As a software engineer, I like it when things work together in new and surprising ways. And especially when they work together to be even better. Like when my Amazon Echo talks to my Nest, my WeMo light switch, or my garage-door opener. Which makes me wonder: When I'm working, why don't all my tools talk to each other the same way?

Don't get me wrong -I'm really proud of our Cisco Collaboration tools and how they work with each other: Cisco Spark with integrated video calling, Jabber integrated with Unified Communications Manager, virtual meeting rooms integrated within WebEx.

Why can't everything else be as simple to use? Why can't these same tools talk to my email client or other productivity tools? And why, if I'm repeating the same task, do I have to keep doing it? Why can't my machine figure out that repetitive, mundane task and just take care of it for me? With the advent of cognitive intelligence, there must be a way to make collaboration even better.

I asked these questions over and over, and my team decided to do something about it. So they went and found the best technology gurus to help make things work together. The result?Cisco and IBM coming together in a global alliance to enhance collaboration. This is really interesting. And very exciting, because we are putting our collective expertise toward integrating your business conversations across all channels.

Not only are we working together to have our collaboration technology connect to IBM's productivity tools, we're going to leverage the power of Watson. Yes,thatWatson. Imagine that kind of cognitive intelligence coupled with our collaboration tools!

It starts with collaboration services that talk to each other, so you can talk to anyone. IBM Connections Cloud Social and IBM Verse will both be "Cisco aware," giving them a wide range of collaborative enhancements, including better integration with Cisco Spark and WebEx. Cisco Spark and WebEx will be similarly "IBM aware." This means that you can host a meeting or call a coworker almost instantaneously from a variety of enterprise applications. Likewise, collaboration tools will have integrated enterprise cloud features.

Together, IBM and Cisco are building an open, integrated platform that will foster inspiration and innovation. We're using the power of the open cloud to bring together key applications that we need to be our most productive. This platform will capture and understand not only our documents, but also the way we work together.

This integrated platform will leverage the power of Watson to analyze the unstructured data in our conversations, content, and workflows, providing insights and expertise to continuously improve the way we work.

Together, we're creating an intelligent fabric that connects all collaboration workloads. I like to call it "Intelligent Collaboration."

This is just the beginning of our new alliance. Over the next few months, we'll share more details about new integrations and capabilities that combine our collective strengths.

It all comes down to simplifying communication, making it more intelligent, making it incredibly intuitive and easy. In short, making it work together to be better. That's the future of enterprise collaboration-Intelligent Collaboration.

For more information, read the joint press release, check out our Partner page, IBM's blog post, or see what's happening at Cisco Live in Las Vegas.