Noon - 10/20/03

New Fundings:

- Integrated Sensing Systems, Inc. received a nearly $2 million federal grant for developing MEMS-based multi-drug infusion systems, according to a company news release.

- WK Technology Fund led a $10 million Series D round of financing for Peribit Networks, a developer of network optimization technologies. Foundation Capital, Accel Partners, and Mayfield also participated in the round.

- Arena Solutions, a provider of a Web-native software application for managing the product development design chain, raised a $5 million Series C round of financing. The round included investment from Otter Capital, Arthur Rock & Company, and individuals.

- Portwise, Sweden, received SEK$80m (I think that's about USD$9m). Cazenove Private Equity and Norwegian company Four Seasons Venture. Previous owner Scope Venture Capital partakes in the new issue as well. The money will be utilized for international expansion, first and foremost Europe.

Liquidity:

- Sockeye Networks, a developer of a routing optimization service for enterprises, e-businesses, and service providers, was acquired by Internap Network Services (Nasdaq: INAP) for approximately $1.75 million in Internap Network Services stock. Previous Sockeye investors include Akamai Technologies, Baker Capital, Battery Ventures, Credit Suisse First Boston, and Polaris Venture Partners.

- Key creditor Silicon Valley Bank has sold the assets of Austin, Texas-based EpicEdge Inc. after the company defaulted on $1.25 million in loans, EpicEdge reports in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

Main Dish:

- Steve Ballmer spoke at the Gartner Group conference about M$oft's security issues and Open Source, and there is so much to disagree with that I won't go point-for-point at it. Ballmer says that "we rarely fail at something that is our top priority" which seems to acknowledge that they do have the capacity to fail, and in fact from my point of view they are. The Trustworthy Computing Initiative has been out for 2 years and we see more vulnerabilities in their software than ever before. Ballmer claims the vulnerability exposure rate for Red Hat Linux 6 was "5 to 10 times higher", well what is it? Come on, it's not like this is confidential data, the point is that they just don't know because most often the vulnerabilities are fixed before they are ever exposed, unlike their software. I think what this shows is that the security issues are proving to be an enormous achilles heel for M$oft and it's distracting them. Secondly, the Open Source OS movement is a real threat to them and because there isn't a single enemy to identify, the historical M$oft competitive strategies just don't work.
http://news.com.com/2100-1002_3-5094279.html?tag=nefd_top

- I don't know what it is about 3G the last couple of days, but there's been a lot of new about it. Now, the Probe Group comes out and says that widespread deployments won't happen until 2007.
http://www.commsdesign.com/story/OEG20031021S0023

- "Microsoft monopoly good, Apple monopoly bad," M$oft lawyers charge. M$oft's David Fester warned that Apple's iTunes (and this is really good) "is a drawback for Windows users, who expect choice in music services, choice in devices, and choice in music from a wide-variety of music services..." I guess he's not aware that the Justice Dept. and attorneys general for 19 states have formally complained to a federal judge about a design feature of Windows that compels consumers who buy music online to use only Microsoft's Internet browser and steers them to a Web site operated by the company.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/7/33468.html
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/business/144726_msftantitrust21.html?source=techdirt

- The RIAA changes it's tactics, but not it's stripes. After taking 261 file sharers to court, including a 12 year old NYC girl, the first time around, the RIAA is sending warning letters this time to 200 file sharers giving them 10 days to settle before they take them to court. Assholes.
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2003-10-19-music-swapping-suits_x.htm

- NO, not the booze! When new software goes bad, it's the people who suffer. The State of Mississippi's Alcoholic Beverage Control department installed a new delivery software system (ole Miss, like several other states, strictly controls the distribution of alcohol) that has some serious bugs meaning that new orders aren't being taken. Bottom line, if you want to stock up on Bud for that USM game this weekend, you are SOL. I am pleased to report that the State is putting the right priority on fixing this life altering development, stating that " "We will work 24 hours a day, seven days a week until we're up and running. "
http://www.hattiesburgamerican.com/news/stories/20031017/localnews/472313.html

- 802.11 equipped PDA's reviewed
http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,3973,1358910,00.asp

- Congresswoman DeGette (D-Colorado) is causing a dustup over an op-ed piece she wrote denouncing all regulation of the Internet.
http://importance.typepad.com/the_importance_of/2003/10/rep_degette_doe.html

- Sendo just came out with a very cool Symbian-based smartphone... you will recall that Sendo is the company that abandoned M$oft's smartphone platform about a year ago.
http://www.phonescoop.com/news/item.php?id=708

- and Sony-Ericsson came out with the P-900 smartphone. Paul has a P-800 and loves it.
http://my-symbian.com/uiq/intro_p900.php

- 2 out of 3 HR professionals surveyed said that they have found porn on employees computers. Don't know what conclusion to draw, I just thought I throw it in today because it's about porn.
http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=10350397&BRD=1281&PAG=461&dept_id=7546&rfi=6

- the Video Game Olympics recently concluded and Germany came out on top in the medal count. I guess with all the unemployment in Germany people have a lot of time on their hands to play video games.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/3206908.stm

- M$oft's latest Office update has an interesting new feature that enables a "self destruct" switch in documents and emails... I bet Quattrone wishes he had that upgrade
http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99994295

- "We drowned our puppies" said a VC on the purging of venture portfolios
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2003/10/21/BUGED2FK2E1.DTL

- Socialtext has an interesting new enterprise collaboration product out that taps into weblogs.
http://www.socialtext.com/weblog/031021workspace.html