Evernote Celebrates Birthday by Joining the Billion Dollar Club (Really?)
Personal Productivity June 27th, 2011
. (Hey, if Evernote can lie about their age, so can I…). Joke apart, I have no idea why a company would pretend to be half as young as they really are – there are quite a few users, yours truly included who remember the early product, back from 2005-2006.
OK, so back then Evernote was really nothing more than a scrawny little note-taker, with a weird scrolling tape metaphor that was hard to get used to, but it already showed unusual flexibility of mixing typed and handwritten text with imaging. Still, the key benefit was price, compared to Microsoft Onenote. It’s hard to compete with free.
I was truly surprised by the news of their first funding round. Here’s my offending post from 2006 (hm, before they even existed, if you believe the birthday news…):
EverNote – Love You and Hate You
EverNote is the last company I expected to raise venture funding: has a mature product, a mix of freeware and a $35 version, and I pretty much considered them a good candidate for safe, organic growth. GigaOM just reported it EverNote’s funding to the tune of $6M. Wow…
My Love & Hate relationship? The love part is easy to understand; it’s a handy, easy-to-use notetaker, which I prefer to the comparable Microsoft OneNote, and the $0 price is quite unbeatable. The hate part: it really does not fit into strategy of moving off the desktop into the Cloud.
In fact it’s the only application that breaks my sync efforts between two laptops using FolderShare:
Tags: android, bubble, CloudAve, entrepreneurship, evernote, iPhone, microsoft, mobility, onenote, productivity, vc Funding
OK, that should be easy, let’s click to get that email:
Oops – dear Chase, where’s my message?
Of course on the week when the IMF and the US Senate gets hacked, GoDaddy goes down (did they forget to renew their domain?), I should not complain. After all, it’s not my money they’ve lost. (?)
Tags: CloudAve, Online Banking, rant
Customer Focus: the Constellation Supernova Awards
Business June 6th, 2011
Krish and I both feel honored to have been invited as Judges for the Cloud Computing category. Below is the official announcement in full:
THE GENESIS
Today, we announce an award that celebrates and recognizes leaders who have overcome the odds to successfully apply emerging and disruptive technologies for their organizations.
In Search of Protostars
Most award programs recognize the technology suppliers for their advancements in the market. Few, if any programs, have recognized individuals for their courage in battling the odds to effect change in their organization. The Constellation SuperNova Awards celebrate the explorers, the pioneers, and the unsung heroes who successfully put new technologies to work. More importantly, these leaders have created disruptions in their market.
“Applying technology innovation to effect business results requires exceptional organizational leadership and teamwork. It is not enough to simply implement the technology. To ensure success, these leaders had to build buy-in relationships across all levels of the organization – appealing to rational and emotional senses – as well as make tough calls in system delivery to make change easier”, noted Amy Wilson, Vice-President and Principal Analyst, Constellation Research, Inc.
An all star cast of judges will identify applicants who embody the human spirit to innovate, overcome adversity, and successfully deliver market changing approaches. Applicants will be subjected to a vigorous set of criteria that reflect real-world and pragmatic experience. Semifinalists will be selected in five categories: social business, mobile enterprise, cloud computing, advanced analytics, and emerging technologies.
“Innovation is the life blood of businesses. We need to celebrate those pioneers who are able to see what the others don’t, who are willing to invest their time and energy while others don’t dare to, and whose passion inspires us all to look innovation in the eyes, embrace it and become innovators.” said Paul Papadimitriou, Vice-President and Principal Analyst, Constellation Research, Inc.
THE DETAILS
Tags: awards, cloud, cloud computing, CloudAve, Enterprise, readwriteweb, social crm
Startup Lifecycle a’la ABBA (Are We in a Bubble?)
Humor, Startups June 5th, 2011
No kidding… it all started with a tweet by Box Lead Magician Aaaron Levie:
@levie
We must be in a tech bubble given how much ABBA I’m listening to.
24 minutes ago Favorite Retweet Reply
My first though was:
@ZoliErdos
@levie As long as it’s not only Money Money Money 
21 minutes ago Favorite Reply Delete
Then I had this crazy thought of trying to remember more ABBA titles… it took me about 3 minutes to see ABBA’s wisdom … LOL.. I mean to come up with a full startup lifecycle, purely based on ABBA titles:
Tags: bubble, CloudAve, entrepreneurship, Just for fun, music
Chatting Cars and Enterprise Software
Enterprise Software May 23rd, 2011
I admit when Chatter first came out, I did not get it. Yeah, another activity stream, so what? I’ve long agreed with Chief Curmudgeon Dennis Howlett that activity streams without business context offer little value in business. Things started to get interesting when Chatter added the ability to follow documents, opportunities and other business objects. Aha! So now we’re getting business context in Chatter! But why?
Tags: cars, CloudAve, Duet, Google, Just for fun, netsuite, salesforce.com, social network, tibco, toyota, Twitter, unstructured data
Yes, this is the one (Last) uber-super secure system you trust with ALL your passwords. Ouch. But d
espite the hacking, LastPass says users who had a strong master password in the first place are still safe (and they are forcing users to change that master password now).
I’m not a security expert and don’t pretend to be one, so all you can get from me is some ramblings from a business user:
Most of us are at an even higher risk every day: statistics show that over 60% of Internet users
have a favorite set of login credentials …
Conspiracy Theory: the Vista-ization of Windows 7 has Started…
Personal Productivity, Software May 4th, 2011
I simply don’t get it: Vista is barely out, nobody seems to like it, CIO’s refuse to upgrade, analyst firms tell them to wait, individual users who tried it switch back to XP, others time their new PC purchase so they can still get an XP machine – generally speaking Vista was as poorly received as the ill-fated Windows ME.
Apple is gaining market share, the major computer manufacturers are offering Linux PC’s, the Web OS concept is getting popular, applications are already on the Web – can anyone clearly see the shape of personal computing in 2012? (Yes, I know MS plans for 2010, I’m just adding the customary delay.) Will it still matter what OS we use to get on the Internet? How can Microsoft be so out of touch?
I was right and I was wrong. Right in the assessment, that Vista’s main competitor was Microsoft’s own solid OS, WinXP – there was simply no reason to upgrade. Yet as buying new computers with Good Ole Vista became increasingly difficult, many of us got stuck with Vista. I was wrong in not foreseeing that Vista would turn out to be such a disaster, that millions of Vista victims would end up paying the ransom to get out of the trap and get the version of the OS that actually works: Windows 7.
What followed was two peaceful years when Windows computers simply worked. Yes, They Just Worked. Almost like a Mac. 
Then the unexpected (?) happened…
Tags: CloudAve, Just for fun, microsoft, rant, vista, win7, Windows, windows 7, windows upgrade, xp
KaaS: Kiss as a Service. Really. Really?
Humor May 3rd, 2011
If you think the guy above is slurping down a milk-shake, you’re wrong. Very, very wrong. He is French kissing teaching his computer and a remote device to French kiss. Here’s the formula of kissing digitized:
I can see unlimited prospects for a new Cloud-based Kiss as a Service, where you select your Kiss based on profiles. Perhaps even sample them first. iTunes will sell them for 99cents, until Amazon comes along with the 69c price:-)
OK, back to Earth. This is not a prank, it’s serious study conducted by researchers at the University of Electro-Communications in Tokyo. How long will it take for them to get to Third Base? (there’s nothing a straw hooked to a PC can’t do…).
But by then.. why bother… who needs feelings anyway? Let the machines make digital love to each other. 
Tags: CloudAve, Just for fun
Tungle: an Acquisition Tweet by Tweet.
Startups April 27th, 2011
Tungle CEO, 6 days ago:
Hm… looks like a broken iPhone. Get a new one… but is getting a new phone really a life changing moment?
@mgingrasMarc Gingras
Time for a new smartphone.#lifechangingmoment
2 hours ago via Twitter for BlackBerry® Favorite Retweet Reply
For Marc it is. And I doubt he’ll be using iPhone, now that he is part of RIM.
I first got to know Marc and Tungle 5 years ago, as a selection judge for the Under the Radar Conference, which is where Tungle debuted, so it’s only appropriate that they announce the acquisition exactly five years later, on the very day this years Under the Radar conference is held … in fact it starts in about an hour, if you’re in the area, you can still catch it
Congratulations to Marc… and let’s hope the excellent Tungle service remains open for other platforms, too. (?).
Tags: CloudAve, entrepreneurship, Just for fun
Out of Left Field: Vmware Acquires Sliderocket
Business April 26th, 2011
Quick initial reaction: scratching head.
Vmware recently shook up the Cloud Computing world with the launch of Cloud Foundry and I think most of us would have pegged them as an infrastructure company. Then all of a sudden they buy Sliderocket, the great collaborative presentations company. Why is this a big deal? Probably not for the $ value, but it may show Vmware’s intentions of getting in the Cloud Apps business big time.
After all, they already have an almost forgotten asset, Zimbra. Microsoft, Google, Salesforce, Zoho … watch out! 
P.S. I guess the phones are ringing at Vmware, with every single Cloud App startup trying to get bought…
Tags: acquisition, CloudAve, infrastructure, VMWare
Zoli Erdos
