News.com: Wireless 2.0

"Transition and evolution are a constant in the tech industry as niche products evolve into enterprise infrastructure. This is exactly what's happening with wireless local area networks (WLANs) in large organizations.

It first started awhile back with a few wireless access points in conference rooms. Intel's Centrino processor led to lots more laptops and thus lots more access points. This in turn led to the need for more wireless network management, security, and administrative tools.

All of these things have come to pass and now we are looking at enterprise-wide WLAN deployment, especially in industries such as education, government, health care, logistics, and manufacturing. Enterprise Strategy Group believes that these enterprise requirements will lead to a new chapter for WLAN vendors, one of opportunities and new challenges. For the sake of industry cliche, let's call this new era "wireless 2.0," which will be segmented into five buckets:

1. The incumbents. Many users will look to their existing WLAN vendors for new devices and integrated tools. Advantage: Cisco Systems and Aruba Networks. It should be noted, however, that the transition to wireless 2.0 is causing a lot of churn in the market and may open opportunities for lots of competitive swap-outs.

2. The techies. We work in a geeky industry and lots of customers are still gaga over speeds and feeds. Wireless 2.0 rhetoric centers on access points per controllers, wireless mesh networks, and network access control (NAC) integration. Advantage: Aruba, Meru Networks, Trapeze Networks, and Xirrus.

3. The "unified network" guys. This is marketing code for vendors that sell both wired and wireless gear. The message they preach is that large organizations need one well-managed network, not distinct wired and wireless pipes. In IT, consolidation and central management is always good so there is some logic to this message. Advantage: Cisco, Extreme Networks, Hewlett-Packard, and Nortel Networks.

4. The multimedia supporters. Wireless networks are becoming a gateway to network services like voice and video that require lots more focus on applications, users, and quality of service. Large organizations aggressively moving down the IP telephony path will be especially open to working with these vendors. Advantage: Meru. "

ZDNet: After succeeding, young tycoons try, try again

"Max Levchin is not easily distracted from his work.
A few years ago, Levchin, one of the young princes of Silicon Valley, bought his first home, a 12-room Edwardian high atop a hill here, for $3.4 million. But Levchin, who made a fortune at age 27 selling PayPal, the online payment service he helped start in 1998, never moved in. He sold it two years later without having slept there for even one night.

Since then, Levchin has moved into his second home, a more expensive one found for him by Nellie Minkova, his girlfriend of eight years who has become his fiancee. But so consumed is he by work on his second company, an Internet start-up focused on sharing photos and videos, that the cartons that contain what Levchin described as "85 percent of my worldly possessions" are still stacked in his living room, five months after moving day.

Levchin, who is now 32, is typical of a new generation of junior titans in Silicon Valley who might be called the prematurely rich--techies worth tens of millions of dollars, sometimes more, at an age when many others are just starting to figure out what to do with their lives."

"They are happy to be wealthy, of course, but many of these baby-faced technology tycoons often seem indifferent to the buying power of their money, at least at this stage of their lives. Instead, nearly all of them have chosen to throw themselves back into a start-up, not so much because they want a spectacular new home or a personal jet--though many of them do--but because they are in a competition with themselves and one another. "

SFGate: TechCrunch brings in $240,000 a month

"Today, TechCrunch has a full-time staff of eight. This year, it hired a CEO. In August, 1.25 million people visited TechCrunch or its affiliated blogs at least once, according to comScore Inc. It brings in $240,000 per month in advertising, according to Arrington, and pulls in additional revenue from conferences and parties. Most important of all, TechCrunch is in the black."

KP: Tom Perkins - behind the swagger

"Toward the end of his memoir "Valley Boy: The Education of Tom Perkins," the founding partner of the venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers mischievously offers some "likely" reviews that will be posted online. Here's one from "Patricia":

Self-aggrandizing drivel from a misogynistic, narcissistic egomaniac, who inadvertently makes it clear why he has more enemies than friends!

Could that be Patricia as in Pattie Dunn, the former Hewlett-Packard chairman who learned that it's not good to have Tom Perkins as an enemy? Perkins has good reason to blame Dunn for HP's spy scandal, which ultimately included snooping into Perkins' private phone records and ended with her resignation from the board.

What's more, even neutral readers might think "Patricia" got it exactly right - and it's clear after reading the memoir to be released next month that Perkins would be OK with that, too.

"Valley Boy" and journalist David A. Kaplan's "Mine's Bigger" - focusing more on Perkins' quest to build "the greatest sailing machine ever built," his mega-yacht the Maltese Falcon - are two new offerings in the valley's non-fiction canon. In both, Perkins comes across as a swaggering, combative rogue who relishes competition in any form.

Until the HP spy scandal erupted, Perkins was widely perceived as yesterday's news. By the late 1990s, John Doerr, not Perkins or other founders, was Kleiner Perkins' most prominent partner. "

Red Herring: Steve Ballmer says Microsoft buying 20 startups next year

"Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer said on Thursday the company aims to pursue an independent path, focusing on up to 20 smaller acquisitions of $50 million to $1 billion each annually rather than mega-deals.
Armed with a cash pile of $23 billion, Microsoft has been rumored to be targeting acquisitions like Yahoo, or social networking phenomenon Facebook.
Speaking to the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco, Mr. Ballmer would not comment directly on any potential acquisitions, but he said Microsoft's current focus is the "independent path."
"If at some point it makes sense, maybe then it makes sense. But that's not where we are going. We are driving in an independent direction," said Ballmer in a question-and-answer session.
The CEO of the world's largest software maker said it is logical for people to speculate that main rivals would join forces to take on an industry leader. In this case, Mr. Ballmer was referring to dominant web search leader Google.
Microsoft historically has shunned costly acquisitions, opting to purchase lots of less expensive companies. But company watchers saw this year's $6 billion acquisition of digital advertising company aQuantive as a change in strategy.
Due in part to the aQuantive acquisition, Microsoft CFO Chris Liddell has said the company will spend more this fiscal year in acquisitions than on research and development for the first time in the company's history.
Microsoft has said it bought 23 companies in the 2007 fiscal year ended in June. Of those, it reported 13 acquisitions valued at a total of $1.34 billion, including an $800 million purchase of voice recognition technology company Tellme Networks.
"We'll probably buy 20 companies a year consistently for the next five years," said Mr. Ballmer."

DataSynapse Listed in the Top 15 Percent of the Nation’s Fastest Growing Private Companies in the Annual Inc. 5,000

"DataSynapse, the global provider of application virtualization software, today announced that it was listed in the top 15 percent of the nation’s fastest growing private companies in this year’s Inc. 5,000. The Inc. 5,000 list, put out annually by Inc. magazine, profiles the fastest-growing companies in America and takes a comprehensive look at the enterprises driving the country’s economy. The Inc. 5,000 is ranked according to the percentage of revenue growth from 2003 through 2006.

DataSynapse was also ranked in the top 100 in the following Inc. 5,000 lists:
Top Companies in Software
Top Companies in the New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania Area
Top Companies Intending to Go Public

“DataSynapse is honored to be recognized on the prestigious Inc. 5,000 list as it highlights our company’s success and leadership in the virtualization software market,” said Peter Lee, CEO and co-founder, DataSynapse. “We are grateful for the strong support of our customers and will continue to help them achieve a more agile, efficient and available utility computing capability.”
DataSynapse products are leveraged by the world’s leading organizations to create real-time infrastructure that optimize IT resources so that service levels remain predictable and consistent, despite unpredictable computing demands. DataSynapse’s flagship GridServer® and FabricServer™ product offerings intelligently match available server supply with application demand, allowing organizations to gain control of complex enterprise applications. Users experience improved agility, reduced costs and enhanced quality of service.
Last month, the company released its VersaVision™ software, the first commercial product that provides comprehensive visibility, analytics and reporting for service and demand virtualization infrastructures. VersaVision provides insight into demand and service performance, rich reporting infrastructure and day-to-day insight needed to continuously meet service level agreements. "

Barrons: Web 2.0: Launch Pad Event Showcases Startups; Deja Vu All Over Again

"Well, I feel like I’m back at TechCrunch 40. But no, I’m still at Web 2.0, at the Palace Hotel in San Francisco, where there is a session called Launch Pad, which features a bunch of startups talking about what they’re doing. A bunch of VCs sitting on stage are providing running commentary. The crowd gets to vote, via applause. There will be six pitches:
TripIt is a travel site which launched in this very room at TechCrunch on September 17. The idea of the site is to simplify organizing travel documents.
SpiceWorks. The idea of this company is to offer ad supported IT management applications to small businesses. Over 160,000 users so far in 185 countries. Has 4.5% market of small and medium sized enterprises. The target is organizations of 20-250 employees. Also includes an IT community. Why free? IT pros already use free services like Gmail; why not demand advertising-based free services. Been growing 10% month-over-month.
Realius is a company offering fantasy real estate games. I saw these guys at TechCrunch40 as well, although they didn’t actually get on stage at that conference. Basically it is a game where you are supposed to guess how much houses sell for. The games will be on broker sites. Revenue model: license fees. Product and service placement. Lead referral. Novel idea? Sure. A good idea? Well, it is a novel idea.
GHOST: Stands for global hosted operating system. It’s a virtual PC desktop. Nice URL. The idea seems to be that you move data on the Web, but it is too hard to move documents between various apps on the Web; their idea is one URL and one password, with a virtual personal computer. He has team split between Jerusalem and Palestine (by which I presume he means the West Bank.) Interesting, but I’m not entirely sold. Totally online applications? No more Office? I dunno, I’m not convinced.
ClickForensics is a company targeted at preventing click fraud. They run something called the Click Fraud Network. They say almost 16% of all clicks are being billed, and should not be billed. In content networks, click fraud rate is well over 25%. The majority of sites in the content networks are parked domains or made-for-ad sites. Advertisers get reduced ROI. The solution: community based. Kind of an interesting company, actually; so far I personally like this one best. (Although SpiceWorks is also kind of interesting.)
CleverSet is the sixth and final presenter. It is a personalization technology. “The first true personalization platform.” Serve the right things to the right people at the right time. Merchandise suggestions, ad placement, choosing media and content. The technology is based on “statistical relational learning.” More data = greater relevance. Initial service targeted at online retailers. On 85 sites now. Will be on large retail and financial services sites. Has been 18 months in market. Average 20% increase in revenue; 20% increase in conversion rate. This sounds compelling, if it actually works; I also wonder if there are people doing something similar; although they claim to have patent protection. "

SeekingAlpha: Symantec To Buy Private “Data Leakage Prevention” Company

"Symantec (SYMC) is going to buy privately held “data leakage prevention” company Vontu for between $300 million and $350 million, according to a story late last week by Infoworld.
In a note Tuesday, UBS software analyst Heather Bellini wrote that Vontu had about $30 million in revenue in 2006. She says any deal likely would be funded with Symantec’s line of credit or “more likely than not via a convert.”
Bellini points out that Symantec CEO John Thompson has said the company could take on another $2.5 billion to $3 billion in debt; Bellini says the proceeds from any large debt offering would likely be split between M&A and share repurchases.
Bellini has a Buy rating and $26 price target on Symantec."

PaidContent: Moritz: Immigrant Startups Discouraged; Subscription Model Doomed

"From our site paidContent:UK: Silicon Valley venture capitalist Michael Moritz faults US immigration policy for discouraging overseas entrepreneurs from starting up in America. Speaking to paidContent:UK at a Cardiff Business Club lecture on a visit to the Welsh capital of his birth, Moritz, who made early investments in the likes of Google (NSDQ: GOOG) and Yahoo (NSDQ: YHOO) for his Sequoia Capital, said restrictions introduced following 9/11 “won’t surface as a huge issue until several years from now, when the crop of people who have (not come to America), their absence will begin to be noticed ... In California anyway, hiring engineers is much more difficult than it’s been for any number of years ... in part because of the difficulty in getting green cards. A lot of the people who might have chosen 10 years ago to seek their way to the west, and to the US in particular, now elect to build their companies at home.” More on this interview here. "

What Makes a Great SaaS Startup?

"Let's face it, SaaS is sexy these days. Nearly everybody is either starting entirely new companies to capitalize on the benefits of SaaS or madly rushing to get their applications ported to it.

At a recent conference, I presented at in the Bay Area, this became abundantly clear. Every session hosted by venture capitalists who talked about the exponential growth of SaaS was packed and sessions where CEOs of successful SaaS start-ups had standing-room only crowds.

All of this passion for SaaS would make anyone stop and wonder, "So, what does make a great SaaS startup?"


Top Take-Aways
From the presentations given and from the discussions with attendees and presenters, the following take-aways were gained:


Passion for serving customers is more important than a passion for VC cash. This became abundantly clear when the founder and CEO of Brainshark, Joe Gustafson, spoke. He talked about best practices in starting a SaaS-based software company and had a great quote about turning customers into your best salespeople."

Deutsch on Coulter's 'Big Idea' Comments

"Appearing on Donny Deutsch's CNBC show The Big Idea on Monday, columnist and author Ann Coulter suggested that the U.S. would be a better place if there weren't any Jewish people—and that they should "perfect" themselves into Christians.This led Deutsch to suggest that surely she couldn't mean that, and when she insisted she did, he said it sounded "anti-Semitic."

Venture Capital Fund Raising Is Down 11% from ’06

"Venture fund raising is down 11 percent for the first nine months of this year compared to 2006, according to the latest issue of Dow Jones Private Equity Analyst.However, despite shaky times on Wall Street, overall private equity fund raising is on the increase.Through September 30, private equity firms had raised $199 billion. And 405 funds are still “open,” seeking to raise another $165 billion, Private Equity Analyst reported Thursday.Some $19 billion has been invested in 102 venture funds, a total that is down from $21.3 billion for the same time period in 2006. That higher amount also was raised by a smaller number of funds – 89.Frontier Capital in Charlotte, N.C. bucked the downward trend with a newly raised fund of $115 million. Frontier had intended to raise $100 million. Meanwhile, in Raleigh, Hatteras Investment Partners has set a target of $500 million for its new fund. In Durham, Hatteras Venture Partners has raised $82 million in its new fund, and the target is $100 million."

Sprint's WiMax dilemma | CNET News.com

"If Wall Street pundits get their way, Sprint Nextel's next CEO will put the brakes on plans for a new, high-speed wireless network. But such a move, while no doubt cutting costs, could condemn the struggling company to also-ran status. After months of declining subscriber numbers, Sprint Nextel announced Monday that CEO Gary Forsee had stepped down as chairman and chief executive officer. Forsee's departure had been a long time coming, as investors, upset over the company's poor performance, had been pressuring the company's board of directors to make a change at the top. Among investors' biggest concerns is Sprint's plan to build a next-generation wireless network using a technology called WiMax. The company has committed itself to spending $5 billion in the next three years to build the network, with about $2 billion of that money earmarked to be spent in the next year to get WiMax coverage to about 100 million people by the end of 2008. "

Niklas Zennstrom to ebay: you overpaid

"Niklas Zennstrom, co-founder of Internet telecoms group Skype, said on Tuesday he agreed the original valuation put on the company by purchaser EBay was too high.
"We had to chart the trajectory of growth and how fast that would run, (but) we found out that was a bit front-loaded," Zennstrom told the annual ETRE technology conference in Hungary.
"We overshot in terms of monetization," he said.
EBay said last week it would cut as much as $1.2 billion off the $4.3 billion potential price it agreed to pay for Web-based phone-calling service Skype two years ago.
The write-down on the value of the deal came as eBay said Skype co-founders Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis had resigned as executives, and marked a tacit admission of lackluster returns from Skype since eBay acquired it two years ago.
EBay said it had paid $530 million to Skype shareholders, including Zennstrom."

Bugmenot.com founders new site: RetailMeNot.com

"Find and share coupon codes and promotional codes for great discounts at thousands of online stores."

McAfee To Acquire Data-Encryption Vendor SafeBoot for $350M

"Security software vendor McAfee on Monday said it has agreed to buy SafeBoot, a maker of enterprise data-encryption technology, for $350 million in cash.
If the deal closes as expected in the fourth quarter, McAfee said it will combine its technology with SafeBoot's to form the foundation of a new data protection business unit headed by SafeBoot chief executive Gerhard Watzinger, who would report to McAfee CEO Dave DeWalt. The transaction is expected to be dilutive to McAfee's 2008 GAAP earnings per share and neutral to non-GAAP EPS.
"The new product business unit will build on both companies' data protection offerings, helping us integrate and deliver market leading new solutions for data protection," DeWalt said in a joint statement with Watziner.
Privately owned SafeBoot has more than 4,200 customers, including more than 150 listed in the Fortune 500, the companies said. SafeBoot has 47% of its customers in Europe, the Middle East, and Asia; 29% in North America; and 23% in Asia Pacific.
SafeBoot's Data Protection Suite lets users encrypt individual files and folders, as well as entire local hard drives, to protect data during distribution to mobile devices, such as laptops, smartphones, USB drives, and handheld computers. SafeBoot software also can encrypt files severs to secure confidential files as they move throughout an organization.
McAfee said it plans to integrate SafeBoot's products in its ePolicy Orchestrator, which is McAfee's centralized management console for enterprise security.
SafeBoot CEO Watzinger said combining his company's technology with McAfee's resources would "help our customers address the complex challenges of managing their data security, and position both companies to capture new opportunities in our rapidly growing markets."
McAfee said it would pursue SafeBoot's "significant and untapped" opportunities in the small- and midsize-business and consumer markets, while offering SafeBoot customers the option of integrating McAfee products into their security software. "

Major Internet hubs see lesser influence

"The recent rush by major Internet portals to buy advertising companies and extend their sales networks is a sign that the business of being a one-stop shop for information and entertainment isn't what it used to be.


Gone are the days of emphasizing ways to attract and keep visitors — the way television networks long have operated — by creating destinations with anything people might need for work, leisure or companionship.

Instead, those companies are now more aggressively trying to follow Web surfers elsewhere — and bring lucrative advertising to them.

As people increasingly turn to blogs, social-networking sites and other sources of user-generated media, Google Inc., Yahoo Inc., Microsoft Corp. and Time Warner Inc.'s AOL have spent more than $10 billion collectively this year to acquire companies and technologies that help extend their online advertising networks.

So instead of relying solely on being portals for consumers, the major companies are creating one-stop shops for advertisers, who are increasingly wanting to buy ads centrally and place them where the eyeballs are. The networks take care of feeding the ads to smaller sites."

Quote of the Month

"From those to whom much is given, much is expected."
- Bill Gates

Cnet.com: Huge amounts of venture capital rushing to virtual world companies

"For the last couple of weeks, I've been researching the fact that a lot of venture capital has been flowing into companies building virtual worlds or the technologies behind them.

On just a quick survey of things I'd seen recently, I found several examples of significant investments by either VCs or angels: CBS and Gladwyne Partners putting $7 million into The Electric Sheep Company; Charles River Ventures putting $2 million into Areae and $5.5 million in Conduit; Gladwyne's investment into Anshe Chung Studios; Sterling Stamos Capital Management's $4 million into Multiverse; and others.

Well, just as I was about to get serious about this story, I got a press release today from Virtual Worlds Management, the folks putting on the Virtual Worlds conference in San Jose, Calif., next week, touting the fact that its research shows that, in total, there has been $1 billion invested in virtual worlds in the last year.

Wow, I thought. I knew there was something serious going on here, but $1 billion?

In the end, though, I'm not surprised. Virtual worlds are everywhere these days. From those getting huge amounts of media attention, like Second Life and World of Warcraft, to those aimed at children and teens, like Club Penguin, Gaia Online, to those that are just quietly building huge user bases like Habbo Hotel. "

CIO: Fund to Invest $25M in Salesforce.com Startups

"Salesforce.com has launched a US$25 million investment fund to encourage the development of new applications using its Force.com hosted development platform.

The fund, created with investment companies Bay Partners and Bessemer Venture Partners, will make investments of $500,000 or more in start-up companies using Force.com, the companies announced Monday.

Salesforce.com refers to Force.com as its "platform as a service." It allows companies to build add-ons to Salesforce.com's hosted CRM (customer relationship management) software, or entirely new hosted applications, using pre-built database, logic and workflow services from Salesfore.com."

BitGravity's New CDN Threatens Akamai and Limelight

"After months in stealth mode gathering marquee customers, BitGravity officially launched its content delivery network. BitGravity co-founder and CEO Perry Wu claims that his CDN delivers superior service to the incumbents, notably Akamai and Limelight. Companies such as YouTube, Sling Media, Revision 3, Getty Images and the BBC have already signed on as BitGravity customers.
According to Wu, the incumbent networks were designed to handle content like text and photos, while BitGravity was designed from the ground up to handle rich media content. Adding more servers, memory or more datacenters won’t give competitors what they need to compete with BitGravity, he said.
Whatever the case, Akamai and Limelight are facing increasing competition (see Forbes story), and not just from BitGravity.
BitGravity’s platform has been architected for the HD video generation, Wu told me. “We started with a clean sheet of paper,” Wu said. “As we enter this second phase [of content delivery], the [incumbents] won’t stack up with applications that wrap content around interactive experiences and multiple video screens.” He cited the National Football League, Major League Baseball and MTV as developing more immersive, granular and bandwidth intensive applications.
BitGravity’s secret sauce is n its patent pending Bitcast technology, Wu said, including multicast overlay optimization, file replication, real-time video and watermaking. The company is using custom-built hardware, costing between $50,000 and $100,000, and is optimizing a customized BSD Unix kernel to improving the efficiency of moving data from its systems to the “wire,” Wu said."