Online intranet tool

WebEx Communications will acquire Intranets.com, a maker of on-demand business software, for $45 million in cash, the companies announced on Monday. Intranets.com, a privately held company based in Burlington, Mass., has 300,000 paying subscribers to its online business software. The programs, designed for small businesses, include tools for document sharing, group scheduling, task management, database applications, discussion forums and contact directories, the companies said. WebEx, which sells a popular Web conferencing service, raised its financial guidance for the year. Assuming it will complete the acquisition, WebEx estimates that revenue for 2005 will fall between $303 million and $315 million, $3 million to $5 million higher than previously expected. The company also revised earnings per share for the third quarter to between 25 cents and 28 cents. ***

At Fall Internet World today, Netscape Communications (NSCP) gave its seal of approval to a handful of intranet development tools that it is collectively calling SuiteTools. The company also unveiled two other tools today: an online guide called Tools for Netscape ONE and a set of Java code called theWindowing Internet Foundation Classes that allows users to design graphical user interfaces. Netscape's SuiteTools will include a number of existing tools from other vendors, including NetObjects' Fusion 2.0, ***

As intranet development begins to loom large in companies' long-range plans, a pack of development tool makers rushes to deliver Web-enabled tools. Upstart Wallop Software will on Monday announce Built-It, a tool for managing all elements involved in building a Web site. Built-It doesn't recreate HTML, code generation, or database development tools, but instead acts as an umbrella application that gives developers a single environment in which to access those tools and to manage code and Web site elements, such as GIF files. Built-It, which runs on Microsoft Windows 95 and Windows NT, is priced at $2,495 per seat, and will ship in November. A beta test version of the tool is downloadable from the Wallop's Web site. ***