If Cisco wasn’t making enough enemies with its string of bold acquisitions and a brazen push into the server market last spring, it’s now picking a software fight with several more tech heavyweights: Microsoft, Google and IBM.
On Monday, Cisco ( CSCO – news – people ) plans to announce a broad set of new collaboration software tools for instant messaging, e-mail, social networking, videoconferencing, document and video sharing, many of which go head to head with similar offerings from Microsoft’s ( MSFT – news – people ) Live Meeting and Exchange messaging products, as well as enterprise collaboration tools from IBM ( IBM – news – people ).