Cisco Systems has launched its collaboration platform for businesses, dubbed Cisco Quad.

The tool will be available initially in English-speaking mature markets and to a limited number of customers that will help further develop the product. Cisco executives say that it's best suited to large organisations that want to boost productivity, stimulate innovation and integrate distributed teams, says the company.

“This enterprise collaboration platform combines the power of social networking with communications, business information, and content management systems," said the company. "At the same time, it meets IT's needs for policy management, scalability, security, and ease of management.”

Earlier this week HP launched 48Upper, which it described as the first social collaborative IT management solution to “fully embrace social networking and the power of the community directly within the processes that run IT”.

Here's a video of Cisco explain how Quad works: