The proliferation of connected devices in the workplace is putting more pressure on the corporate network than ever before, driving the need for a new approach to infrastructure management that can deliver the sustainable scalability required to support that growth. But although central, the changes occurring under the hood are only one part of the broader challenge facing CIOs amid the explosion in end-points the enterprise is witnessing today.

An equally important element of that paradigm shift is the very practical issue of enabling employees to  communicate across all the new devices that have made their way into the office in recent years, a task made especially difficult by the vast differences between the various platforms on the market. Networking kingpin Cisco hopes to address that critical requirement through the acquisition of Assemblage, a less than one-year-old startup whose late entry into the collaboration fray allowed it to build from the ground up for the era of technology-agnostic user experiences. No financial details were disclosed for the transaction other than that it has already been closed.

The deal comes just  two weeks after the vendor picked up Denmark’s Tail-f in a $175 million deal aimed at providing much-needed lift for its Application-Centric Infrastructure vision, which has been its primary focus for the last few years. The milestone buyout came against the backdrop of a ramp-up in the industry-wide arms race for programmable networking that even saw Oracle jump on the bandwagon with the acquisition of WAN optimization specialist Corente earlier this year.

The purchase of Assemblage, which also has Danish roots, represents a welcome change of pace for Cisco. The startup was born out of the Alchemist Accelerator, an incubator backed by the switching and routing giant, and offers a well-rounded set of cloud services for making collaboration happen through the browser without any client software or plugins.

The startup’s products include Kollaborate, an online videoconferencing tool that features a virtual “whiteboard” with support for over 40 files types, and a presentation app that allows the user to turn their laptop or mobile device into a digital projector. It also  offers Same, a screen sharing utility that makes it possible to share a desktop with viewers on smartphones and tablets. All three provide extensive third party integration with popular services such as Gmail and Box.

The acquisition marks a renewal of Cisco’s expansion efforts in the collaboration space, which seemingly took the backseat after it pulled the plug on its homegrown WebEx Social offering in favor of a partnership with Jive. Bringing Assemblage into the fold puts the long-term continuation of that relationship in doubt,  but that’s a trade the networking stalwart is apparently willing to make.

Cisco business development head Hilton Romanski pointed out in a blog that the deal buys his firm “strong team of engineers with deep web development expertise” who will bolster the ranks of its Collaboration Technology Group. Just as notable from a strategic standpoint is the fact that many of Assemblage’s customers hail from the small- and medium-business market.  That could potentially mean Cisco is laying down the groundwork to return to that space, which, just like collaboration, has also been stuck on its back burner for the last few years.

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