Coming so soon after the company bought a social networking platform (Tribe.net), Cisco’s $3.2-billion acquisition of WebEx makes it clear that the network equipment company’s interest in matters of the Web is more than just a passing fancy (although I suppose that it’s possible deals of that size qualify as a fancy at a giant like Cisco, which has a market cap of about $155-billion).

In any case, WebEx is an interesting purchase to make. I think Om is right that the service makes a natural pawn (or maybe a rook) in the chess game with Microsoft for supremacy in the in-between world of Web and desktop for corporate users. And from that point of view the deal makes a certain amount of sense as a positioning effort.

However, I also think Rafe Needleman makes an excellent point in his post at Webware, which has the wonderful title: “Cisco buys WebEx for the land — the product is a teardown.” Having used the service more than once, I can attest to the fact that in most cases it is difficult to configure and a pain in the ass to use, in contrast to more flexible (and cheaper) Web services such as Vyew.com and Adobe’s Connect.

In that sense, the deal doesn’t look quite so great — and the valuation looks rich at best. Paul Kedrosky asks whether Cisco even knows what it wants to be when it grows up.

I suppose it was inevitable that the whole “social networking” phenomenon — which until now has been pretty much a grassroots effort, aside from Google’s purchase of YouTube and News Corp. buying MySpace — would eventually attract the attention of the Big Iron boys. And by that I mean companies like Cisco, the networking-equipment maker that is reportedly going to buy social network Tribe.net next week sometime.

I must admit that I share Pete Cashmore’s “WTF” response to this news. Maybe someone at Cisco overheard people talking about Facebook or MySpace and using the term “social networking,” and all they heard was the “networking” part. “Hey, we do all kinds of networking — Ethernet, PBX, optical, you name it,” the Cisco type might have thought. “How hard could social networking be?” Buy a provider like Tribe.net (which probably cost as much as the Cisco branch office in Mobile, Alabama spends on paper clips every year), and away you go. Drop in on Really Big Corp. Ltd., sell them some switches and throw in some of that social-type networking too.

Coming so soon after the announcement of IBM’s big Lotus Connections rollout, in which the giant computer services company mashed up its own del.icio.us-type tool, a blog tool and some other social networking apps, it seems fairly obvious that the Big Iron boys would like be the ones helping companies get on board the social networking train. But is that really the best way to go? I’m pretty sure that it isn’t.

Paying Cisco millions of dollars to put together your wired or wireless network makes sense. They control the hardware, they know the protocols and technology standards, and they know that security is important for a corporate network. But social networks and social networking tools aren’t exactly rocket surgery, if you know what I mean — there aren’t really any complicated tools or standards (other than ethical standards).

What makes a social network function isn’t so much the tools as it is the attitude. You gotta have the “want to.” And that isn’t something you can get out of a box.

Further reading:

Om Malik is similarly skeptical of Cisco’s newfound interest in social networking, and compares the combination to the marriage of Angelie Jolie and Billy Bob Thornton. And Joe Duck makes a similar point to mine: social networking isn’t about technology, it’s about people. My friend Mark Evans is also skeptical of Cisco’s move.

CNet.com has a piece up on its website that talks about how networking equipment giant Cisco Systems might be looking to acquire TiVo, the digital-video recording pioneer. The article, which is labelled “news analysis” — which in the journalism business is code for “speculation” — starts off with Cisco’s recently announced $6.9-billion acquisition of Scientific-Atlanta, one of the largest makers of set-top boxes in the world next to Motorola, and then asks the question “Who’s next?”

One response might be “Why should anyone be next?” The purchase of SA is one of the largest acquisitions Cisco has ever done. The idea that it’s going to rush out and buy something else right away is more than a little wacky. But a better response might be “Why TiVo?” As much as everyone seems to want to see TiVo get snapped up by either Yahoo, Google or Microsoft, I’m not sure that’s as likely as TiVo fans might want it to be — and I think a purchase by Cisco is probably even less likely (The Stalwart isn’t convinced either).

Why? Because — as Rafat Ali also points out at PaidContent.org — TiVo doesn’t really bring anything to the table that Cisco doesn’t already have with Scientific-Atlanta. Yes, it’s true that TiVo (and Replay TV) pioneered the DVR business, and the company has a small legion of devoted fans who love the extra features it provides. But when it gets right down to it, DVRs are a commodity, SA already makes them — including ones that do high-definition, and have interactive features for integration with the Internet (or the ability to add them) — and so there is little or no reason to pay the $500-million or whatever it would take to buy TiVo. For what it’s worth, I think the idea of Cisco buying Nintendo makes even less sense, but maybe that’s just me.