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WebEx Communications
	File:Logo webex.png
Company type	Public Incorporated
Industry	Telecommunications software and services
Founded	February 1995
Headquarters	Santa Clara, California (United States)
Key people	Subrah S. Iyar (Founder, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer); Bill Heil (President and Chief Operating Officer); Min Zhu (Founder, former Chief Technical Officer and Director)
Products	WebEx Meeting Center; WebEx Enterprise Edition; WebEx Presentation Studio; MyWebExPC.
Revenue	$US 249 Million (2004)
Number of employees	~1800 (Dec 2004)
Website	http://www.webex.com/webexhome.html

WebEx Communications Inc. (NASDAQ: WEBX), is a company that provides online meeting, web conferencing and video conferencing services. Its products include "Meeting Center", "Training Center", "Event Center", "Support Center", "Sales Center" and others.

The term "WebEx" is also used sometimes as a substitute for "web conferencing", such as "We'll WebEx on Thursday morning for our weekly meeting".

History

WebEx was founded in 1996 by Subrah Iyar and Min Zhu. Zhu co-founded Future Labs (one of the first companies to produce multi-point document collaboration software) in 1991. Zhu met Iyar, then a vice president and general manager of Quarterdeck Inc., when Quarterdeck acquired Future Labs in 1996. Iyar was named president of Future Labs, which had been made a Quarterdeck subsidiary and the same year Iyar and Min went on to co-found WebEx.

WebEx acquired the company Intranets.com in 2005 which provided strategic entrance into the small- and mid-size business market through Intranets.com customer base of businesses with less than 100 employees. WebEx acquired the ability to offer online collaboration tools such as discussion forums, document sharing and calendaring while Intranets.com provided access to the WebEx communications environment for its customers.^[1]

Min Zhu

According to court filings and public records, Erin Zhu, daughter of WebEx co-founder and former Director, President, and Chief Technical Officer Min Zhu, formed a business partnership with Michael Zeleny lasting from January 1995 to January 2000 known variously as LiveShare Inc. and PTYX. Zeleny claims that this partnership provided professional services to WebEx. It is further alleged by Zeleny that in 1999 LiveShare entered into an agreement with WebEx, and that in January 2000 WebEx reneged on this agreement. Zeleny also claims that at the same time, Erin Zhu made a claim for childhood sexual abuse against Min Zhu, which was settled out of court.

In January 2001, WebEx delivered to Erin Zhu 5,000 shares of its stock, apparently as part of the out of court settlement. At that time, WebEx owed 5,000 shares of its stock to PTYX, of which Erin was a partner. Erin soon thereafter abandoned the partnership with Zeleny and married Blixa Bargeld of the German band Einstürzende Neubauten, taking the 5000 shares of stock with her. Zeleny attempted to communicate with WebEx to recover this company asset and was rebuffed. He alleges that this was followed by anonymous threats being made on his life around the end of 2001 in the names of Min Zhu and WebEx. In response to these threats, Zeleny filed a lawsuit against WebEx. In July 2002 Zeleny’s lawsuit was transferred from Los Angeles to the Superior Court of California, County of Santa Clara (case number CV809286). Zeleny named WebEx, Min Zhu, his daughter Erin Zhu, and his wife Susan Xu as defendants for breach of contract and various torts.

In October 2004, the defendants settled Zeleny's claims before the trial. The settlement terms remain under seal. Beginning in June 2004 Zeleny made public on the Yahoo! Finance WebEx message board the particulars of his lawsuit against the Zhus and WebEx, which included reference to the allegations of rape made against Min Zhu by his daughter, Erin. Zeleny made these postings under the Yahoo! username "ptyx". The posts remained accessible to the public until February 2005, at which time Yahoo! management closed the ptyx user account and removed all related postings. The same month Zeleny reappeared on the message board as "helicalenzyme" and continued posting updates of the legal proceedings and particulars of the cases. Zeleny justified this move by asserting that the issues are a matter of public interest. He notes that Min Zhu was serving in a position of trust as a senior executive of a publicly traded company, and has been accused of molestation in sworn testimony by his own daughter. By compounding the use of WebEx assets for hush money with employing WebEx corporate counsel to defend himself in the lawsuit and accuse Zeleny of libel, Zhu has confirmed the self-dealing Zeleny alleged.

In response to Zeleny's posts on the Yahoo! Finance WebEx messageboard, in July 2004 a suit for business tort, unfair practice was filed by WebEx naming Zeleny as defendant in Superior Court of California, County of Santa Clara (case number CV-024062). Zeleny's response was to allege that WebEx had knowingly filed in the wrong venue, pointing out that WebEx had relied on the principle that venue in a tort claim lies with the defendant's residence, in successfully moving for a change in venue of his own actions against it from Los Angeles to Santa Clara.

Zeleny responded with a motion for change of venue to Los Angeles. WebEx refused to stipulate to the change of venue, and Zeleny argued that this showed that WebEx was attempting to harass Zeleny into silence with bad faith pleadings. The motion for change of venue was granted and the case was transferred to Los Angeles Superior Court (case number BC324927). WebEx was ordered to pay Zeleny's attorney's fees. Zeleny followed this by filing an "anti-SLAPP" motion, in which he claimed that WebEx's suit was a strategic lawsuit against public participation (SLAPP), a form of bad faith pleading. Again, the court ruled for Zeleny on two out of three causes of action in the defamation suit, and WebEx was once again ordered to reimburse Zeleny for his attorney's fees. Since the courts ruling on the anti-SLAPP motion, there has been no adjudication of the remaining cause of action in the defamation suit. Notably, in his declarations attached to the filings in that case, Min Zhu has refused to contest Zeleny's allegations concerning his rape of his daughter. WebEx describes its case against Zeleny as "narrowly tailored" to avoid this subject matter, in favor of contesting Zeleny's allegations of self-dealing by Min Zhu.

In November 2004, WebEx co-founder and executive Min Zhu stepped down as WebEx President and Director, though he continued to serve as WebEx CTO. [2]

Zeleny picketed the annual WebEx Experience User Conference held at the Westin St. Francis hotel in San Francisco held on 2–3 May 2005. During the picketing, a Russian rifle was discovered in Zeleny's car. The San Francisco Police Department briefly detained Zeleny. He was released after several hours when it had been determined that the weapons in his possession were legal and that he had made no threats to use them. The following morning, 3 May 2005, WebEx management announced that it was canceling the conference due to concerns over the safety of its customers and that it would reimburse attendees their fees.

On 13 May 2005, WebEx announced that Min Zhu was stepping down as WebEx's CTO and WebEx leadership, and retiring to mainland China where he would serve as a "WebEx Fellow." [3] [4] [5] Zeleny claims that Min Zhu retired in response to the publicity surrounding his daughter's allegations of child rape. [6]

Recent events bolster the allegation that WebEx management is actively trying to suppress the details of the Min Zhu controversy from the public and its customers as part of a cover up of the controversy surrounding Min Zhu. Apparently at the behest of WebEx management, Yahoo! closed Zeleny's ptyx Yahoo! account and removed all related postings from the Yahoo! Finance WEBX message board. Further, within three weeks of online encyclopedia Wikipedia mentioning the Min Zhu allegations, Google suddenly removed the Wikipedia article in question from its search results.

External links

Notes and references

^ Solhein, Shelley (August 8, 2005). "WebEx tools get Intranets infusion". eweek.