"We're starting to hit that wave where interoperability and partnerships will define the long-term winners and losers," said Zeus Kerravala, an analyst at Yankee Group Research Inc. in Boston.

Cisco's new technology integrates voice, data and video in one system, said Barry O'Sullivan, vice president and general manager of the company's voice technology group.

The Unified Communications system will be sold under a per-user model, or its various components can be purchased separately, O'Sullivan said. New components include software that can aggregate user presence information on a network and from third-party devices, and an application that lets end users place voice and video calls by clicking on system icons or names that are contained in instant messages.

Randy Cook, director of global voice networks at Oracle Corp., said he plans to upgrade major portions of his VOIP network in the next six months to Cisco's Unified CallManager 5.0 release and other components of the Unified Communications offering.

About 30,000 Oracle workers already use Cisco IP phones, and Cook said the company plans to expand the VOIP system to its entire 60,000-person workforce over the next 18 months.