Late last week Forbes ran two articles by different writers but with very similar headlines: "Polycom: How We Will Beat Cisco" by Andy Greenberg; and "Avaya's Plan to Beat Cisco" by Elizabeth Woyke. With everyone trying to beat up Cisco (NASDAQ: CSCO) these days, it seems that customers should begin to see the fruits of competitive pressures before long.

Avaya is trying to edge out Cisco not only with software for conference calls and call centers, but also with a tablet computer that can host messaging services and phone calls, Woyke reports. With its acquisition of much of Nortel, Avaya also gained a foothold in the switches and routers market as well as a vast resellers network. 

Meanwhile, Cisco has been gaining in Avaya's traditional stronghold of office phones. According to estimates from the Dell'Oro Group, Cisco won 22 percent of the phone equipment spending in Q1, while Avaya won 25 percent.

Cisco also has made a great leap into the video conferencing sector with its purchase of Tandberg, leaving Polycom as the only major vendor focused solely on video. To counter the marketing prowess of Cisco combined with Tandberg's technology, Polycom plans to remain focused on open standards and maintain tight relationships with partners like Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT), IBM (NYSE: IBM) and HP (NYSE: HPQ), Greenberg reports in a revealing Q&A with Polycom CEO Andy Miller.

For more:
- see Elizabeth Woyke's article at Forbes
- see this interview with Polycom CEO Andy Miller at Forbes

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