Last year Cisco made a big push to enter the Software as a Service (SaaS) market with the acquisition of WebEx for $3.2 billion dollars. Some analysts questioned the acquisition and others simply could not comprehend the premium Cisco paid to acquire WebEx.
Thus far, the acquisition has been a blessing for both companies and as it stands WebEx has put Cisco into a better position in terms of the Unified Communications front. "While we've done over 130 acquisitions, WebEx has a very realistic possibility of being in the top five, maybe even in the top two, in terms of long-term contribution to Cisco," said John Chambers, Cisco CEO. "WebEx has the capabilities to expand well beyond just enabling collaboration, to providing many things as a service to the environment, to embedding them deep into our products and to be a key differentiator for many our of customer and partners as well."
To date, Cisco has reduced its travel cost by 41% along with its Carbon Emissions footprint. WebEx usage has been so tremendous across Cisco that approximately 555 business days are literally being compressed into a single business day each and every day!
Other top Cisco acquisition contenders:
- Linksys
- Scientific Atlanta
Future acquisitions target??? Companies that are Web 2.0-based or deeply rooted in social networking could be an interesting play. Perhaps someone like Akamai for their web content optimization solutions. (I'm a personal share holder in Akamai (AKAM).
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