Cisco to buy IM vendor

Cisco Systems plans to buy instant messaging platform vendor Jabber, a move that could heighten its battle with Microsoft over the collaboration and office communications market.

The terms of the deal weren't disclosed.

Jabber has developed a "carrier-class" platform based on open standards that can work across multiple messaging systems, such as AOL Instant Messenger, Google Talk, Yahoo Messenger and Office Communications Server.

Cisco intends to use it to become "the interoperability benchmark in the collaboration space", according to a company statement.

The Jabber deal comes just a few weeks after Cisco took another shot across Microsoft's bow by announcing plans to buy PostPath, maker of email and calendaring software.