Connecting the dots ...
No, this has not turned into an agricultural blog, but the photo of frozen Oranges in California was too shocking not to share
About 70% of the crop is expected to be frozen, so we can expect a price hike in a few weeks.
(full story at the SF Chronicle)
I’ll be moderating another SVASE VC Breakfast Club meeting this Thursday, Jan 18th in San Francisco. As usual, it’s an informal round-table where 10 entrepreneurs get to deliver a pitch, then answer questions and get critiqued by a VC Partner. We’ve had VC’s from Draper Fisher, Hummer Winblad, Kleiner Perkins, Mayfield, Mohr Davidow, Emergence Capital …etc.
These sessions are a valuable opportunity for Entrepreneurs, most of whom would probably have a hard time getting through the door to VC Partners. Since I’ve been through quite a few of these sessions, both as Entrepreneur and Moderator, let me share a few thoughts:
Thursday’s featured VC is Steve Reale, Principal, Levensohn Venture Partners. For details and registration please see the SVASE site.
Here’s a participating Entrepreneur’s feedback about a previous event.
See you in San Francisco!
The US Military is selling fighter jet parts to Iran. No, this news is not from the 70’s, it’s from 2005.
The process is really simple: sell > confiscate > resell.
“In one case, convicted middlemen for Iran bought Tomcat parts from the Defense Department’s surplus division. Customs agents confiscated them and returned them to the Pentagon, which sold them again — customs evidence tags still attached — to another buyer, a suspected broker for Iran.”
Now, you might say the Pentagon’s surplus store (Defense Reutilization and Marketing Service) is not selling directly to Iran, only to middlemen. That’s certainly the bureaucrat’s defense:
“”The fact that those individuals chose to violate the law and the fact that the customs people caught them really indicates that the process is working,” said Baillie, the Defense Logistics Agency’s executive director of distribution.”
Hm… let’s think for a minute. Is it safe to assume that only those who operate F-14s would be interested in buying spare parts? I thought so. The only problem is, that since the Pentagon retired the F-14 Tomcats, Iran is the only country still flying them.
The process is working, after all. (read the full story on CBS News)
Rod Boothby is running a Read/Write Intranet Idol – it’s a poll I invite you to participate in, so I am attaching it at the bottom. But first, it gives me a chance to share some of my (wiki)-thoughts.
The list is a mix of industry behemoths (Microsoft, IBM Lotus), emerging but established brands (Atlassian‘s Confluence, Socialtext, WordPress), relatively known startups and quite a few obscure names. The latter probably not by pure chance: both Rod and I are on the Selection Committee for the next Under the Radar Conference on Office 2.0, and scouting for candidates we have made quite a few new discoveries, including some of these “obscure” names, that likely won’t remain obscure for long.
Perhaps the biggest “discovery” for me was Brainkeeper, a user-friendly enterprise wiki startup that officially launches today. Totally out of left field, they aim to be like market-leader Confluence in functionality yet have a friendly UI like Wetpaint. Oh, and add niceties like Workflow (Itensil?) and an API. Like I said before sometimes it pays to *not* be first on the market …
It was really interesting to watch the poll dynamics change yesterday and this morning. First, with only a handful votes cast unknown little Brainkeeper was leading the chart. Another leader was Koral, a content collaboration startup I’ve been planning to write about way too long now (until I pull my act together, see two reviews by Ismael and John Wilson). What’s content collaboration? It’s content management without the pain of “management”. As much as I am a fan of wikis, not all companies will embrace them: Koral helps those who mostly work with desktop documents (MS Office) share, update, collaborate painlessly.
Back to the poll: as more voters came in, predictably the “brand names” strengthened their position and the “obscure” ones fell somewhat behind. Still with 117 votes cast, I believe it’s mostly InnovationCreators’s primary reader-base, where Microsoft Sharepoint or Lotus Notes Blogsphere are not exactly popular. Like it or not those products will make a killing on the corporate market. So “brand name” here means the likes of Confluence by Atlassian, Socialtext, WordPress, Movable Type…etc.
Confluence’s #1 position on the list reflects it’s real-life market position: absolute leader in market share, revenue, functionality. Of course to maintain that position they can’t just sit on their laurels and they know that. At a really productive meeting with the San Francisco team recently we discussed their development plans, most of which I cannot share for now. However, I am happy to share that in the not-so-distant future Confluence will offer a hosted version – something I’ve repeatedly asked for:-).
As for competitor Socialtext, they revamped the product a few months ago: while I was fairly critical of some of the functional misses, the single biggest improvement was the UI: they went from an outright ugly product to a pleasant-looking, clean, friendly one. In fact this, along with other players (JotSpot, Wetpaint, Zoho, Brainkeeper) has turned the table: formerly good-looking Confluence now feels a bit … well, 2005-ish (?) Still the best, but somewhat boring. They are keenly aware of this and improving the UI is one of Atlassian’s key priorities.
JotSpot is in hibernation in the meantime, although TechCrunch speculates it may open up soon. Zoho is a newcomer to the wiki space, but not one to underestimate: they may just leapfrog all other players when they tightly integrate their full Suite (Write, Show, Sheet, Create) thus creating a truly powerful read/write/collaborate platform online.
Last, but not least two smaller wiki-players from the list: Itensil combines workflow with a wiki (now, religious wiki-fans deny the need for any structure or workflow, which is probably OK for a small group, but workflow is the way large corporations work), and System One combines a wiki with relevant enterprise search.
Without further ado (wasn’t this enough?) here’s the poll, please cast your vote:
You can click “view results” after you cast your vote, then “Complete results” to se more stats on the Zoho Polls site. Once there, click the “Rating” header to sort the list in ranking order – right now, with 117 votes cast Confluence is #1 with an average of 3.54, closely followed by Brainkeeper’s 3.50.
Current bid is $21,000 and you can arrange for low monthly payments… what a deal! Not necessarily risk-free, the seller only has one feedback, and wants 50% of the price transferred upon closing the auction.
Bonus: buyer is promised a magic transformation:
“We speak you the number of transport, you becomes the aircraft etc.”
A few weeks ago I noticed that Google was in the process of slowly killing the Picasa brand. You can still download the program, in fact it is still called Picasa, but Google ads now refer to Google’s Photo Software:
I guess I was partly right: Google now advertises Picasa as part of Google Pack. Although it’s possible to opt out, users who don’t pay attention end up with a bundle of apps they did not want: by deafult they get Google Earth, Google Screensaver, Google Desktop, Google Toolbar for Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox with Google Toolbar, Ad-Aware SE Personal, Norton AntiVirus 2005 Special Edition, Adobe Reader 7. Nice “gift” from the company that wants to do “no evil”.
Tags: google, picasa, google pack
Court orders alleged father to pay child support. Alleged father does not respond. Clock ticking, “debt” accumulates. “Father” gets arrested. Surprise: DNA proves he is NOT the father, which is what he said all along. Court decision: he has to pay “debt” anyway.
Where? In the great state of Arkansas. Full story on AP.
“Canadian coins containing tiny transmitters have mysteriously turned up in the pockets of at least three American contractors who visited Canada, says a branch of the U.S. Department of Defence…
…The counter-intelligence office of the U.S. Defence Security Service cites the currency caper as an example of the methods international spies have recently tried to illicitly acquire military technology.”
Read the full story on CBC News.
Publisher / Editor of CloudAve and Enterprise Irregulars.
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