Conferences

Here's a list of conferences/panel discussions cloncluded recently with links to watch the videoarchieve:

1. O'Reilly ETech2009
2. Demo 2009
3. TIE Silicon Valley speakers -- The videos have very poor sound qualty - I hope they'll do a better job in recording future events!
4. A conversation with Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google

The Ozzie Memo - Microsoft's software and services strategy for the future

Read this doc on Scribd: Services Strategy Update

VCs regain interest in open source - Linux.com

Here's an excerpt of the article by Bruce Byfield of Linux.com:

Venture capitalists (VC) first discovered open source during the dot-com bubble at the turn of the millennium. When the bubble burst, open source was connected closely enough with its general failure that all but a handful of VCs lost interest. In the last few years, however, investor interest has started to return, due to growing acceptance of open source software and the success of existing open source companies. What now attracts investors to open source companies, VCs say, is the higher probability of innovative ideas and quicker time to market, as well as the ability to develop niche markets that were previously too small to develop profitably. If they see that the fundamentals for any successful business are in place, investors are finding firms founded on open source well worth considering.

For Lisa Lambert, managing director for software solutions investment at Intel Capital, the renewed interest is obvious as an increasing number of VCs compete for each investment opportunity. In the last few years, she says, "We've found that on every deal." It's one reason why Intel Capital started its Open Source Incubator Program, whose goal is to find projects to fund before their work is monetized. Kevin Harvey, a partner at venture firm Benchmark Capital says that, "There was resistance earlier, but now I think there's tremendous exuberance" at the thought of investing in open source companies.

Lambert can effortlessly reel off the names of VC firms interested in open source investment, including Charles River Ventures, Matrix Partners, Sequoia Capital, and Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield, and Byers.

Click here to read the full article

Emerging Technology Trends - Anywhere computing

I would like to chronicle some of the emerging technologies as I read about them at various blogs/analyst reports etc. To begin with let's look at one of the basic theme proactively required by the users -- Anywhere Aplications.

One of the revolutions which is defining and enabling the 21st century business evolutions is the ability of the internet to chase the user, rather than the user chasing the internet. For this to happen, the applications developed must be devise-aware (it doesn't matter which device users use - laptops/PCs/Ultra Mobile Devices), network-aware (broadband/WiFi/WiMAx), and user-aware (Context-driven based on role, connectivity, process), which is how the Yankee group defines an Anywhere application.

Demand for these Anywhere applications is strong today as the Yankee Group analyst Laura DiDio summarizes in the exhibit below. (click here to read the full report)




Email applications such as Microsoft Exchange server is closest to being Anywhere application as it is aware of different devices, networks, and users. The Salesforce.com comes closer to meeting the Anywhere applications definition as well -- it is devise and user aware, but the application is not network aware. With the advent of Mobile internet devices such as iPhone which uses different networks, Wifi/Wap/Edge, the applications can benefit by being network aware and making intelligent use of sessions and different connection methods.

One of the major concerns of Anywhere applications is security and lack of single apps view -- new applications and innovations (SOA) would certainly try to bridge the gaps between current client/server architecture and Anywhere computing to provide better IT experiences to customers. Moreover, new location based intelligence technologies such as RFID, GPS, MApping tools, application developers can integrate these innovations to become more netwrok and user aware, thus providing even better user experience and accelerated ROI.

VMWare and Hypervisor & Client Virtualization markets

Seeking Alpha has an interesting article, where they compare VMWare with Netscape, and analyze the Hypervisor and Client virualization markets. Clicke here to read the article: Is VMware the Next Netscape?

Safend, a provider of endpoint data leakage prevention solutions for enterprise computers,raised $9M in Series C funding, Intel Capital reinvested

Safend, an international provider of endpoint Data Leakage Prevention (DLP) solutions for enterprise computers, today announced it has secured its Series C round of funding. The $9 million round is being funded by a leading multi-billion dollar European asset management firm, as well as Safend's existing investors, Elron (NASDAQ: ELRN) (TELAVIV: ELRN), Intel Capital and Walden Israel Venture Capital. The new funding enables Safend to accelerate development efforts of its core technology, new solution offerings, and fund continued growth through strategic partnerships and distribution channels worldwide.

"Safend is a very promising company that is already generating substantial revenues by having the best-of-breed detachable storage and device control solutions on the market," said Yair Cohen, Vice President at Elron. "With its established management team, industry proven and certified technology, and impressive customer base, Safend is well positioned for continued success."

"Safend's impressive technical development team is unquestionably among the best we have encountered," said Noga Kap, General Partner, Walden Israel Venture Capital. "Their continued dedication to their customers through product innovation, quality assurance, and new partnerships makes Safend a solid investment choice for Walden Israel."

Founded in 2003, Safend has grown to acquire more than 650 customers worldwide and continues to expand its customer base as more organizations increasingly recognize data security as a top priority and strategic asset. According to recent surveys, 79%of all organizations handle sensitive data, 55% of the data remains unprotected and according to the Ponemon Institute, a Michigan-based independent research firm, the average data loss incident will cost an organization $6.3 million.

Safend's award-winning software solutions, Safend Auditor and Safend Protector, enable organizations to reduce the risk of data loss, theft and misuse by monitoring and controlling access to sensitive data. The Safend solution protects confidential data stored on enterprise PCs and laptops by monitoring the transfer of sensitive data and controls access to removable storage devices and wireless communication ports. Safend has often been recognized for having innovative products and has recently received numerous industry awards including the Info Security Hot Company 2007 Award and the 2008 Global Excellence Award for Best Endpoint Security Solution.

"The fact that the original investors subscribed to this round is significant," said Gil Sever, Safend's Chief Executive Officer. "It validates Safend's strategy and execution performance, and demonstrates our investors' confidence in the market opportunity and demand for our evolving solution. Our investors have a proven track record of investing in successful start-ups. We are pleased to have attracted strong venture partners and look forward to working with them as we continue to address the pervasive problem of data leakage."

SaaS vs Typical client/server based softwares

Typical Software (Client/Server):
-- run on centralized servers
-- requires constant maintenance and monitoring
-- cost intensive
-- purchase software package
-- load software onto a server
-- back-up the data
-- personnel costs to maintain and upgrade both the hardware and the software

Software as a Service (SaaS):
-- online solution: customers set up and maintain business intelligence programs
-- accessible from anywhere
-- the provider maintins and supports the program
-- ease of use
-- platform independent
-- Pay per use
-- very attractive to small businesses who may purchase one or two licenses instead of a large expensive name brand package


The typical revenue model used revolves around user licenses. A company will pay a monthly fee for each ID that is able to access the system. This drives a stable cash stream as visibility into renewals is typically very strong. At the same time, some providers are experimenting with the idea of charging for each time a user logs into the program. This may help to land smaller customers who only need a small portion and do not want to pay the full license fee for unlimited monthly access. It will take time to see how many clients adopt this option and what the overall effect to margins and profitability are. Read rest of the analysis at Seekinglpha: Salesforce.com: A Ticking Time Bomb?

Software companies must include integration as part of their development budgets -- Ashok Santhanam, Bristlecone

Here's an article from SandHill.com..Click here to read the article on SansHill.com..the opinion section is really a great place to read opinions of business leaders.


The New Integration Mandate

Software companies must include integration as part of their development budgets or risk losing sales opportunities – and interest from potential acquirers -- Ashok Santhanam, Bristlecone

Consolidation is rampant in the software industry. The product “stacks” at the major enterprise software vendors grow taller and wider by the week, even as emerging vendors with new models work to steal share from an increasingly demanding and impatient set of corporate CIOs.

The need for enterprise software applications and infrastructure products to work together seamlessly is greater than ever before. Yet software companies continue to place integration capabilities on the back burner during a new product release, preferring instead to work on adding new speeds and feeds.

Customers and investors will not stand for this “development in a bubble” much longer. The new integration mandate dictates that vendors must incorporate integration and certification as a strategic part of their development process or risk becoming sidelined in the new, interoperable enterprise software ecosystem.

The Back Story on Integration
It was only a few years ago that software companies would assign a certain percentage of their R&D budgets to ensuring that their product would work seamlessly on all major hardware and database platforms. In fact, Oracle beat Sybase and Informix in the database race not by introducing brilliant new features but by ensuring their product ran well on all major operating systems on the market.

Today, integrating with the large enterprise software suites holds the same potential for strategic advantage. Yet too many ISVs are performing integration work on a case-by-case basis. Resource constraints have relegated integration to a nice-to-have feature – something that is tackled when trying to close a deal with a big customer.

Very few software companies take a strategic approach to determining which products they should integrate with, what impact that integration would have on overall sales and what portion of their budget should be devoted to integration – even if it means “back-burnering” some of the nice-to-have new features planned for the next release.

The Integration Challenge
Customers no longer accept that an enterprise software product will not integrate out of the box with their other major installed enterprise application platforms – specifically, SAP and Oracle. CIOs are more demanding than ever and speeding time-to-value is critical for this group to prove their project successes internally.

The traditional model of enterprise software which involved paying a seven-figure sum for the application, then seven-figures to a systems integrator to put it together, then a healthy six-figures back to the vendor for annual maintenance is a thing of the past, unless you’re one of the big guys. Many vendors today will provide an upgrade for free but require customers to pay integrators and maintenance fees to keep things working together.

CIOs are wise to these ways and are actively working to shake off these chains where they don’t add value. Many are turning to new vendors with new models, such as software as a service (SaaS) and open source. But the need for these new vendors to deliver products that seamlessly integrate with major installed software platforms is just as critical.

This is no easy job. Optimizing integration requires a deep knowledge of the functional and technical configuration of these ERP systems. And as the SAP and Oracle stacks have grown over the years, developers have had a difficult time keeping up.

Many ISV’s like to flaunt their “certifications.” Unfortunately, we all know that these are only as valuable as the paper they are written on if the software does not truly integrate out of the box. The companies that I see pursuing the certification route tend to be more tentative about their integration commitment, and are happy to leave the integration headaches to their professional services organizations or their partners. But software vendors who have a clear integration strategy and have done the hard work to ensure out-of-the-box operability are the ones who truly deserve that certificate.

The New Integration Mandate
I would urge software companies to consider the following framework for ensuring interoperability. This “New Integration Mandate” will help ensure vendors’ success with customers and investors in the new enterprise software ecosystem.

A Strategic Imperative. Integration must be part of the initial product development planning process and the overall software strategy. Having a product that integrates widely at launch is more important than having the final 10 or 20 percent of functionality.

No Bubble Mentality. If you are starting an enterprise application company today, you must be interoperable with Oracle and SAP. Even an emerging vendor with a large market share like Salesforce.com must interoperate with the products of other major vendors. For SaaS vendors, in particular, integration is mandated. Customers choose SaaS products specifically to avoid major upfront investments and integration work. SaaS products – and products from open source, Enterprise 2.0 and other emerging vendors – are expected to interoperate out of the box, no excuses.

A Focused Approach. As the major ERP stacks continue to grow, application vendors are smart to carefully choose the areas in which their products can add value. Integration with these key areas should be the focus rather than attempting to integrate with the entire stack.

No Time-to-Market Delays. Incorporating integration into the R&D process should not extend the timeline for release. It should be included in the same way that testing is included: regardless of the time it takes, it must be done.

A Line for Help. If development teams are severely constrained, it is also possible to outsource the integration development and testing. Many software companies are opting to go to specialists for integration work because of the high degree of knowledge required. The key is to include integration specialists as part of the strategic planning process – not as an afterthought.

A Modular Approach. If you go back to the days when people had porting groups in their development organizations, we worked on connecting our APIs to the target platform’s APIs, for example. Best practices dictated a modular approach. Today we can use services to achieve the same integration goal. This modular approach saves money and speeds integration efforts.

An Owner. When integration is incorporated into product planning, there must be a single person responsible for the effort. There must be a project manager to determine what kind of effort must be directed at the integration challenge and to manage and measure progress throughout the development process.

A Meaningful Certification Process. Rather than just integration and testing, software vendors should seek recertification from ERP vendors for the functionality of their products. This would be a truly valuable form of certification that would have meaning to customers.

The Acquisition Opportunity. Software IPOs remain a rare event. Venture capitalists are investing in startups with an eye to acquisition as an exit strategy. Building products with extensive interoperability improves the chances that major vendors will be interested in acquiring the startup. If you want acquisition to be part of your company’s available strategic options, then a strategic approach to integration is critical. What better way to ensure your company’s survival as part of the new software ecosystem?

Google unveiled products for email security and message discovery

Google last week unveiled a series of products powered by Postini, which Gogle acquired July last year, that deliver message filtering, encryption and archiving for any business environment. Google's new security services work with any mail system, including Lotus Notes, Microsoft Exchange, and Novell Groupwise, and with pricing starting at $3 per user per year can accommodate the budget of any business.

I think this will prove to be great opportunity for other other Managed Services Provier as it will validate this business model and expand the business; at the same time the MSPs will now have to target differentiated products in order to compete against Google's market power and deep pockets. The market is huge as enterprises increasingly face stricter compliance requirements. Even if I look at the email services provided by universities, I frequesntly see spams and other marketing mails creeping inside -- google's offering may help filter such mails.

Here's the Google's press release:
MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. (February 5, 2008) – Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) today announced a series of security products Powered by Postini™ that deliver message filtering, encryption and archiving for any business environment. Google's new security services work with any mail system, including Lotus Notes, Microsoft Exchange, and Novell Groupwise, and with pricing starting at $3 per user per year can accommodate the budget of any business. Customers can sign up online and immediately begin to improve the security of their email.

“As threats rise in volume and complexity, and compliance requirements pile up, IT is struggling to find the resources to keep up,” said Scott Petry, director of product management, Google. “Now, Google can take care of this for you. Organizations of all shapes and sizes can get access to Google's industry leading security and compliance technologies.”

Companies of all sizes are seeking solutions to the challenge of security and compliance. For instance, outbound message filtering helps prevent sensitive data from going outside the company firewall, which could result in identity theft or compromise a client's personal information. Also, increasing industry regulations are creating demand for better message storage, with quick and easy retrieval.

Businesses can choose the Google security and compliance services that best suit their needs:

Google Message Filtering™
-- Postini’s industry-leading service for filtering incoming spam and malware
-- for companies looking to handle the growth of spam, virus and other email threats, and want to shift the burden off of on-premises resources
-- $3 per user per year

Google Message Security™
-- includes Google Message Filtering, plus enhanced virus detection, outbound processing, and content policy management
-- for companies worried about growing external security threats and internal risks, such as email data leaks or content compliance violations
-- $12 per user per year

Google Message Discovery™
-- includes Google Message Security, plus one year of message data archiving, retention, and discovery
-- for companies seeking to reduce security exposure, and improve legal discovery readiness and message compliance
-- $25 per user per year for one year of archived data (additional years of data retention available separately)

The new packages are part of the Google Apps platform and are available immediately at www.google.com/a/security, direct from Google, and through channel partners, and can be deployed within hours. The Google Apps suite also includes Gmail™ email services, Google Docs™ for documents, spreadsheets and presentations, Google Calendar™ shared calendaring, Google Talk™ instant messaging, and the Start Page feature for creating a customizable home page. Policy management and 90-day message discovery services are also available at no additional charge to Google Apps Premier Edition users.

Google Apps is used by more than 500,000 businesses and thousands of universities. Go to www.google.com/a for more information. These new services are Powered by Postini, and based on the same technology that protects email for nearly 40,000 customers and 14 million users a day. Check out http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lPizh9EBW3o to hear what some of our customers have to say about using Google Message Security.

Here'a an analysis by Jeff Kaplan from SeekingAlpha

LogLogic, a San Jose, California based developer of log lifecycle management appliance, raised $13.5M in Series D funding

LogLogic(R) (www.loglogic.com), the log management leader, today announced it has closed a series D round of funding, securing an additional $13.5 million in equity financing to expand global sales and marketing initiatives and accelerate innovation. This round, which brings the total equity investment in LogLogic to $47.7million, was led by Focus Ventures and included Sequoia Capital, Telesoft Partners, Worldview Technology Partners and Invesco Private Capital.

As the largest independent vendor in the log management market, LogLogic attributes the industry's hyper-growth to compliance mandates such as the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) as well as pressures to reduce costs by investing in automated platforms for tracking user activity and business performance. Since its founding in 2002, LogLogic has seen more than 100 percent growth year-over-year in sales of its market-leading log management appliance.

In 2007 alone, LogLogic signed over 160 new customers in the enterprise, mid-market and MSSP channels, bringing its total to more than 400 customers. Last year, LogLogic's channel initiatives brought in key partners including BMC Software, Novell, Arsenal and SecureWorks, further establishing the company's extensive global reach and best-in-class reputation as the log management leader.

"Industry regulations are creating a multi-billion dollar market opportunity for log management solutions," said Kevin McQuillan, general partner at Focus Ventures. "A lot of people want a piece of the pie. The investment opportunity with LogLogic is great -- the company brings a market-leading log management appliance through tier one business partners to customers that require reliable solutions. With 100% year-to-year growth, new customer acquisitions, and a strong channel to leverage, we see LogLogic as a key player in the log management space."

According to recent SANS Technology Institute and Enterprise Strategy Group research, traditional Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) vendors address security, risk and compliance issues that comprise only 30% of log management use cases. By contrast, LogLogic takes a broader market approach by addressing 100% of use cases, including the 70% of non-security-related use cases in business performance management and problem isolation.

In addition, LogLogic's open log management platform allows customers and partners to develop their own use case applications through an open web services API. This wide-spectrum ecosystem development model is a big differentiator from competitors including RSA enVision and ArcSight.

"Failure to meet compliance standards carries serious consequences for a company and its C-level executives," said Pat Sueltz, chief executive officer at LogLogic. "Organizations are making log management a priority and they are quickly reaping the benefits, from the sys-admin up the chain of command to the CEO."

LogLogic also announced today the appointment of three new executive vice presidents: Kevin Carroll, executive vice president operations, On Lee, executive vice president engineering and chief technology officer, and Diane Deutsch, executive vice president global human resources. Caroll joins LogLogic with over 25 years of experience leading world-class operations organizations at EMC Corporation, Sun Microsystems and Tyco International.

Lee joins LogLogic from Symantec Corporation where he built the Advanced Concepts Group within Symantec Research Labs to focus on developing new products in emerging areas. Prior to Symantec, Lee held various management and technical positions at Microsoft.

Deutsch joins LogLogic with over 20 years of experience in all aspects of human resources management. She previously served as senior vice president human resources at SurfControl, Inc., vice president of human resources at Chameleon Systems and director of human resources at Nuance, Avaya, Lucent and Octel.

"LogLogic has world class investors and a great team and we continue to add top talent to take LogLogic to the next level. We are expanding our global reach and accelerating our innovation roadmap to continue on our high-growth trajectory," said Sueltz.

About LogLogic
LogLogic(R) provides the world's leading enterprise-class platform

for collecting, storing, reporting and alerting on 100 percent of IT log data from virtually any device, operating system or application. LogLogic 4 LX and ST systems address the compliance, operations and risk mitigation needs of the most demanding global enterprises. LogLogic's innovations include creating the world's first search engine for fast-moving IT log data, and Compliance Suites that automate using that data to enforce critical controls and regulations. Designated a Gartner Magic Quadrant 'leader' in 2007.

LogLogic has also won various awards including SC Magazine 'Approved for SC Labs Rating' in 2006 and 2007, IT Week's 'Editor's Choice Award' and 'Five-Star Review,' InfoSecurity Product's Guide 'Hot Companies 2007,' CRN Emerging 'Tech Dynamos 2007,' Deloitte Silicon Valley 2007 'Technology Fast 50,' AlwaysOn Top 100 Private Companies 2006, Best of Interop 2005, SC Magazine's 'Best Computer Forensics,' Info Security's 'Hot Company 2006,' and designation to the Red Herring 100 in 2006. For more information, visit www.loglogic.com and blog.loglogic.com.

SugarCRM, a provider of open-source CRM software, raised $20 million in Series D funding

SugarCRM, the world's leading provider of commercial open source customer relationship management (CRM) software, today announced the completion of a USD 20 million round of financing led by New Enterprise Associates, bringing total funding to USD 46 million. Existing investors Draper Fisher Jurvetson and Walden International also joined the round.

SugarCRM will use the proceeds to fund continued growth in the CRM market, including research and development and global expansion, particularly in Europe and Asia.

"SugarCRM's commercial open source model is transforming the CRM market," said Scott Sandell, general partner, New Enterprise Associates. "SugarCRM's strong set of products, customer momentum and world-class management team positions the company for continued rapid growth."

"This additional funding will allow SugarCRM to accelerate its goal of moving the CRM market from a proprietary lock-in model to an open, value-based model by delivering the most modern, open, flexible CRM platform in the industry," said John Roberts, CEO and co-founder, SugarCRM.

Since its founding in 2004, SugarCRM has seen global adoption of its commercial open source CRM products, with over four million downloads, 470 product extensions, 75 language translations, more than 60,000 community members, over 12,000 registered developers and a customer base of nearly 3,000 commercial accounts.

SugarCRM's innovation in the CRM market has been recognized by industry experts, with the company being named a "Rising Star" by CRM Magazine, an Always On Top 100 Private Company, and a Leader in the InfoTech Decision Diamond for CRM Solutions.

In December 2007, the company announced the release of Sugar 5.0, a landmark release that includes an Ajax email client, multiple homepages for users, a state-of-the-art multi-instance On-Demand architecture and Module Builder, which gives non-technical users the ability to develop and deploy custom modules within the application.

About SugarCRM

SugarCRM is the world's leading provider of commercial open source customer relationship management (CRM) software for companies of all sizes. Sugar easily adapts to any business environment by offering a more flexible, cost-effective alternative than proprietary applications. SugarCRM's open source architecture allows companies to more easily customize and integrate customer-facing business processes in order to build and maintain more profitable relationships. SugarCRM offers several deployment options, including on-demand, on-premise and appliance-based solutions to suit customers' security, integration and configuration needs. For more information, visit http://www.sugarcrm.com.

Death of ISVs?

Good article on Seeking alpha where Rick Sherman shares his view on how inspite of titans acquiring several companies, ISVs will continue to inoovate and be a great force. Click the texts below read the full article at SeekingAlpga.

The death of the independent software firm is greatly exaggerated.MicroStrategy (MSTR), SAS, Informatica (INFA), Actuate (ACTU) and Teradata (TDC) are just some of the independent firms that are probably getting tired of hearing that they are no longer viable. And their long-time and happy customers are probably wondering what the industry analysts and pundits are smoking when they proclaim that the software titans have taken over the world of BI and DW.

Centrifuge Systems Inc., a McLean, Va.-based provider of business intelligence software, raised $4.5 million in first-round funding from NBVP

Here's the press release:

Centrifuge Systems, Inc., a leading provider of next generation business intelligence software, today announced that it has received its first round of institutional funding from premier venture capital firm Novak Biddle Venture Partners (NBVP). NBVP invested $4.5 million in Centrifuge, whose advanced visualization software helps organizations discover insights, patterns and relationships hidden in their data. The financing will support implementation of the company's growth strategy and product innovation initiatives. Novak Biddle general partners Andrea Kaufman and Roger Novak have joined the company's board of directors.

"With an increased demand for its products and several federal agencies among its customers, Centrifuge's software has been validated by the government as best-of-breed technology. There is clearly a need for business intelligence software that enables users to ask open ended questions of their data by interacting with visual representations of the data directly," said Roger Novak, general partner, Novak Biddle Venture Partners and new board member, Centrifuge Systems, Inc. "The company is well-positioned to seize existing market opportunities and to create new opportunities by eventually penetrating several vertical industries," Novak added.

"Our interest in Centrifuge is driven by several factors - its consistently cutting edge approach to visualization, the strength of its management team, and the software's potential for widespread commercial application," said Andrea Kaufman, general partner, Novak Biddle Venture Partners, and new Centrifuge Systems, Inc. board member. "This deal ties into our investment strategy of backing leading early stage companies that have developed dual use technology, that which can transcend the government-agency customer and filter into the broader marketplace," Kaufman added.

"Having the resources, expertise, and insights of the Novak Biddle team at our disposal during this phase of our life cycle is an invaluable asset. As we grow the organization to respond to market demand, it is critical to have the support of a reputable, well-connected partner and we are delighted to have Novak Biddle on board at this exciting time for the company," said Guljit Khurana, CEO of Centrifuge Systems.

Centrifuge recently expanded its management team with the additions of CFO Brian Daum and Mitch Shue, vice president of engineering.

About Centrifuge

Centrifuge Systems, Inc. is a leading provider of next generation business intelligence software that helps organizations discover insights, patterns and relationships hidden in their data. Centrifuge is used in some of the most demanding applications in the world, including counter-terrorism and homeland defense, to help analysts move from data to discovery.

Traditional business intelligence solutions require users to define what they want to see in advance and present the results in static dashboards. With Centrifuge, users determine what is of interest "on the fly", then manipulate the displays directly in a highly interactive fashion. The experience is refreshingly easy-to-use and the resulting insights can be extraordinary.

Real time 1-to-1marketing solutions provider Genius.com Secures $19 Million C Round Investment Led by Accel Partners

Here's the press release:

Genius.com Secures $19 Million C Round Investment Led by Accel Partners
Facebook Investor Joins Genius.com Backers Mohr Davidow Ventures, Emergence Capital and Walden International

San Mateo, Calif., February 4, 2008 - Genius.com Incorporated®, the leading on demand provider of real-time 1-to-1 marketing solutions for sales and marketing professionals, announced today that it has received $19 million in third-round funding led by Accel Partners. Additional participation came from existing investors Mohr Davidow Ventures, Emergence Capital and Walden International. Genius.com will use the funds to accelerate their product development, marketing and sales initiatives to meet increasing global demand for Genius solutions. The C round investment brings the total amount of Genius venture financing to $34 million.

"What made Genius so attractive from our perspective was the rapid "bottoms-up" adoption of the service by end users who then recommend the product to their bosses and peers. Genius feels almost like a consumer phenomenon," said Kevin Efrusy, General Partner, Accel Partners. "The days of managers cramming useless products down the throats of subordinates are long gone. The Genius model appears to define the future of the industry."

In a separate release Genius.com also announced telcom giant, BT's adoption of SalesGenius to provide priority servicing of their most profitable customers. In addition to the BT selection, Genius.com achieved several major milestones:

Experienced 63% growth in month over month recurring revenue
Extended quarterly booking by 61% quarter over quarter
Enjoyed a 96% increase in product upsells
Grew to over 30,000 named users
Added over 400 corporate customers
Processed over 45 million transactions per month
Expanded global customer relationships with the addition of BT, EasyLink, Hoover's, LinkedIn, Nexient, Polycom and Vitria Technology
Announced key partnerships with Cisco/WebEx, salesforce.com, and many others including Tele-Smart Communications, Sales Optimization Group, EchoSign, SalesRamp and Demandbase
"Adding Accel Partners as our lead for this round speaks volumes about the tremendous success we've achieved to date and the continued market potential for Genius solutions. Companies of all sizes have embraced our products because we enable sales and marketing teams to instantly connect and serve their most interested prospects to close more deals more quickly," said Thompson. "2007 has been amazing for Genius.com and we plan to leverage this latest round of financing as we take to the global stage in 2008."

About Genius.com
Genius.com, creator of SalesGenius, is the leading on demand provider of real-time, 1-to-1 marketing solutions for sales and marketing professionals, empowering them to connect with prospects and close deals through their corporate Websites.

Genius® solutions give sales organizations unprecedented control over e-mail and website marketing, delivering real-time e-mail campaign reports to managers and instant e-mail response and website visit alerts to sales reps, all without requiring programming skills or IT involvement. The result is faster sales cycles, satisfied customers and more closed deals. Genius.com Incorporated is a privately held company, funded by Accel Partners, Mohr Davidow Ventures, Emergence Capital and Walden International, with headquarters in San Mateo, CA.

Virtual IronSoftware raised 20M, Intel Capital coinvested

Virtual Iron Software (www.virtualiron.com), the leading provider of enterprise server virtualization made easy, today announced that it has secured $20 million in new venture equity financing. The funding, provided at an increased valuation, will be used to accelerate product development and expand global sales, marketing and distribution efforts. The investment brings Virtual Iron's total venture funding to $65 million in invested equity capital and includes Highland Capital Partners, Matrix Partners, Goldman Sachs, Intel Capital and SAP Ventures.

"This funding and the increased valuation are a reflection of Virtual Iron's strong market momentum. The server virtualization market is exploding and Virtual Iron is growing faster than the market itself," said Ed Walsh, CEO of Virtual Iron. "Virtual Iron is known for providing enterprise server virtualization made easy. Our clients and partners get all the advanced benefits of server virtualization without the cost and complexity. The company's market momentum is a direct result of the significant value our software delivers for our clients and partners."

Virtual Iron specializes in enterprise-class server virtualization and offers comparable capabilities to market leader VMware but in the industry's easiest-to-use package. The software is currently deployed in over 1,450 organizations worldwide. Recent highlights for the company include:

- Dramatic growth in revenue over the last 12 months
- Strong international expansion; over 40% of Virtual Iron's revenue and customers now come from outside North America
- Approximately 10X growth in the number of channel partners over the last 12 months
- Tier 1 distribution agreements with Tech Data Corporation, Avnet, and expansion of its distribution network in Asia-Pacific and EMEA
- Reseller agreements with Dell, HP and Arrow Electronics
- The December 2007 release of Version 4.2 of its server virtualization platform � the first Xen�-based solution to offer expanded high availability and disaster recovery capabilities to strengthen support for production use cases and workloads
- Broad expansion of its technology partner ecosystem including new and expanded agreements and collaboration with Compellent, Dell, EqualLogic, FalconStor, HP, IBM, Intel, LeftHand Networks, Microsoft, NetApp and PlateSpin, among others
- Participation in Microsoft's Virtualization Validation Program and Interoperability Alliance

"Virtual Iron is the only competitor to VMware in the market that has the features to support the high value use cases for virtualization such as dynamic workload management, fault tolerance, and disaster recovery," said David R. Skok, General Partner at Matrix Partners. "Virtual Iron's product is differentiated from VMware in several important ways including its ease of use, scalability and use of a standard storage architecture. There is a large and important segment of the market looking for an alternative to VMware, and uncomfortable ceding this market to EMC. This demand is allowing the company to grow at a fast rate. We're excited about the potential here, particularly given the talents of the new management team."

The server virtualization software market is growing at 60% per year according to IDC and is expected to reach over $9 billion by the year 2012, but user adoption, only at 6% today, has been hindered by the complexity and high price of established commercial solutions. Virtual Iron addresses this gap by providing customer�proven, enterprise server virtualization capabilities that are both easy to use and afford. The platform combines the Xen� open source hypervisor with robust virtualization services, policy-based management and transparent workload migration capabilities. The software takes full advantage of new hardware�assisted virtualization (Intel VT and AMD-V) to deliver near native performance. Unlike other virtualization solutions, Virtual Iron requires no installation or management of software on physical servers, further simplifying deployment and data center operations. Users leverage Virtual Iron to support a broad range of data center initiatives including server consolidation, development and test optimization, high availability, disaster recovery, capacity management and virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI).

About Virtual Iron Software, Inc. � Enterprise Server Virtualization Made Easy
Virtual Iron provides easy-to-use, enterprise-class server virtualization software solutions. The software enables organizations of all sizes to dramatically reduce the cost and complexity of managing and operating their data centers. Virtual Iron includes advanced capabilities that leverage industry standards, open source economics and built-in hardware-assisted acceleration. The software is available exclusively through Virtual Iron's Channel One partner network. Evaluation copies are available for free download at http://www.virtualiron.com/free. For more information, visit http://www.virtualiron.com or email info@virtualiron.com.

Startup pricing model

Dhrmesh Shah makes an intersting point about the pricing models:

Don’t confuse marketing models with business models. The former helps you get visibility for your product, the latter defines how you will actually make money. Too many startups try to pass off marketing models as business models. Also, make sure you think through what your customers likely want (you know, customers, those people that give you cash).

Read the full article here

Intel Capital makes series A investment in REvolution Computing, creator of parallel computing open source software for computational statistics

Santa Clara, CA - January 22, 2008 - Intel Capital, the global investment arm of Intel Corporation, today announced that it has invested in the Series A financing of REvolution Computing, creator of parallel computing software for computational statistics. The funds will be used to advance REvolution's product offerings and expand into new markets.

REvolution Computing provides RPro and ParallelR, which deliver the open source ‘R’ statistical tool with commercial support and the power of parallelism. Already used throughout life sciences, financial services, manufacturing and energy, the R statistical packages are now being deployed and supported by REvolution Computing for production, commercial, and regulated environments.

"REvolution Computing’s innovative technology provides a much-needed solution for many industries, including financial services, health-care and retail,” said Arvind Sodhani, president of Intel Capital. “This approach to business-ready open source solutions aligns with Intel’s platform strategy and continues our commitment to investing in the open source community."

"Intel Capital has a long history of investment in open source enterprises, beginning in 1998 with our investment in Red Hat,” said Lisa Lambert, managing director, Software & Solutions Group, Intel Capital. “We also provided subsequent funding for innovators such as: SuSE Linux, JBoss, MySQL, Zend Technologies, Fonality, CollabNet, and Black Duck, among others. REvolution Computing’s involvement in Intel Capital’s Open Source Incubator Program is just the latest illustration of our ongoing commitment to fostering new business models and encouraging open source software solutions."

This is the second investment made under the Intel Capital Open Source Incubator Program. Founded in January 2006, the program was created specifically to drive investments in open source projects and accelerate the adoption of open source on Intel platforms. Intel Capital’s first investment under this program was WS02, a web services platform company with primary operations in Sri Lanka. The program provides seed capital, computing resources, office facilities, and solution services through Intel’s global network of IT Innovation Centers where developers work directly with Intel engineers to develop, test, and performance tune software for the latest Intel platforms.

"The use of 'R' has been growing steadily since 1995 and 'R' is now the standard computational statistics package for an estimated one million users of statistical software worldwide,” said Richard Schultz, CEO REvolution Computing. “Our products for computational statistics are fully supported, easy to use, with commercial features and automatic parallel processing. We’re excited about this investment from Intel Capital and value their vision and commitment in this emerging segment of the market."

In conjunction with Intel Capital's investment, REvolution Computing’s Board of Directors has been expanded to include: Andre M. Boisvert, former Oracle executive, former President and COO of SAS Institute Inc., and now Chairman of several open source companies including Pentaho, an open source business intelligence (BI) suite; and Michael P. Haydock, former President and CEO of Cray Research and now VP in HP’s Business Intelligence (BI) Division. Additionally, Dr. Martin Schultz, one of the leading researchers in parallel computation over the past 30 years at Scientific Computing Associates has joined the company as Chief Science Officer.

"R has become the de-facto statistical language and REvolution Computing's R-based solutions provide the necessary scale and support for its growing commercial usage,” said Andre M. Boisvert, Revolution Computing board member. “With this investment, Revolution Computing can deliver the type of performance that has been missing in existing computational statistics offerings."

Direct link to Intel Capial site

Endeca gets $15M from Intel Capital, SAP

In a bid to align itself with two technology titans, enterprise search firm Endeca said Wednesday it received a $15 million investment from Intel and SAP.

The cash infusion into Endeca, whose clients include Ford, Wal-Mart, and the super-secret Defense Intelligence Agency, comes about two weeks after Microsoft acquired rival Fast Search & Transfer for $1.2 billion.

Endeca Chief Executive Steve Papa said the company, which in November reported its 19th consecutive quarter of year-over-year revenue growth, had no pressing need for the funding but is seeking closer ties to business software maker SAP and its 43,000 customers and semiconductor giant Intel and its dual-core technology.

"It's not just that they're giants, but what they do that's so important for information access," he said, citing the impact of Intel's dual-core technology on complex data searches.

Lisa Lambert, managing director for Intel Capital's software and solutions group, said Endeca is a good fit from a financial and strategic perspective.

"They've made tremendous progress on a [profit and loss] basis," she said. "People want to know where the data sits to make decisions."

On the strategic side, she noted that Endeca's multi-threaded application can serve as a showcase as Intel goes beyond the current quad-core architecture on the semiconductors that power servers.

"This s a processor intensive application," Ms. Lambert said. "On the whole, this is a good marriage. They need more cores and we have more cores to give it."

The new relationships, however, don't preclude Endeca from hammering out similar bonds with a company like Oracle, which competes in the business software marketplace against SAP.

"We're absolutely open to Oracle in a similar relationship," Mr. Papa added. Endeca also is backed by investors including Bessemer Venture Partners, Venrock Associates, and In-Q-Tel, the venture arm of the Central Intelligence Agency,

In addition to Fast, Endeca competes with enterprise specialists like Autonomy as well as consumer search king Google. Unlike the advertising-supported consumer model, Endeca charges from $100,000 to more than $10 million per installation.


Mr. Papa said enterprise information access is a different and far more interpretive process than consumer search.

Rather than "dump information on you," information access seeks to uncover and present relationships in the disparate forms of structured and unstructured data found in an enterprise. In September, the company also added functions that allow user-generated content to enhance search for retail and online media customers.

In a podcast, AMR Research Chief Research Officer Bruce Richardson called Endeca one of Boston's hot tech stories that went from one customer, Fidelity Investments, in 2001 to 500 as of early 2008.

In one instance, Mr. Richardson noted, Endeca set up a search system for a government client whose data set had 10 million records each with 22,000 attributes.

Mr. Papa said that Microsoft's acquisition of Fast was a function of the target company's weakness.

"They were able to buy Fast because the company was trying to sell itself," he said, noting that Microsoft plans to mesh Fast with its SharePoint content management software, linking both products to Windows rather than the Linux operating system more widely used in search applications.

Here's the direct link to RedhErring.com

Web Analytics Service firm QuantCast gets $20M funding

The more web publishers know about their audience, the better positioned they are to sell advertising. That’s the driving force behind web analytics startup Quantcast, which on Tuesday announced a $20 million second round of funding led by the Founders Fund and Polaris Venture Partners.

“Quantcast is changing the way the media industry measures and identifies audience segments through a collaborative, direct-measurement platform,” said Quantcast CEO Konrad Feldman in a statement.

San Francisco-based Quantcast hopes to do this by analyzing massive amounts of data on demographics, web sites, and web surfers and then building specific audience profiles and traffic volume for sites.

The ace up its sleeve is its open Quantified Publisher program. Web publishers tag their sites, which allows Quantcast to measure their activity, and then publishers receive Quantcast’s data for their sites for free.

The more web publishers that join—to date, 20,000 and counting—the more data Quantcast has and the more accurate a picture the startup can create of Internet traffic.

While popular web analytics services such as comScore and NetRatings use surveys of web surfers to estimate traffic, Quantcast combines similar “panel” surveys with data gleaned from their Quantified Publisher program.

“If you look under the hood of Quantcast, they are doing billion of sets of analysis,” said Mike Hirshland, of Polaris Venture Partners.

Mr. Hirshland said the Quantcast founders have backgrounds in statistical analysis for the financial industry, and they’re now taking that experience directly to web publishers. The result, he said, should be a more accurate picture of who’s viewing web sites.

Advertisers and publishers could be thrilled if Quantcast can do what it has set out to do. Mr. Feldman said the company eventually hopes to leverage its data to bring publishers and advertisers together—and make money in the process.

But he would not comment on any revenue-generating partnerships to date, saying only that the company is focused on providing more accurate data to its network of publishers—for free.

Launched in September 2006, Quantcast now has a total venture funding of $26 million.
Here's the direct link to RedHerring

IBM Explains the Exploitation of Application Mashups

In times of innovation you get some definite chaos coming through, but IT and line of businesses see this as a big opportunity... The methodology here is very different from the development methodology we’ve been brought up to do. It’s much more collaborative, if you’re line of business, and it’s much more than a set of specifications.

Read or Listen to the full podcast here