"Cisco Systems has agreed to acquire the online meeting company WebEx Communications for about $3.2 billion in cash, a takeover that furthers Cisco's push beyond its core market for networking gear and into the lucrative arena of business communications," reports AP.
"The acquisition was Cisco's 119th since 1993 and follows several other major recent takeovers by the company."
I must admit that WebEx is not one of the companies I would have tipped Cisco to buy -- either it is branching out, or it has already bought so many that it is now running out of targets ;-)
Cisco has also bought Linksys, and last year, gobbled up the set-top box maker Scientific-Atlanta for $7.1 billion.
At TechCrunch, Micahael Arrington points out:
Webex is still ubiquitous (I am asked to view a WebEx presentation almost daily), but it's expensive and bulky. And if you aren't on a newish Windows PC, there's a good chance it isn't going to work properly. WebEx is exactly the kind of a company that is being disrupted by new web startups, who are creating cheaper and better alternatives to older web applications.
A bunch of startups have launched over the last year to provide cheaper and more flexible alternatives, including open source "clones" of WebEx functionality. Teamslide, DimDim (open source), 1videoconference (open source), Vyew, Live Meeting and SlideShare are all competitive with WebEx in one way or another, and all are better at cross platform collaboration.
Perhaps Arrington gets invited because he's a venture capitalist or perhaps it's an American thing, but I'm never asked to view WebEx presentations, and I can't honestly say I regret it. (I can live without Microsoft Live Meetings, too.) That's why it doesn't look to me like a potential boom market like, say, instant messaging or Skype.
Maybe it will take off as a corporate product. But if not, WebEx looks an expensive acquisition.
