messages, which are considered business records. The company also is working out how much the software will cost and what sales channels will sell it.
The company plans to extend the software to mobile devices too, but that will come later, Jordan said.
Laurie Heltsley, director of strategic projects at consumer products company Procter & Gamble, said the upcoming platform is attractive because it combines many components that by themselves aren't very exciting.
"I think it's in the integration where the power is," said Heltsley, Procter &Gamble is on Cisco's Customer Collaboration Advisory Board, made up of seven companies, which gives feedback to Cisco on its collaboration strategy. Those companies should have a beta version of the enterprise collaboration platform in about 60 days, Cisco's Jordan said.