Cisco may offer Web-based office software

By Jim Finkle

BOSTON (Reuters) - Cisco Systems is considering offering Web-based alternatives to Microsoft's popular Office software as the networking giant expands on the Internet.

Cisco Senior Vice President Doug Dennerline said on Tuesday his company may develop a service that would allow business users to create documents they could draft and share through its WebEx meeting and collaboration service.

Internet-based alternatives to Microsoft Office cropped up about five years ago, but corporate users have yet to embrace them. If the approach does take off, it could become big business: Microsoft's Office division rang up sales of $60 billion in the software company's most-recent fiscal year.

Google sells Google Apps, an Internet-based alternative to Microsoft Office that includes a spreadsheet, word processor and presentation software. Design software maker Adobe Systems Inc and privately held Zoho Corp offer similar products.

Dennerline, who manages Cisco's online collaboration products, said he is interested in getting into that area.

"That is an interesting space. We are certainly thinking about that," he said on Tuesday during an online news conference. He did not elaborate.

Dennerline also said Cisco is not interested in competing with Salesforce.com Inc in selling online applications that companies use to manage sales and marketing activities -- an area analysts have long speculated that Cisco planned to go into.

Salesforce is the biggest maker of web-based applications, a segment of the software industry that research firm Gartner estimates will see sales rise about 30 percent this year to $6.5 billion (4.1 billion pounds).