Cisco Buys Exchange CompetitorCisco Buys Exchange Competitor

Cisco Systems has acquired PostPath, an open-source online collaboration software vendor with e-mail and calendaring applications.PostPath's product will be rolled into Cisco's WebEx Connect SaaS collaboration platform, providing e-mail and calendaring features to go with the existing messaging, document management, and other components. PostPath enables iPhone and BlackBerry access to the e-mail database; Cisco's move is widely seen as an attempt to offer a lower-cost alternative to Microsoft Exchange.

The company will pay a total of $215 million for PostPath and expects to close the deal in Cisco's first quarter of fiscal year 2009.MarketWatch