Networking giant Cisco, which has had its sights set on the web conferencing market of late, added to its arsenal with the acquisition of WebEx on Thursday.

Cisco will pay $3.2bn for the on demand collaboration application company, which will be integrated into the vendor’s unified communications portfolio.

“As collaboration in the workplace becomes increasingly important, companies are looking for rich communications tools to help them work more effectively and efficiently,” said Charles Giancarlo, chief development officer at Cisco.