WebEx To Buy Rival Intranets.com

August 2, 2005

WebEx Communications, a California-based provider of collaborative Web meeting applications, has agreed to acquire Massachusetts-based rival Intranets.com for $45 million in cash. The deal allows WebEx to take out a competitor that had aggressively chased the smaller end of WebEx’s core market --�Web conferencing services.�

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Nine-year-old�Intranets.com is a provider of asynchronous collaboration applications for small and medium-size businesses, and it has more than 300,000 paying subscribers and 10,000 corporate sites. It began offering Web and audio conferencing in early 2004, a move to undercut Microsoft and WebEx’s similar offerings.

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The acquisition, according to the announcement, will enable WebEx to offer companies of all sizes a comprehensive, cost-effective, on-demand Web collaboration suite that includes both real-time and asynchronous capabilities.

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Under the terms of the agreement, WebEx will pay approximately $45 million in cash, subject to certain adjustments, for Intranets.com, which will become a wholly owned subsidiary. WebEx President Bill Heil said the company plans to preserve Intranets.com’s products and pricing. WebEx plans to retain all of the purchased company’s 82 employees and to leave the company operating as a subsidiary in Burlington under the leadership of current Intranets.com CEO�Rick Faulk.

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The acquisition has been unanimously approved by the board of directors of each company. The acquisition, which is expected to close in the third quarter of 2005, is subject to customary closing conditions.��

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DRB