Webline Communications was a
contact management company based in
Burlington, Massachusetts
Burlington is a town in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 26,377 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census.
History
It is believed that Burlington takes its name from the English town of Bridlington, York ...
. Their products included
cloud collaboration and
email management tools. It was acquired by
Cisco Systems
Cisco Systems, Inc. (using the trademark Cisco) is an American multinational corporation, multinational digital communications technology conglomerate (company), conglomerate corporation headquartered in San Jose, California. Cisco develops, m ...
on September 22, 1999.
Webline Communications was founded in 1996
by Pasha Roberts and Firdaus Bhathena when they were students at The Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge MA. Pasha, Firdaus and Webline won the prestigious MIT 50K Entrepreneurial Business contest which provided
seed money to begin the company. After winning this contest, Pasha put his MIT studies on hold to take full advantage of the seed money and focus on making the company financially successful. Pasha is widely credited for the innovation, technology design, architecture, infrastructure and technology decisions around the products. Pasha returned to complete his master's degree at MIT Sloan. Firdaus is credited with the sales and marketing of these solutions into business accounts.
Several marquis customers including Fidelity,
General Motors
General Motors Company (GM) is an American Multinational corporation, multinational Automotive industry, automotive manufacturing company headquartered in Detroit, Michigan, United States. The company is most known for owning and manufacturing f ...
,
Oracle
An oracle is a person or thing considered to provide insight, wise counsel or prophetic predictions, most notably including precognition of the future, inspired by deities. If done through occultic means, it is a form of divination.
Descript ...
,
Toys "R" Us, and internet retailer Lands End embraced and implemented important Webline solutions.
Webline was sold to Cisco Systems in 1999 for $325 million and integrated into Cisco's software / call center strategy. At the time of its acquisition, the company employed 120 people.
References
Defunct software companies of the United States
Cisco acquisitions
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