Cisco is dropping it se-mail service, only a little over a year after it launched the offering in Nov. 2009. Cisco announced in a blog post it’s shutting off Cisco Mail since the company’s customers “have come to view their email as a mature and commoditized tool versus a long-term differentiated element of their collaboration strategy,” reports the Wall Street Journal.

“Cisco said customers appear to be more eager for “social” business software and video applications, areas in which Cisco also has products, adding: “Cisco employees who built and supported the Cisco Mail product will be reassigned to other collaboration products and services that customers view as more strategic.”

The networking giant’s customers may be more interested in more social offerings, but the old price and features comparison is naturally another factor. Cisco Mail cost $3.50 to $5 per user per month with an additional 1$ for optional BlackBerry support. The service offered 5GB worth of mailbox storage per user, compared to Google Apps for Business’s 25GB. To top that off, Google’s offering is priced at $50, which buys customers more feature for equal or less the cost of the now unavailable Cisco Mail.  When it comes to cloud solutions, price often takes precedence.

According to some recent statistics, Cisco is not the only one taking a hit in the e-mail space. comScore reports the use of e-mail by the 12-17 years old demographics dropped by 24 percent in 2010, and visits to online e-mail services declined by 6 percent.  But Cisco may have hired a new chief operating officer to handle its rapid expansion to dozens of new segments, but its core switch business isn’t doing so well. WSJ reports that alongside a 7% drop in Cisco’s quarterly switch revenues, some customers are abandoning the company in exchange for more affordable offerings. These are presented by competitors like Juniper Networks and HP, with the latter even offering special trade in deals for Cisco customers.

But the show must go on.  Cisco recently reached several major milestones, most notably the fact that its newer offerings surpassed revenues from its switch business.