San Francisco (CA) - Networking and communications giant Cisco made a surprising announcement at the Macworld 2009 with a new iPhone application that lets users participate in virtual meetings conducted via the company's WebEx conferencing platform, and it's free on the App Store.

The Cisco WebEx Meeting Center lets iPhone users participate in WebEx-based meetings via live audio and instant messaging, in addition to documents, applications and desktop sharing in both portrait and landscape mode. With the release of this application, and planned MeetingPlace compatibility in next upgrade, Cisco has given the iPhone a significant push in business environments, having enabled much needed compatibility with the first-class teleconferencing solutions.

The free iPhone application, dubbed Cisco WebEx Meeting Center, fits into Cisco's broad telepresence platform led by the flagship Telepresence Meeting system used by many organizations and large corporations worldwide. Cisco's WebEx and MeetingPlace solutions complete the picture with the web-based and LAN-based virtual meeting platforms, respectively. With the introduction of the iPhone application, Cisco has given businesses an important incentive to re-consider deploying the handset as a viable business tool for their employees.

The application lets iPhone users attend WebEx meetings they have been invited to join by other WebEx users on Windows, Mac, Linux or Unix. The application uses EDGE, 3G or Wi-Fi networks to transfer data and audio, but simultaneous audio transfer and data sharing is possible only over Wi-Fi or 3G cellular network, not EDGE. The audio portion of the meeting is delivered either as a regular voice call using your carrier's network, or as VoIP call using Wi-Fi connectivity.

In addition to participating in an audio portion of the meeting, iPhone users can also exchange individual or group instant messages and view content that other meeting attendees share from their computers - including documents, applications and desktops with live annotations. Data sharing is optimized for the handset resolution and screen view is possible in both portrait and landscape orientation of the handset.

Other features include live list of the meeting attendees, with mobile or desktop icons that depict how each user joined the meeting. Users can also view detailed information for the meeting in progress and mute and unmute audio. Video portion of a meeting is not currently supported on the device, nor is the scheduling of meetings directly from the device. Instead, meetings must be scheduled using iPhone-compatible WebEx account on your desktop. Cisco said that existing accounts on the WebEx site will be automatically upgraded for iPhone compatibility.

Another plus is that iPhone users are not required to have WebEx account in order to join WebEx meetings. They simply open email message and join a meeting by clicking on a link in an emailed invitation, which automatically launches the application. Alternatively, users can choose a meeting listed within the application. The WebEx system will then call the iPhone, and the user can join in by picking up the call.

Although the application is not compatible with Cisco's MeetingPlace that provides LAN-based meetings, the company promised to bring this feature in upgrade scheduled for the second quarter. Cisco said the upgraded application will seamlessly integrate with MeetingPlace to give iPhone users the ability to shift from in-progress meeting on their handset to their office desktop or Cisco Unified IP Phone without interruption and vice versa.

Editors of the MacWorld magazine, owned by the same parent company behind the Macworld Expo trade show, named the applications one of the Top 10 products introduced at Macworld 2009.

With the release of the Cisco WebEx Meeting Center application for the iPhone, some of the terms of out of the court settlement between Apple and Cisco over the use of iPhone name become clearer. Eagle-eyed readers will remember that Cisco filed a lawsuit against Apple immediately after the company brought the iPhone to the market because it also had a range of VoIP phone products sold under the iPhone brand. Both companies eventually settled the dispute in a way that allows them both to use the iPhone name, although terms of the settlement were never made public.