Tumbleweed Communications

Tumbleweed Communications Corp. provided secure messaging and secure file transfer solutions for enterprise and government customers.[1] Tumbleweed Communications merged with Axway in 2008.

Tumbleweed Communications Corp.
TypePublicly traded
Industrysecurity solutions for internet commerce
Founded1993 (1993)
Headquarters
Redwood City, California
RevenueUS $60M (2006)

Tumbleweed products were used to block security threats, protect information, and conduct business online. Tumbleweed provided solutions for inbound and outbound email protection, secure file routing, and identity validation that allow organizations to conduct business over the Internet. Tumbleweed offered 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.
  • Tumbleweed Acquired Corvigo in 2004. With the acquisition, Tumbleweed gained the Linux-based anti-spam appliance MailGate.
  • Tumbleweed Acquired Valicert in 2003. The Valicert SecureTransport product was added to Tumbleweed's security suite.
  • Tumbleweed acquired Worldtalk in 2000.

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 their patents.[2]
In 2006, Tumbleweed reported $US 62 million in revenue, with revenue growth over one year of 24%.[3] In 2007, Tumbleweed reported $US 57.50 million in revenue, with revenue growth over one year of -7.30%.[3]

Awards

In January 2007, Tumbleweed's MailGate 5550 was named SC Magazine’s Best of 2006 "Recommended" award in the Anti-Spam category.[4]

Patents

Tumbleweed has a patent portfolio including 22 utility patents[5] and one issued US design patent.

US patent 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.[6] They have filed several patent infringement lawsuits. Those that have been sued include:

  • PayPal,[7] This suit has been settled. Terms of the settlement have not been disclosed.
  • Hallmark Cards,[8] This suit has been settled. Hallmark agreed to take a license.
  • Yahoo! and HSBC Bank USA,[9] This suit has been settled. The terms have been described by Yahoo! and HSBC lawyers as favorable to Yahoo! and HSBC.
  • DST Systems and NewRiver[10] 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:[11]

Representative customers

Representative customers of Tumbleweed include:[12]

See also

References
  1. Tumbleweed SEC 10Q filing, For the quarterly period ended September 30, 2006, US government publication
  2. Tumbleweed 2005 10k SEC form
  3. "Tumbleweed Communications Corp. Company Profile". Retrieved 2008-03-21.
  4. Tumbleweed named in SC Magazine best of 2006 Award, Tumbleweed Press Release January 10, 2007
  5. List of US patents issued to Tumbleweed
  6. Tumbleweed patent licensees
  7. eBay, Tumbleweed settle patent suit
  8. Hallmark Settles Online Greeting Card Lawsuit
  9. Morrison and Foerster's Patent Litigation > Pending Cases (archived in 2007)
  10. Tumbleweed Settles URL Lawsuit
  11. Hoovers Inc. profile of Tumbleweed Communications March 12, 2007
  12. "Tumbleweed Partners with Child Health Corporation of America to Deliver Comprehensive Secure Messaging Solutions to Children's Hospitals". Tumbleweed. Archived from the original on 2008-02-21. Retrieved 2008-07-24.
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