- Tumbleweed Communications
Infobox_Company
company_name = Tumbleweed Communications Corp.
company_
type = Publicly traded
foundation = 1993
location =Redwood City, California
key_people =
revenue = US $60M (2006)
customers = 2,300
employees =
industry = security solutions for internet commerce
homepage = [http://www.tumbleweed.com/index.html Tumbleweed]Tumbleweed Communications Corp. provides secure messaging and secure file transfer solutions for enterprise and government customers. [ [http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1022509/000119312506230287/d10q.htm#tx74592_7 Tumbleweed SEC 10Q filing, For the quarterly period ended September 30, 2006, US government publication] ] . Tumbleweed products are used to block security threats, protect information, and conduct business online. Tumbleweed provides solutions for inbound and outbound email protection, secure file routing, and identity validation that allow organizations to conduct business over the Internet. Tumbleweed offers these solutions in three product suites: MailGate, SecureTransport, and Validation Authority. MailGate provides protection against spam, viruses, and attacks, and enables policy-based message filtering, encryption, and routing. SecureTransport enables customers to safely exchange large files and transactions without proprietary software. Validation Authority determines the validity of digital certificates.
Tumbleweed has approximately 2,300 enterprise and government customers. Their traditional market focus has been in the financial services, health care, and government markets.
Merger
Axway Acquired Tumbleweed in early June 2008. In an e-mail sent to customers, CEO James Scullion stated that the merger would benefit both companies.
Tumbleweed Acquired Corvigo in 2004. With the aquisition, Tumbleweed gained a Linux anti-spam appliance (MailGate).
Tumbleweed Acquired Valicert in 2003. Valicert added SecureTransport to Tumbleweed's security suite.
Revenue
In 2005, Tumbleweed earned approximately $US 50 million in
gross revenue from the sale of their products and services. Of that, approximately $US 3 million was from licensing theirpatent s. [ [http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1022509/000119312506056232/d10k.htm#tx23083_27 Tumbleweed 2005 10k SEC form] ]
In 2006, Tumbleweed reported $US 62 million in revenue, with revenue growth over one year of 24%.cite web |url=http://biz.yahoo.com/ic/60/60016.html | title=Tumbleweed Communications Corp. Company Profile |accessdate=2008-03-21] Failed verification|date=July 2008In 2007, Tumbleweed reported $US 57.50 million in revenue, with revenue growth over one year of -7.30%.Awards
In January 2007, Tumbleweed's MailGate 5550 was named
SC magazine ’s Best of 2006 "Recommended" award in the Anti-Spam category. [ [http://www.tumbleweed.com/news/press_releases/2007/2007-01-10.html Tumbleweed named in SC Magazine best of 2006 Award, Tumbleweed Press Release January 10, 2007] ]Patents
Tumbleweed has a
patent portfolio covering their innovations, namely 22 issued USutility patent s [ [http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch-bool.html&r=0&f=S&l=50&TERM1=tumbleweed&FIELD1=ASNM&co1=AND&TERM2=redwood&FIELD2=ASCI&d=PTXT List of US patents issued to Tumbleweed] ] and one issued USdesign patent .Cite patent|US|6192407 is one of several owned by Tumbleweed that relates to document delivery systems that generate a unique URL for intended recipients of a document in order to deliver that document. Tumbleweed has licensed this and related patents in their
patent portfolio to 29 companies. [ [http://www.tumbleweed.com/company/patents/patent_licenses.html Tumbleweed patent licensees] ] They have also had to file severalpatent infringement lawsuits in an attempt to get those that have used this technology without a license to pay at least a reasonable royalty in order to continue to use it. Those that have been sued include:
*PayPal , [ [http://news.com.com/2100-1038_3-5133886.html eBay, Tumbleweed settle patent suit] ] This suit has been settled. Terms of the settlement have not been disclosed.
*Hallmark Cards , [ [http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0NEW/is_2001_Dec_26/ai_81117932 Hallmark Settles Online Greeting Card Lawsuit] ] This suit has been settled. Hallmark agreed to take a license.
*Yahoo! andHSBC Bank USA , [ [http://www.mofo.com/practice/practice/intellectualproperty/patentlitigation/matters.html Morrison and Foerster] ] This suit has been settled. The terms have been described by Yahoo! and HSBC lawyers as favorable to Yahoo! and HSBC.
*DST Systems andNewRiver [ [http://www.internetnews.com/bus-news/article.php/1559151 Tumbleweed Settles URL Lawsuit] ] This suit has been settled. DST Systems and NewRiver will pay Tumbleweed four cents for each delivery of electronic information using a personalized, trackable URL.Overall, Tumbleweed earns about 6% of its revenue from patent licensing.
Competitors
Major competitors of Tumbleweed include [ [http://www.hoovers.com Hoovers Inc. profile of Tumbleweed Communications March 12, 2007] ] :
*Sterling Commerce
*Trend Micro
*Zix Representative Customers
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