Cisco's WebEx purchase

Cisco announced a few days ago that it had reached an agreement to purchase WebEx for about $3 billion.  This post from the Webinar Blog is a good summary of the analysis from the past few days, and contains some good links.  I won't rehash the analysis, but the one point that seems to be under the radar is the Telepresence connection.  WebEx built a highly regarded network for real-time collaborative communication - their MediaTone network.  WebEx won north of 80% of the web conferencing market - including many SMB customers that Cisco doesn't currently have.  Cisco will combine those two assets with their Telepresence product and gain the leverage they need to be able to sell Telepresence (TP) solutions outside of Fortune 100 multi-nationals type circles.  TP could be a true game changer (more details here) and the WebEx acquisition should expedite its adoption curve.  If this does help TP adoption, then Cisco may have gotten a bargain at $3 billion, even if the WebEx technology itself needs a refresh.