Author: Gregory T. Huang

What Entrepreneurs Need Most in 2010—and Which Seattle Startups Are Hiring

startups, entrepreneurs, trends

Gregory T. Huang wrote:

January for startup companies is a little like spring training for baseball teams. Everyone is 0-0, they have the whole year in front of them, and anything is possible. With that in mind, I recently checked in with Rebecca Lovell, the executive director (and commissioner?) of the Northwest Entrepreneur Network, to hear her thoughts on the outlook for entrepreneurs in 2010. (NWEN now organizes about 65 events per year for startups and entrepreneurs.)

Lovell was her usual upbeat but realistic self, and she talked pretty openly about the slow pace of economic recovery and the dearth of early-stage funding in the region. “The downside of having a really experienced angel community is most of their money is tied up in their existing portfolios,” she said. “The danger is they’re getting distracted from new deals. Hopefully that triage process is coming to a close.”

In the meantime, entrepreneurs are still really struggling to score early-stage funding. “There is money out there, but we don’t have true seed capital,” she said. “There are ideas dying on the vine.” This is part of the reason why Lovell says she’s excited that a prominent program like TechStars, the Boulder and Boston-based startup bootcamp, is expanding to Seattle later this year.

“I’m very bullish on how many cool new ideas are bubbling under the surface,” Lovell said. “I think we’re going to see a resurgence in new businesses. We’re going to see a lot of companies make it, but not [have] enough capital infusion to ramp up. We’ll see a lot of one-to-three-person companies. I’ve got enough confidence that these ideas are bubbling up, and will start making an economic impact in 2011. There are some fast failures out there. There’s not a lot of dumb money going around. I think we’ll see [young companies] grow and flourish next year.”

Lastly, I asked Lovell what one thing entrepreneurs need the most these days. “Matchmaking,” she said, referring to finding the right co-founders and employees for their companies. “It’s around the team. They need self-awareness of what they’re missing.” (More on this soon.)

On a separate but related note, here’s a quick rundown of a few Seattle-area tech startups that have been actively hiring in the past month: Adaptiva, Appature, Cheezburger Network, DataSphere, Gist, Ground Truth (which just emerged from stealth mode yesterday), Melodeo, The Rubicon Project (which acquired Others Online), Socrata, Swype, and Tableau Software. Most of the open positions have been in engineering, but there are also some in sales, marketing, business development, and operations. This is an anecdotal list; I’m sure there are plenty of other prominent startups hiring at the moment. If you’re one of them, please leave a comment below or drop me a note.

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January 26, 2010
Bill Gates Posts Annual Letter, Backs Khosla

Leadership, Global Health, Education

Gregory T. Huang wrote:

Bill Gates has posted his 2010 annual letter for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The letter focuses on innovation and the foundation’s efforts in education, food, and health—tackling ambitious projects in online learning, agriculture, vaccines, malaria, and HIV, to name a few. Gates also has invested in Vinod Khosla’s most recent clean energy fund, which is just one highlight from his extensive interview with CNET. Gates is also an investor in the San Diego biofuel firm Sapphire Energy, and TerraPower, a nuclear energy spinout from Bellevue, WA-based Intellectual Ventures.

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January 25, 2010
Ground Truth Emerges from Stealth, Provides New Window Into Mobile Internet Usage

startups, Mobile, Internet

Gregory T. Huang wrote:

It’s been hard to keep a company like Ground Truth under wraps for this long. The secretive Seattle startup, led by prominent entrepreneurs Sterling Wilson and Michael “Luni” Libes, is emerging from stealth mode today, after raising $2.6 million in venture funding from Voyager Capital and Steamboat Ventures last summer. Although many in the startup community already know (or think they know) what Ground Truth is building, the company has just released some interesting details—while withholding many others.

The problem Ground Truth is solving is a big one. Everyone from marketers to media companies to wireless carriers wants information about things like how many mobile users are accessing which websites on their smartphones. The mobile Web has long been considered the next frontier for advertising and publishing, but nobody has had access to reliable and complete data on mobile users’ behavior. That’s because measurement methods from companies like comScore, Nielsen, Hitwise, and Google, while useful for the traditional Web, are limited for the mobile Web in terms of their scope, detail, and timeliness.

“The market needs a precise map of the landscape and a reliable route to navigate, and Ground Truth’s reliable, actionable data provides it,” said Wilson, the company’s CEO (and former president of Seattle mobile commerce firm Qpass), in a statement.

“The only data source that can provide precise measures of mobile media usage is the mobile network itself,” added Libes, Ground Truth’s founder and chief technology officer, also in a statement. Libes started building the patent-pending technology while at the mobile search firm he previously co-founded, Medio Systems.

Using extensive data from mobile operators and other providers, Ground Truth has analyzed the weekly mobile Internet usage of 2.5 million subscribers in the U.S. It has what it thinks is the most accurate and complete dataset so far on mobile Web use—including mobile traffic estimates for a large number of sites (unique visitors, pageviews), length of browsing sessions, and where a given site’s traffic comes from and where else it goes. In doing so, the company apparently has solved some difficult technical problems while keeping individual mobile subscribers’ privacy intact.

Ground Truth’s timing certainly seems good. The field of mobile Web metrics looks wide open, even as more and more people use their iPhones, BlackBerries, and other mobile devices to access the Internet. And with giants like Amazon, Apple, Google, AT&T, and Verizon (just to name a few) increasing their focus on mobile content and advertising, a company that makes tools that help …Next Page »

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January 25, 2010
Motricity Files for IPO

Mobile, Software, Finance

Gregory T. Huang wrote:

Bellevue, WA-based Motricity, a mobile software firm, has filed a form S-1 with the SEC, saying it plans to sell up to $250 million in an initial public offering. The company generated more than $100 million in revenue in 2008, and $117.1 million in the 12 months ending on September 30, 2009, but it is not profitable, according to the filing. Motricity was founded in 2001 and is backed by more than $400 million in venture funding from Carl Icahn, Technology Crossover Ventures, New Enterprise Associates, Advanced Equities, Intel Capital, and others. The company moved from North Carolina to Bellevue in March 2008, presumably to be closer to wireless customers like T-Mobile.

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January 22, 2010
Real Names New Head of Music, Media, Tech

digital media, management, people

Gregory T. Huang wrote:

Seattle-based RealNetworks has announced that Mike Lunsford has been named executive vice president of the Technology Products and Solutions and Media Software and Services divisions of the company. Lunsford, who joined Real in 2008, was previously executive vice president of strategic ventures, in charge of strategy and operations for Rhapsody America, the company’s digital music business with MTV Networks (which he will continue to oversee). The move follows the departure of CEO Rob Glaser and chief operating officer John Giamatteo, announced earlier this month. RealNetworks (NASDAQ: RNWK) is now led by president and acting CEO Bob Kimball.

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January 22, 2010
Friend or Foe: How Apple Is Forcing Microsoft, Amazon, Google, and AT&T to Raise Their Game

Software, Mobile, Analysis

Gregory T. Huang wrote:

Apple’s increasing overlap with other technology companies—including mainstays of the Seattle and Boston scenes—is one of the biggest business trends of the year. It doesn’t matter whether you are the world’s biggest software company (Microsoft), a Web search and advertising titan (Google), an online retail giant (Amazon), a wireless carrier (AT&T), a digital music startup (see this story on Seattle-based Melodeo), or a mobile advertising network (Cambridge, MA-based Jumptap): Apple is now moving in on your turf.

I’ve been talking with a number of techies about this tangled web and its implications for innovation. “What’s really interesting is the fact that everybody is sort of co-dependent and sort of competing,” says Steve Hall, managing director of Seattle-based Vulcan Capital. “Where companies start and stop is getting blurrier. AT&T is a network and a carrier, but it’s also trying to push specific devices to gain market share. Apple is a device maker and also an [operating system] and software maker, but it’s dependent on a network like AT&T.”

This is a relatively new phenomenon, says Hall, an avid iPhone user and longtime technology trend spotter. “In the pre-iPhone days, LG made my phone—who cares? That was decoupled from who was the software provider,” he says. But now with Apple and Google getting deep into the device market and controlling what’s in the mobile platform, “that has loosened the grip the carrier has had on the consumer choice,” he says. That doesn’t bode well for carriers.

A couple of new developments this week involve Microsoft, Google, and Amazon in particular. For one, there’s a rumor (floated in BusinessWeek) that says Microsoft and Apple are in talks to make Bing the default search engine on the iPhone, instead of Google. Whether or not the alleged talks go anywhere, it’s a very interesting premise, given that Apple and Google are increasingly butting heads in smartphones, mobile advertising, and digital music. (Interesting to note that former Genentech CEO Art Levinson, an Apple board member, left Google’s board in October, following Google CEO Eric Schmidt’s departure from Apple’s board last July; I wonder how long Al Gore can stay involved with both companies.)

Bing is already available on the iPhone as a downloadable app, or through its website. But the rumored partnership would boost Bing’s profile immediately, and would probably require users to change the search setting to Google (if they want to). One anonymous source with knowledge of Apple was quoted in BusinessWeek as saying, “Apple and Google know the other is their primary enemy. Microsoft is now a pawn in that battle.”

Meanwhile, Amazon announced today it is inviting software developers to create applications for its Kindle device, through a new development kit. That’s right, Amazon is going to offer apps (it calls them “active content”)—like games, puzzles, and restaurant guides—in its Kindle Store …Next Page »

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January 21, 2010
State Cleantech Experts Debate Policy, Finance, and Global Opportunities at MITEF Event

energy, Green Tech, trends

Gregory T. Huang wrote:

“The easy answer is, ‘Of course it will,’” said panel moderator Jesse Berst, the head of Redmond, WA-based research and consulting firm GlobalSmartEnergy. He was referring to the title of last night’s event in downtown Seattle organized by the MIT Enterprise Forum: “Will Green Return the Green?”

It’s a reasonable question, especially here in Washington state, where things have been fairly quiet on the cleantech and energy front as of late. Despite the presence of such companies as EnerG2, Verdiem, Optimum Energy, Powerit, Bio Architecture Lab, Areva T&D, Avista, and Imperium Renewables, much has been made of the region’s lack of competitiveness with other parts of the country like Silicon Valley and New England—not to mention global competitors like China. (I’m using a broad definition of “green” tech here to include both alternative energy and sustainability.)

To discuss business and policy leaders’ concerns around financing opportunities, regulations, resources, and hot areas in the green sector, the MIT Enterprise Forum (together with a team of volunteers led by Seattle law firm Graham & Dunn) convened a distinguished panel:

—Berst (the moderator), a global authority on smart grid technologies and economics, and an Xconomist.

—Patricia Irving, CEO and founder of Richland, WA-based InnovaTek, which develops technologies for sustainable energy and environmental safety.

—Rogers Weed, director of the Department of Commerce, Washington state (and a former Microsoft vice president).

—Roger Woodworth, vice president for sustainable energy solutions at Avista, the Spokane, WA-based energy and utilities company.

—Bradley Zenger, managing director at Pivotal Investments, an early-stage cleantech venture investing firm in Portland, OR.

(By the way, all of the panelists are involved with the Cleantech Open, which is gearing up for its 2010 business plan competition.)

Berst kicked things off by saying that dozens of smart grid companies around the world have been raising $50-100 million or more, and many will be going public in the next 12 to 18 months. In terms of Washington state, he said, “We’ve got some real challenges here around creating a real cleantech cluster. The one thing you can’t fake is proximity. We have a lot of islands of innovation scattered 150 miles apart.” He also talked about the entrepreneurial culture of the region: “We don’t have a lot of people with the urgent desire to crush” competitors in Silicon Valley, Boston, New York, and so forth, he said.

Irving, whose company makes fuel cells and other technologies for partners like Boeing, summed up the mindset of consumers in the Northwest. “We love to be green, but we’re not willing to take the risk that’s necessary to shift our paradigms,” she said. “Part of the challenge is we haven’t been willing to stand up. Sacrifices need to be made.”

Weed, who has been on the job for 10 months since being appointed by Gov. Christine Gregoire, said cleantech is one of Washington’s top three opportunities for growth. But the state faces two key challenges, he said. One is the budget situation. “The state is struggling to make …Next Page »

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January 21, 2010
Bill Gates, Opening Up to World of Social Media, Rolls Out New Website and Twitter Feed

people, Leadership, Internet

Gregory T. Huang wrote:

It feels like the dawn of a new era. As of yesterday, Bill Gates is officially on Twitter, where he has already attracted more than 235,000 followers in the first day or so. Gates also just announced a new website, called the Gates Notes, where he will be sharing his thoughts (that extend greater than 140 characters) on what he’s working on and the societal issues he’s passionate about—global health, education, the environment, and so forth.

The Microsoft co-founder and chairman—also the co-chair and trustee of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation—has always communicated extensively through memos, speeches, and books. Now he will be using social media and the Web to reach an even bigger, more mainstream audience, and to impart his message on a wide range of global issues he’s dived into since leaving his full-time job at Microsoft in June 2008.

To me, this feels like a big deal—like social media has passed another threshold. Gates being on Twitter means even the world’s richest man cannot hide from this mode of interactive communication. The world’s most influential people can no longer operate solely behind the scenes. I don’t know about you, but I don’t necessarily want to know what Gates is thinking about on a daily basis. Part of what makes certain leaders special is that you don’t know what they’re working on all the time. In any case, let’s hope his Web writings truly reflect his personal views and analysis, and are not just the product of a finely honed advisory staff and PR team.

The Gates Notes site is currently divided into a number of nevertheless intriguing sections: “What I’m thinking about” (including ways to deal with carbon emissions through innovation in transportation and electricity); “What I’m learning” (including references to books by Vaclav Smil, a global energy and population expert); and “My travels” (including his impressions of health care in India).

Gates says the site is an extension of the annual letter he writes for the Gates Foundation—this year’s will be posted on Monday, Jan. 25. “I decided to write an Annual Letter because in 2008, Warren Buffett encouraged me to find a way to share my thinking more broadly about the foundation’s goals and to assess as frankly as possible our progress toward achieving these goals,” Gates writes on his site. “I wrote my first Annual Letter in 2009, and I have to admit I was surprised by the outpouring of interest after it was published.”

For a little more context, Gates’s introductory note on his new site reads, in full:

“Since leaving my fulltime job at Microsoft to dedicate more time to our foundation, a lot of people have asked me what I’m working on. It often feels like I’m back in school, as I spend a lot of my time learning about issues I’m passionate about.

“I’m fortunate because the people I’m working with and learning from are true experts in their fields. I take a lot of notes, and often share them and my own thoughts on the subject with others through e-mail, so I can learn from them and expand the conversation.

“I thought it would be interesting to share these conversations more widely with a website, in the hope of getting more people thinking and learning about the issues I think are interesting and important. So, welcome to the Gates Notes.”

And welcome to a brand-new era of transparency in thought leadership.

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January 20, 2010
Visible Gets $22M to Expand, Tantalus Tracks Down $14M for Smart Grid, Avnera Closes $10M for Audio Chips, & More Seattle-Area Deals News

Roundup, deals, VC

Gregory T. Huang wrote:

The past week has been pretty busy in the Northwest, with a number of deals in software, Internet, electronics, and cleantech. And the activity wasn’t limited to Seattle—there’s a fair bit of news from Vancouver and Portland as well.

—Tantalus, a Burnaby, BC-based company that develops wireless networks for smart-grid applications, raised $14 million in equity financing led by Redpoint Ventures. It’s one of the bigger cleantech-related deals as of late.

—Cloudvox, a Seattle-based service that connects Web applications with phone services, was acquired by Chicago-based Ifbyphone, an Internet telephony firm. Financial terms were not disclosed.

—Beaverton, OR-based Avnera closed its $10 million Series D financing round, from new investor Onkyo and existing investors. Avnera develops technology for wireless audio chips and other consumer electronics applications.

—Seattle-based Gist, a startup focused on integrating information from the Web into people’s e-mail inboxes, announced that its software now works with IBM’s Lotus Notes communication and collaboration software, in limited release. It’s part of Gist’s strategy to push relevant information and updates to business people in order to make their meetings more efficient.

—Arch Venture Partners and Polaris Venture Partners, which both have Boston and Seattle operations, are paying $14 million for the assets of Iceland-based genomics firm deCode Genetics, as Ryan reported. DeCode (NASDAQ: DCGN) filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in November.

—Portland, OR-based AboutUs acquired Jyte.com, a social website that uses RPX, the flagship product from Portland startup JanRain. Financial terms weren’t disclosed. AboutUs is building a collaborative guide to the Web, and is backed by Seattle-based Voyager Capital.

—Bellevue, WA-based Visible Technologies landed $22 million in new funding, led by Investor Growth Capital, a new investor. Previous investors Ignition Partners, Centurion Holdings, In-Q-Tel, and WPP also participated in the round. Visible Technologies, which makes software to help companies and brands manage their online reputations, will use the funds to accelerate its global expansion, particularly in Europe.

—Seattle-based Big Fish Games expanded its partnership with Playfirst, based in San Francisco. Financial details of the multi-year deal weren’t given, but Big Fish will provide e-commerce and customer support services for PlayFirst’s game distribution portal, and PlayFirst gets access to the Big Fish game catalog.

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January 20, 2010
Cloudvox Bought by Ifbyphone

deals, acquisitions, Internet

Gregory T. Huang wrote:

Seattle-based Cloudvox, an online service that bridges Web applications with phone services for developers, has been acquired by Ifbyphone, an Internet telephony company based in Chicago. Terms of the deal were not given. Cloudvox was developed by Seven Scale, a startup led by Troy Davis, a former Loudeye and RealNetworks employee.

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January 20, 2010
Ken Myer, Outgoing Head of WTIA, on the Challenges of Trade Associations and Nonprofits—and His Future

people, Technology, community

Gregory T. Huang wrote:

First Rob Glaser, then Ken Myer. Who’s next? (These things always seem to come in threes.)

As a journalist, it can be hard to take off a holiday like MLK Day—you never know what juicy news you’re going to miss. Myer announced yesterday that he’s stepping down from his post as CEO and president of the Washington Technology Industry Association as of early April 2010. During his three years of service, he has presided over the WTIA’s evolution into something that encompasses more than just software companies—it now includes sectors like hardware, electronics, and cleantech, across a diverse membership of about 1,000 (representing some 125,000 employees). He also seems to have injected some fresh ideas and talent into the nonprofit trade organization, whose staff numbers a modest 11.

I caught up with Myer, 52, by phone this morning. The former IBM executive and co-founder of Interval Systems seemed his usual self—in good spirits and focused on the present. We touched on a few issues, including the challenges he has faced as the head of one of the largest statewide tech associations, and his plans to dive back into the commercial sector.

—On the history of his involvement with WTIA: Myer says he was a volunteer with the organization, formerly known as the WSA (Washington Software Alliance), from 1997-2002. (He even met his wife through it.) He also served as a volunteer board member. When former CEO Kathy Wilcox said she was retiring in 2006, Myer thought that was “interesting,” but he figured he wouldn’t go after such a position until he was much older. He changed his mind and submitted his application on the last day resumes were due.

—On running WTIA like a startup: “I thought I’d take a business approach to a trade organization,” Myer says. “And I wanted to give back [to the community]. It’s been really fun. It’s a young staff, and very different from those in the past. People have a lot of responsibility at a fairly young age. I’m running it in some ways like a startup. We took a step back, and said, ‘What are we about?’” Myer says he wanted the WTIA to have more of an impact on the younger generation. To that end, he also recruited startup leaders like Keith Smith, now CEO of BigDoor Media, to the board.

—On the main challenge of trade associations: “Trade associations and chambers of commerce have definitely felt it: the Internet. What an association is, it’s a group of people getting together and talking to peers. If [people] can do that online, you have to be really focused to deliver value,” Myer says. “Every new job, you have to adapt. What are the issues in this business, and what are the rules of the game? You are clearly appealing differently to people when you’re selling a membership in a trade association than when you’re selling a particular product or service. You’re appealing to their community instincts. You appeal to their return-on-investment needs, and their feelings of belonging to the community they’re part of.” At the same time, he says, “there are opportunities to partner [with other organizations] in this world that you don’t have in the commercial world. You’re mission driven, not profit driven.”

—On his timing and the future: “It’s principally time to make a change,” Myer says. “I really like big challenges, big problems to solve, big opportunities to go after. This job is not over. There’s always more that can be done. We’re just at the beginning.”

I pressed him a little on whether he’d return to an executive role at an established tech company. “I don’t know yet,” he said. “There was something very satisfying in doing something very different.” He added that he’ll probably look at both options—trying something new again, and returning to the industry in a more conventional role. “I’ve relied on my gut sense of what feels right. The common thing, as I look at my career, is I view every job as a new tool for my toolbox.”

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January 19, 2010
Tantalus Raises New Financing for Smart-Grid Wireless Technologies

deals, cleantech, funding

Gregory T. Huang wrote:

[Updated 1/20/10, 10:10 am. See below.] Cleantech wireless networking firm Tantalus, based in Burnaby, BC, has raised about $13.5 million in new equity financing, according to a regulatory filing. The round was led by the Silicon Valley firm Redpoint Ventures, and other existing investors also participated, according to a press release issued by Tantalus after the initial publication of this story. The company says the new funding round is worth a total of $14 million. [Previous two sentences modified on 1/20/10 with new information from the company—Eds.]

Tantalus makes wireless communications and networking technology that helps electric, gas, and water utilities monitor consumption and manage their resources. The company’s wireless network is used in parts of North America, and is meant to help both utilities and consumers manage their electricity use more efficiently by connecting devices like smart meters and thermostats to utilities’ control systems.

Tantalus was founded in 1989 and originally focused on radio frequency engineering for industrial automation and process control. In 2000, the company shifted its strategy to develop a wireless communication network for utilities, according to a company analysis in GigaOm. In 2007, the report says, Tantalus raised more than $18 million from European investors.

In 2008, the company formed a partnership with Itron (NASDAQ: ITRI), the Liberty Lake, WA-based energy technology company that makes smart meters for electricity, gas, and water, and other data collection and communication systems. The partnership combines Itron’s meters with the Tantalus wireless network, to support smart-grid and energy-efficiency applications.

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January 19, 2010
Avnera Closes $10M Series D

deals, funding, electronics

Gregory T. Huang wrote:

Beaverton, OR-based Avnera, which makes chips for wireless audio and other consumer electronics applications, announced today it has closed a $10 million Series D financing. The money was raised from new investor Onkyo, as well as existing investors. This is part of the same funding round we reported on in November, when the company had raised $8 million of the $10 million equity offering. Avnera was founded in 2004, and has now raised a total of $52 million in four rounds of financing from Altien Ventures, Bessemer Venture Partners, Best Buy Capital, DAG Ventures, Intel Capital, JAFCO Ventures, Onkyo Corporation, Panasonic Venture Group, Polycom Corporation, and Redpoint Ventures.

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January 19, 2010
Cheezburger, Zillow Top Startup List

startups, Internet, Rankings

Gregory T. Huang wrote:

Seattle-based Cheezburger Network, a collection of humor websites, retained its top position in Seattle 2.0’s monthly rankings of local startups’ Web traffic for December. It was followed by Zillow, Picnik, and BuddyTV, whose rankings didn’t change from the previous month. Redmond, WA-based Smilebox, a maker of electronic greeting cards, moved up seven spots to #5. Other notable gains were made by Cozi, Delve Networks, and BigStartups.

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January 19, 2010
Washington Startups Raised $21.7M in December, Down from $44.4M in Previous Month

deals, Software, Venture Capital

Gregory T. Huang wrote:

Just a quick recap of the venture deals in Washington state from the last month of 2009. Things really slowed down heading into the dead of winter, with just four venture financings, all in software and Internet, worth a total of $21.7 million (see table below). That’s less than half the money invested in November, when Washington-based companies saw $44.4 million put into 10 venture deals across healthcare, energy, and software.

That’s the official tally from ChubbyBrain, the New York-based maker of tools for investors, startups, and entrepreneurs. The figures include only companies headquartered in Washington state.

The good news, in my view, is that the December deals were all Series A or Series B financings of up-and-coming tech companies, all of whom we’ve been tracking at Xconomy. They ranged from LiveMocha, a Bellevue, WA, startup developing online language-learning software, to the brand new online-shopping startup Zulily in Seattle (both companies are backed by Seattle-based VC firm Maveron).

The fear is that, as the effects of the recession reverberate, venture firms will stay in triage mode and devote less of their energy to new startups and new ideas. So far, 2010 is looking a little more promising, but it’s still early.

Here is the recap of December 2009 venture deals in Washington:

.

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January 19, 2010
CEO Ken Myer to Leave WTIA

people, Jobs, Leadership

Gregory T. Huang wrote:

The Washington Technology Industry Association announced today that CEO and president Ken Myer is leaving his post at the end of March to return to the tech industry. Myer has headed the WTIA, one of the largest statewide associations of technology firms, for about three years, during which it made the transition from the Washington Software Alliance (WSA) to an organization that includes electronics, devices, and cleantech sectors as well. Executive search firm Herd Freed Hartz is conducting a search for Myer’s successor.

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January 18, 2010
T.A. McCann Talks New Partnership with IBM’s Lotus Notes, Gist Strategy for 2010

startups, Internet, Business Software

Gregory T. Huang wrote:

Seattle startup Gist announced today that its technology for connecting people’s e-mail inbox with the Web now works, in limited release, with Lotus Notes, IBM’s popular communication and collaboration software. Gist’s software will be made available to a select group of Lotus Notes customers in advance of a wider release still to come.

It’s part of Gist’s broader strategy to push information from the Web to business people, so as to make their daily work more efficient. Instead of looking up contacts and companies on the Web, for instance, Gist users can get updates delivered to them in whatever context they’re working in—e-mail, calendar, or spreadsheet. With Lotus Notes, wherever a name or e-mail address appears in a text document, say, Gist lists information about that person and their company.

So far, people can use Gist through Microsoft Outlook, Gmail, Salesforce.com, social media like Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn, and an iPhone application. The company says it has tens of thousands of users, and getting traction with Lotus Notes customers is the next big step.

“This gives us yet another enterprise-class partner,” says T.A. McCann, Gist’s founder and CEO. “It’s great to be working with IBM Global Services. It gets us to the other half of corporate e-mail in America.” Lotus Notes has more than 30 million users. It is particularly popular with consulting organizations.

McCann says the first half of this year will be about “continuing to refine the user experience.” After that, it will be time to go to market with some big corporate accounts. The company’s revenue model will be based on premium subscriptions, but it hasn’t given details about this yet. “Our strategy is to continue to integrate Gist into people’s daily workflow,” McCann says.

Gist has about 20 employees, and is backed by Paul Allen’s Vulcan Capital and Foundry Group. The company recently moved into new offices near Qwest Field.

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January 18, 2010
Rob Glaser’s Real Legacy: A New Mass Medium, New Markets, and Constant Reinvention

Leadership, digital media, people

Gregory T. Huang wrote:

The biggest news in a very busy week around the Seattle technology scene has been that Rob Glaser is out as chief executive of RealNetworks. Glaser stepped down on Wednesday after 16 years at the helm, but he remains chairman of the board and Real’s largest shareholder.

Back in 1994, after leaving Microsoft, Glaser founded Progressive Networks, which changed its name to RealNetworks and became a publicly traded company in 1997. Real is best known for its contributions in digital media, such as RealPlayer and RealAudio multimedia software, the RealGames and RealArcade video game business, and Rhapsody music service. (See a few thoughtful stories about Glaser’s impact on the tech world and the Seattle startup community, in the Seattle Times and TechFlash, and All Things Digital.)

Glaser, 47, has been a controversial figure throughout his time at Real, having earned a reputation as an intense and demanding leader. Some people will no doubt be interested in recent reports that he was “eased out” by Real’s board of directors, or that the value of his stock in the company has gone up by $40 million since he resigned. (He held 51,972,162 shares, or about a 38 percent stake in the company, as of its most recent proxy filing last August.)

But I wanted to start processing the news this week by talking with people Glaser worked with, to get a better sense of the man behind the reputation: his leadership qualities, vision, and impact. Here are some of the thoughts and reactions I’ve gotten so far from former Real employees in the business community.

From Kelly Jo MacArthur, former general counsel and chief of staff at RealNetworks (a 10-year veteran who left the company in 2007):

“Rob is indeed a visionary thinker. Throughout the time I’ve known him, people around the world have sought out his perspective, ideas, and vision. My hope is that we’ll get a lot more of Rob’s vision throughout society. He has a lot of perspective and interest in issues like climate change, and he’s very focused on the set of societal problems we’re facing for the next hundred years. And the opportunities we’ve created through a new mass medium, in the truest sense of the word, that we can all control and inform. It truly gives us the ability to be a much more educated, democratized, communicative, informed world. Which was one of his goals when he first wrote the business plan for Progressive Networks in 1994. The world is there now.

“I don’t know what [his] next thing will be. He must have so many possibilities. He still owns 38 percent of RealNetworks and is the chairman of the board. He cares very, very deeply about everyone at RealNetworks and the success of the company, frankly, less because of his financial interest than because he cares so deeply about the company and the people. I think he’ll continue to play the role of helping Real transform itself and move forward in the future.

“Transition is hard for any leader. But ideally, great leaders understand when their teams are ready and the time has come to let them lead the charge and step into a different place. I think he’ll be productive at Real in a different capacity. The team he has in place is extremely capable. Rob has a unique ability to hire some of the absolutely very best and brightest and committed people. That’s never changed, not in 16 years. The company went through and survived two very, very difficult economic cycles that few companies of its size and resources could. They survived many monumental shifts in the technology industry. They came out on the other side of being in the gun sights of Microsoft.

“I read somewhere this week that Rob is known for taking on big fights, and that’s one of the things that can make him interesting to work for. The challenge, of course, is always to …Next Page »

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January 15, 2010
AboutUs Buys Jyte, Works with JanRain

deals, Internet, startups

Gregory T. Huang wrote:

Portland, OR-based AboutUs announced this week it has acquired Jyte.com, a social website where people can make claims, vet ideas, and comment on others’. Financial terms were not given. Jyte uses RPX, the flagship technology of Portland startup JanRain that lets people use a single portable identity and login across different websites. AboutUs, which is backed by Seattle-based Voyager Capital, says it plans to implement RPX on its own site as well. Last month, JanRain announced its $3.25 million Series A round led by DFJ Frontier.

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January 15, 2010
Google in China: Ex-Microsoft VP Kai-Fu Lee’s Past Report Might Point to What Went Wrong

Internet, culture, Analysis

Gregory T. Huang wrote:

In the fascinating maelstrom that is Google in China, one thing is clear: this affects all of us. It’s not about whether Google’s decision to draw a line in the sand is based on ideals versus profits. It’s not about whether the Chinese government will open up its Internet policies and play ball with the rest of the world. It’s about the future of every company on the Web—including Microsoft, Amazon, RealNetworks, and all the smaller companies out there.

In case you haven’t been following every twist and turn, earlier this week Google said it might pull out of China following its investigation of a cyber attack that it says originated in China, targeting at least 20 large companies (including Google). One apparent goal of the attacks was to access the Gmail accounts of Chinese human rights activists. Google said it is “no longer willing to continue censoring our results on Google.cn, and so over the next few weeks we will be discussing with the Chinese government the basis on which we could operate an unfiltered search engine within the law, if at all. We recognize that this may well mean having to shut down Google.cn, and potentially our offices in China.”

Google’s statement is very carefully worded. It doesn’t explicitly accuse Chinese officials of any wrongdoing. But the reactions of a lot of people, from the media to tech-business leaders to U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, have helped portray the situation as a cut and dried “Google (and freedom of information) vs. China (and censorship)” issue.

I want to tackle one piece of this sprawling puzzle. And that is the huge, ongoing cultural challenge that Google, Microsoft, and other western companies face in setting up business operations in China. No, this is not a new issue. But one part of the Google announcement was particularly telling: “We want to make clear that this move was driven by our executives in the United States, without the knowledge or involvement of our employees in China who have worked incredibly hard to make Google.cn the success it is today.”

Google has now been up and running in China for four years. That is not a lot of time to build deep relationships. And it certainly doesn’t help that Google’s biggest competitor in China, Baidu, is backed by the Chinese government.

Heading up Google’s China effort until recently was Kai-Fu Lee, the controversial ex-Microsoft vice president who founded Microsoft Research Asia in Beijing in 1998. Lee, a Chinese high-tech celebrity and education leader, was head of Google China from 2006 until last September, when he left the company to create an incubator in Beijing for Chinese high-tech startups.

In my view, it may not be a coincidence that the current situation has come about so soon after Lee’s departure. Frankly, I’m surprised this all didn’t come to a head much sooner for Google. But perhaps it was through Lee’s efforts that it didn’t—or maybe, conversely, it’s part of why Lee left Google. (I’ve pinged him for comment, but haven’t heard back on this topic.)

Which brings me to some analysis. Back in 2003, while he was at Microsoft, …Next Page »

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January 14, 2010