The Web Conferencing Blog

Cisco Intends to Buy PostPath

Cisco announced that it plans to buy PostPath, a Linux-based email, calendaring, and collaboration solution. This move further signifies Cisco's commitment to creating a comprehensive cloud-based collaboration platform.

Ferris Research analyst Richi Jennings thinks Cisco made a great deal. Jennings says, "Once again, Cisco makes a sound investment in an email technology vendor, just like it did with IronPoint," an email security appliance provider.

As for PostPath, Jennings says, "These are the clever guys who reverse-engineered the Exchange client protocol, MAPI/RPC, and the related on-the-wire details needed to make a vanilla install of Outlook talk to a non-Exchange mail server with full fidelity. Impressive stuff. Of all the other Exchange alternatives, PostPath has the most interesting architecture. And I say that as one who has years emotionally invested in the OpenMail technology" -- which served as the foundation for Scalix.

Looking at the deal itself, Jennings opines, "I think Cisco fell out of love with Microsoft a while back. Something to do with VoIP support in Exchange and how Cisco thought it was Microsoft's partner but it turned out that Microsoft was competing with them. Nothing familiar there at all...."

As for what Cisco plans, Jennings says, "Sounds like Cisco wants to offer SaaS collaboration, based on PostPath and WebEx. Whoever said the email world has become dull and uninteresting?"

Cisco will pay approximately $215 million in exchange for PostPath's shares. The acquisition is expected to be completed in Cisco's first quarter of fiscal year 2009. Upon completion of the acquisition, PostPath employees will become part of the Cisco Collaboration Software Group.

Thanks,
David Chao
The Web Conferencing Expert

Upcoming Cisco Acquisitions...

There is some speculation that Cisco (CSCO) is looking to make a few acquisitions in the very near future. Some think Cisco is targeting Brocade (BRCD) to thwart Brocade's own interest in acquiring Foundry Networks (FDRY) for $3B. By acquiring Brocade, Cisco would boost its storage networking portfolio and eliminate a competitive threat.

The timing is also good for Cisco as Brocade shares are down 12-15% since Brocade announced it would pay a 40% premium for Foundry Networks. The only obvious concern for Cisco is how the government will interpret Cisco's market share in the fibre channel switch space after a Brocade acquisition.

On the periphery, other analysts think Cisco might go after the data storage giant, EMC Corp (EMC). I personally think that waiting on this one would be a good idea. EMC has only been growing in single digits, probably not exactly what John Chambers is looking for in an acquisition. EMC also has a $30B market valuation, a buyout wouldn't come cheap to Cisco either. I'm not so sure if Cisco needs to buy the "size" of an EMC.

If Cisco does buy Brocade or some other "smaller" player in the fibre channel switching space, it will be a great compliment to the Cisco Nexus Switches product line which launched earlier this year.

Thanks,
David Chao
The Web Conferencing Expert

GoToMeeting Service Crash

Last Tursday, August 7th, the GoToMeeting and GoToWebinar applications had a service crash!!!

Without going into the details of the service disruption email, Citrix basically said that the service issues were due to increased demand in their service. Though they claim to have made upgrades in their infrastructure, it appears that they did not.

The service disruption email was very well-crafted from the GoToMeeting marketing department. They did a great job of taking a very negative situation and spinning it around. "It's our fault, sorry for the inconvenience. Our service is really great but we apologies for the technical issues and apologies that our capacity planning team was not made aware of the infrastructure changes that were required to support or customer's growing needs."   

Some may view this in good light, other will most likely view this in bad light, causing some concerns of GoToMeeting's service reliability.


Thanks,
David Chao
The Web Conferencing Expert

Blogged.com Score of 8!!!

I came across an interest site tonight. A gal named Andrea Lopez from AdURLs.com contacted me via email to see if I was interested in posted some of their ads to enhance to look of my blog. Call it Google Adsense with pictures instead of plain text. (You can look at some of their ad formats here: http://www.adurls.com/adformats.php ) I'm not so interested in their ad formats but rather the way Andrea found my blog.

She was researching highly rated blogs from Blogged.com to promote her companies Ad URL's. When I peeked at Blogged.com and searched by blog, I saw that the Blogged.com editors gave "The Web Conferencing Blog" a rate of 8 out of 10, a "GREAT" rating! Proudly, it's the highest rated blog under the keyword search of "web conferencing."

* The editor reviews are provided by professional editors who evaluate a blog based on the following criteria: Frequency of Updates, Relevance of Content, Site Design, and Writing Style.

Blogged.com is a site designed to help readers find blogs that are rich in content and information. A pretty interesting site if you are looking for great blogs to read.

Thank you to all the readers!!! It's 100% about the readers and special thanks for driving traffic and performing organic searches that are increasing The Web Conferencing Blog's Google PageRank. A score of 5!!! This shows the blog relevance and importance in the web conferencing space.

LiveMeeting.com PageRank of 6/10
Borders Books PageRank 7/10
ADP.com PageRank 7/10

My previous companies:
Itron.com PageRank 6/10
i2.com PageRank 6/10
CyberSource.com PageRank 6/10

Thanks,
David Chao
The Web Conferencing Expert

GoToMeeting and Firewall Configuration

Here are insightful tips if you are having firewall problems with GoToMeeting:

If you have a personal firewall in place like Norton Firewall or ZoneAlarm, you need to make sure that GoToMeeting is not being blocked for security reasons. If it is blocked due to security risks, typically the normal default setting, you need to unblock GoToMeeting and then attempt to connect again.

If you wish to set your firewall to enable GoToMeeting, you can bypass the security block default. To do this, first launch GoToMeeting and then your firewall will alert you of the security risk and prompt you to allow GoToMeeting to access the Internet. Be sure to check box "Remember the answer each time I use this program." Then click "Yes" to enable GoToMeeting to access the Internet.

One thing to keep in mind is that this option does not mean you will not be subject to GoToMeeting URL blocking from your customer's side. This simply solves issues you might have with GoToMeeting across a personal firewall.

If you are in a "Business Environment" and experience firewall issues, you will need to contact your IT department for help. The IT department will know if the firewall has a content or application data scanning filter which may cause blocking or latency. If this is the case, verify that the IP ranges below will not be scanned or filtered by content or application data scanning filters by specifying exception IP ranges that will not be filtered.

If your security policy requires you to specify explicit IP ranges, then configure your firewall to limit port 8200 or 80 or 443 destination IP addresses to only the Citrix Online ranges listed below. (Click on link below)

Citrix Online SERVER / Datacenter IP Addresses for Use in Firewall Configurations
(Equivalent Specifications in 3 Comma Formats)
Download citrix_online_assigned_ip_ranges.xls

Thanks,
David Chao
The Web Conferencing Blog