Near-Time Targets Enterprise 2.0 Collaboration Market with a New WebEx Connect On-Demand Solution

Near-Time, a leading vendor of integrated, on-demand Enterprise 2.0 collaboration solutions, announced immediate availability of its community widget, Connection, for Webex Connect. The Near-Time Connection widget provides full enterprise 2.0 capabilities to the WebEx Connect collaboration environment. WebEx, now a part of Cisco, is working with Near-Time to bring together real-time and near-time collaboration as well as text based and rich-media interaction, so that customers can enjoy comprehensive collaboration with their customers, partners, suppliers and employees. 

Near-Time integrates Web forums, weblogs, wikis and file sharing in an easily customizable on-demand platform. By combining a roles and permissions model with the ability to create public, semi-private and private communities, Near-Time empowers a new generation of interactive Web publishing. As an on-demand platform, Near-Time provides common ground for companies to collaborate in their markets. An intuitive word processing environment ensures everyone can participate. Near-Time's patent pending, turnkey Premium service enables customers to monetize their communities, quickly creating high margin revenues. 

The Near-Time Connection widget enables users to access new information in their communities, create wiki and weblog posts, make comments to forums, as well as receive and play podcasts. In addition to running in WebEx Connect, the Near-Time Connection widget runs on mobile devices running Safari or Opera browsers and iGoogle Web pages. Near-Time's support for rich media in its wikis and blogs makes it easy for customers to save and publish their WebEx Connect sessions and conferences privately or to the Web. The combination of WebEx Connect and Near-Time means users can span client, on-demand and mobile Web collaboration. 

"Cisco WebEx is the leader of on-demand real-time collaboration," said Near-Time CEO Reid Conrad. "Near-Time is the perfect complement for organizations to continue and extend the conversation with our comprehensive Web standards platform. From group collaboration to Web wide, our partnership scales." 

Near-Time Connection is one of the many applications users will be able to access through the WebEx Connect unified communications client. WebEx Connect will enable users to integrate data from multiple applications into collaborative workspaces, custom designed for their particular workflows and business processes. WebEx Connect works seamlessly across firewalls and across platforms and, unlike traditional transactional applications, is designed to improve productivity by enhancing collaboration and interaction between individuals and provide contextual collaboration within a business process. By taking advantage of open, Web 2.0 protocols and collaborative WebEx applications programming interfaces (APIs), WebEx Connect will help to make it easy to adapt on-demand, desktop, and enterprise applications to create composite, "mashup" applications. 

"Near-Time's widget extends WebEx Connect to the Web and mobile platforms seamlessly. The combination helps make real-time and near-time collaboration more comprehensive for customers," said Shankar Iyer, vice president, strategic initiatives, Cisco. 

WebEx Connect partner marketing services can help partners create and execute go-to-market strategies, promotions and even generate leads. To learn more about the WebEx Connect ecosystem, go to, community.webex.com/connect.

About Near-Time 

Near-Time is a leading on-demand, Enterprise 2.0 platform for cross organization collaboration. Business professionals can quickly create rich interaction with their prospects, customers, partners and suppliers. Near-Time integrates wikis, weblogs and forums to enable groups to work together more effectively in a secure, hosted environment. Thousands of organizations in over fifty nations use Near-Time to maximize internal and external collaboration and publishing. Near-Time's patent pending Premium service leverages the Near-Time platform to enable organizations to monetize their communities and content. For more information, go to www.near-time.com/. 

WebEx and MediaTone are registered trademarks or trademarks of Cisco Systems, Inc. and/or its affiliates in the U.S. and certain other countries. Other brands and products are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders. 

This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. These forward-looking statements may be identified by use of the terms anticipates, believes, continue, could, estimates, expects, intends, may, plans, potential, predicts, should or will, or the negative of those terms or similar expressions. These forward-looking statements are subject to significant risks and uncertainties. Actual results may differ materially from those described in such statements as a result of these risks and uncertainties.