Webex Communications (Webx)

WebEx is the global leader in software-as-a-service (SaaS) applications for collaborative business on the web. WebEx applications enhance high-touch business processes, such as sales and training, with efficient web-touch interactions

In short, you can organize a virtual meeting over the internet using a browser with multiple users where one person would be the presenter. He could share his desktop or a certain application running on his PC. He could use it to make presentations, demos , sales calls. Basically, it helps in collaborative work.

The Silicon Valley-based company founded in 1996, owns 65 percent of the surging global market for Web conferencing, according to a recent report from market researchers at Frost & Sullivan. WebEx dominates players as big as Microsoft, and its annual revenues have jumped from $81 million in 2001 to $360 million in 2006, making it one of the fastest-growing technology companies.

More than 3.5 million people use WebEx every month to communicate and collaborate online. Webex is continously innovating newer solutions,provides excellent state of the art security and outstanding service.

The company's secret sauce is a global, proprietary, IP-based multimedia network of switches, running parallel to the Internet and called the MediaTone Network. WebEx offers versions of its service designed for providing web meeting, product support, training, Web seminars, and more, but its Meeting Center is the central service.

Webex has recently entered into the corporate instant messaging market place as well.
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The Companies financials are excellent (from yahoo finance)

The company acquired a company in India in 2004-2005.

The company is Debt free. Has 360Million in cash out of a market cap of 1.8Billion. Its still very small compared to its growth potential for the next 10 years.

Management Team:
The CEO has been at the helm right from the beginning.

Market cap : 1.8Billion
Forward P/e : 23
Return on Assets (ttm): 13.81%
Return on Equity (ttm): 12.45%
Revenue growth : 24%
Revenue (ttm): 361.77M
Total Cash (mrq): 302.78M
Debt : 0
Held by Insiders: 11.43%
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The company has 25,000 customers. Have a look
http://www.webex.com/overview/customers_all.html

The only points of concern are:
1) increased competition may erode margins. However, increased usage, volumes will help offset some of this.

2) Threat of microsoft. Most IT companies have this threat. However, webex has kept ahead of all competition for last 10 years. I dont think this will change any time soon. I spoke to a manager in MSFT and he said , webex has functionality that is 2 years ahead of the competition.

I feel this should be a great investment over the next 5 years. I bought this in 2003 at 22$. I was a novice investor then and took some profits at 28,34,40$ levels. However, of late i have been reading on fool.com about companies such as these that you should hold for as long as possible, unless the companies potential changes.