Cisco reportedly taps Microsoft exec to head collaboration

Cisco is reportedly tapping a high ranking Microsoft executive to be the new head of its collaboration software group.

According to a blog post from Wall Street Journal reporter Kara Swisher, Cisco will name Debra Chrapaty as its new head of the Collaboration Software Group. Chrapaty will replace Douglas Dennerline, who left Cisco recently to become executive vice president of sales, Americas, for Salesforce.com. Dennerline spoke at the recent Cisco Live Virtual conference about Cisco's plans to possibly compete versus Microsoft and Google in delivering office applications.

Cisco declined to comment on Chrapaty.

At Microsoft, Chrapaty was corporate vice-president of Global Foundation Services, in charge of infrastructure and services elements for Microsoft Live, and cloud and online services. At Cisco, she will likely be in charge of the company’s cloud and software-as-a-service strategies.

Microsoft was not immediately available for comment.