Cisco plans to purchase video communications competitor Tandberg for about $3 billion

and integrate Tandberg's video endpoints and network infrastructure into its own "collaboration architecture. This will enable intercompany and multi-vendor interoperability and ease of use across the full product portfolio from desktop to immersive, multi-screen TelePresence." The interoperability will benefit "Cisco customers, but also competitors and partners by accelerating customer interest in video collaboration globally," according to a Cisco statement. Cisco chairman and CEO said "collaboration is a $34 billion market and is growing rapidly," and that "Cisco and Tandberg have remarkably similar cultures and a shared vision to change the way the world works through collaboration and video communications technologies." Tandberg CEO Fredrik Halvorsen is to lead Cisco's new TelePresence Technology Group when the deal closes, expected in the first half of 2010 and subject to regulatory review in the United States and elsewhere. Tandberg is based in both Oslo, Norway, and New York.