Cisco's Spark Collaboration App Now Does Something Slack Doesn't: Voice and Video Chat
Arik Hesseldahl / Re/code :
Context & Ripple Effects
Cisco is moving Spark up the stack from messaging into real-time communication, adding voice and video chat that Slack does not yet offer natively. The timing matters: Slack had already signaled this direction by buying Screenhero in January 2015 to bring screen sharing and voice chat onto its own platform (Slack's Screenhero acquisition), so Cisco is racing to make its enterprise-grade audio and video heritage the differentiator.
This is an early shot in what became a sustained build-out: within months Cisco followed with the $150M Spark Innovation Fund and the Synata acquisition, and later pushed voice further with the Spark Assistant voice-controlled interface. Slack, meanwhile, spent years closing the gap it opened here.
First-order effects
- Cisco can now pitch Spark as an all-in-one workspace where teams message, call, and meet without leaving the app — a direct wedge against Slack, whose users still need a separate tool for live conversation.
Second-order effects
- Slack faces pressure to accelerate its own voice roadmap beyond the Screenhero technology, and Cisco's willingness to fund Spark (the Innovation Fund) signals it will buy whatever capabilities the rivalry demands.
Third-order effects
- Workplace chat stops being a standalone category: the endpoint both players converge on is a unified surface combining messaging, audio, and video — a trajectory later confirmed when Slack finally shipped Huddles audio chat in 2021, six years after this move.
The trend: Enterprise messaging platforms are absorbing real-time voice and video until chat-native tools and conferencing incumbents converge into single all-in-one workspaces.