The next chapter in that push is a new client for Jabber, Cisco's voice, video, instant-messaging and presence platform, coming this summer. Jabber clients are already available for Apple iOS and for Research In Motion's BlackBerry platform, as well as Windows PCs, and will soon come out for general Android tablets, he said.

The new Jabber client will allow users to take video calls on PCs, tablets and Cisco TelePresence systems and transfer the calls from one platform to another. Cisco APIs (application programming interfaces) allow Jabber functions to be integrated into Microsoft Outlook so users can find contacts and start Jabber calls from Outlook, and this integration will be expanded in the new versions.

At the briefing, Cisco demonstrated Jabber sessions being moved among different platforms. It also showed users of third-party videoconferencing systems, including Microsoft Lync and a Polycom HDX system, becoming full participants in a Cisco TelePresence meeting. Cisco's inclusion of industry standards including SIP (Session Initiation Protocol), H.323 and H.264 make this possible, the company said.

The full-scale TelePresence platform is still marching forward despite the new emphasis on bringing in diverse clients. And real-time translation of telepresence meetings is back on Cisco's roadmap.

In late 2008, Cisco video chief Marthin De Beer said that he expected that feature to go on sale with 20 languages . But a year later, Cisco said the system's accuracy wasn't high enough and the company for when it would go on sale.