Polycom's buy of HP's visual comms business points to Cisco's strength in telepresence

In America's history, there have been some pretty good feuds. There's the Hatfields and McCoys, Alexander Hamilton versus Aaron Burr, and of course, my favorite from Hollywood, the Borg versus Humankind.

And then, there's Cisco versus Hewlett-Packard.

Hewlett-Packard (NYSE:HPQ) this week sold its visual collaboration business to Polycom (NASDAQ:PLCM) for $89 million.

That's a surprising number, which some pundits say reflects just how little impact HP's Halo product line has had in the marketplace. Others contend that it may be more a sign of the times, a canary in the coalmine that's warning vendors that those high-end, high-definition telepresence systems are becoming more of a luxury than a necessity and are great for egocasting, but perhaps frivolous in the field.

There are, after all, a score of alternatives, lower cost, fewer bells and whistles, more Fords being bought than Mercedes. But, I digress, that's a feud we can talk about next week (and, yes, I'd love to hear what you think, email me at jimo@fiercemarkets.com and we'll see where it takes us.)

This week, a second look at the feud between HP and Cisco (NASDAQ:CSCO). Way back in 2009, HP announced it was joining forces with Microsoft in a four-year, $180 million deal to develop an end-to-end UC solution for large enterprises. The companies said their new UC products will interoperate with their respective hardware and software products already on the market. Much was made of the deal from HP's perspective, as reports cast the agreement as a play to compete directly with Cisco in enterprise UC.

Cut to two years later, at Interop 2011.  HP EVP and GM for networking products Dave Donatelli, called out Cisco during his keynote for what he said is a lack of innovation by the networking giant. An HP exec later was far more direct, telling me: "Legacy networks--and by legacy, I mean Cisco--are at the breaking point. Their management tools are a joke, they're just crap."

Cisco, for its part, hasn't said as much publicly. Of course, its stock has, quietly tumbling fro $26 a share to just a tad above $16 during the past 12 months, a trek that has CEO John Cambers scrambling to plug leaks and shore up timbers in an effort to refloat what has become a bit of a foundering craft.

The one place it's continuing to see growth, a buoyancy chamber that has kept it above water, is its UC business. A point David Hsieh, vice president, Telepresence Marketing at Cisco, made clear in an email to FierceVoIP late last night.

"In just under five years, Cisco has gone from zero to 47 percent telepresence marketshare while HP has failed to build any credible presence in collaboration," he said. "Regardless of the vendor, innovation and a commitment to customers are critical for success in this rapidly growing collaboration space, and Cisco's strategy to offer customers one of the largest portfolios of interoperable telepresence solutions for their unique needs is paying off."

Innovation and commitment. Hmmm. Sounds like fightin' words. What do you think?--Jim