Note: I'm going to go kinda light this week, so please bear with me as I log a little downtime. I'll still post daily, but probably not as much as usual.
New Fundings:
- Vonage, a provider of VoIP telephony, raised $35 million with NEA leading. This sector is hot, with the enterprise market leading the charge. We just upgraded our phone system to VoIP for long distance traffic, it will save us a lot of $$ considering the international call volume that we generate. I also learned that we are implementing a trial of IP phones at the desktop, which would mean 100% of the calls would be IP-based. I am getting one on my desk to try out, will let you know how it works.
http://news.com.com/2100-1037_3-5110812.html
- NemeriX, a developer of low-power integrated circuits specifically designed for global positioning system (GPS) applications, raised an EUR 8.4 million Series B round of financing. Investors in the round included Atila Ventures, VI Partners, and Auriga Partners. We looked at this company, very cool indeed... I'm glad that they secured funding.
Liquidity:
- Pleasanton, Calif.Polycom, a publicly traded provider of video and voice conferencing, conference bridges, and integrated Web collaboration services, said it signed an agreement to acquire Voyant Technologies, a provider of video conferencing and collaboration services. Details were not disclosed.
Main Dish:
- M$oft is going to spend $10b to develop software for the SMB market, which they claim the 2,000-5,000 employee company as the sweet spot. I learned a long time ago that in software it is not what you spend, it's what you get that matters. Considering that they have already spent $2b to retool Great Plains and Navision, I am underwhelmed. Look for them to get much more aggressive in this area, rumor has it that Ballmer is not at all happy about the performance of their enterprise initiatives, and the Navision integration is not going well... it would appear that the Dutch don't play by Redmond Rules.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A8022-2003Nov23.html
- what? M$oft announces pop-up blocking in a future version of IE, 2 years after 3rd party software went mainstream, and it's all of a sudden hot? Dude, The new version of the Google toolbar has pop-up blocking, and you don't even need to upgrade the entire browser, which usually results in something else breaking. You can also switch to Firebird, it has pop-up blocking in the current version, as well as a tabbed interface.
http://news.com.com/2100-1024_3-5110805.html
- speaking of Google, the critics are piling on and saying that the company is turning into another arrogant AOL.
http://www.fortune.com/fortune/print/0,15935,548765,00.html
- Have you seen the television ad that Intel is running for Centrino that depicts climbers on Everest having Wifi? I did, and thought "man, that's kind of wild, how would they get a signal when they all seem to use satellite phones?". Apparently, a couple of other chaps in the UK thought so as well, and the government regulatory agency for television is now investigating Intel over it.
http://media.guardian.co.uk/advertising/story/0,7492,1090695,00.html
- 31% of U.S. considered tech saavy... 69% considered tech illiterate (just kidding)
http://www.rednova.com/news/stories/3/2003/11/24/story001.html
- San Francisco is putting crime data online so you can see how bad your neighborhood really is.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2003/11/24/BUGTA38G251.DTL&type=tech
- I never realized that Ironport also sells systems for bulk emailers (spammers)... no wonder their antipam stuff is so good. via Techdirt
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/24/technology/24iron.html?ex=1070341200&en=0c658e9d1f311df9&ei=5062&partner=TECHDIRT
- good post in Ventureblog about "accelerating acceleration"
http://www.ventureblog.com/articles/indiv/2003/000209.html
- Yeah, what is wrong with Massachusetts?
http://www.edithere.com/barry/2003/11/21#a732
