Cisco's Spark becomes a cloud-based phone and meeting platform

Cisco Systems is rethinking its collaboration tools from the bottom up, turning the lowly Spark text-messaging app into a cloud-based platform that includes videoconferencing and the core features of an enterprise phone system.

Spark, which debuted last year as an app called Project Square, is central to the company's strategy of using cloud computing to deliver collaboration to everyone in an organization. Cisco says it's not abandoning its dedicated collaboration products; in fact, it's offering ways to hook some desk phones and a big-screen video meeting system into Spark. But the company's focus is now on the cloud.

At the center of Spark is one-to-one and group messaging and content sharing with persistence, so messages are still available after the conversation is over. When the new version arrives in the first quarter of next year, users will also be able to make and receive voice calls and host and participate in video meetings from within Spark. These additions begin to fulfill Cisco's vision for the system.

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