Category: News

STELLAService Inc., a provider of customer service ratings for online retailers, has raised $15 million in Series B financing. Norwest Venture Partners led the round, which included existing STELLAService investors including Battery Ventures, DFJ Gotham Ventures, RRE Ventures and Forerunner Ventures. As a result of the round, Josh Goldman, General Partner at Norwest Venture Partners, has joined the company’s board.

PRESS RELEASE
STELLAService, Inc. today announced it has raised $15 million in Series B funding led by Norwest Venture Partners (NVP), a global multi-stage investment firm. STELLAService joins NVP’s retail and ecommerce portfolio that includes such companies as Gemvara, Gilt Groupe, ModCloth, Quirky and WhaleShark Media (RetailMeNot). Existing STELLAService investors including Battery Ventures, DFJ Gotham Ventures, RRE Ventures and Forerunner Ventures also participated in the round.

STELLAService’s new round of financing caps a year of success and expansion. Over the past 12 months the company has:

• Built and developed STELLA Metrics, the first data platform dedicated to monitoring and benchmarking every touch point of the online customer experience
• Deployed STELLA Metrics to charter partners that include some of the largest U.S. retailers
• Increased retailer adoption and consumer awareness of the STELLAService Seal, the Web’s only trustmark that objectively signals companies with great customer service
• Produced positive case studies with more than 15 retailers that showed a significant increase in sales achieved by prominently displaying the STELLAService seal
• Launched Happy Customer, an online publication for the ecommerce operator focused on customer service
• Produced 3,982,253 million data points on the service performance of online retailers

“STELLAService is on a mission to create a world with better service – we help consumers find it and we help businesses achieve it,” STELLAService Chief Executive Jordy Leiser said. “Each day, for the largest retailers in the country, we stress test their fulfillment and operations by ordering and returning real products; calling, emailing and live chatting customer service questions; and monitor customer service efforts via social media. We leverage our rigorous methodology for collecting data and measuring the speed and quality of every customer touch point. For the first time, major retailers now have a window into their service efforts and can objectively compare performance against any of their competitors on an ongoing basis, across every service channel. This new round of funding will help us expand and deepen our coverage of retailers and invest in a research team that is working closely with clients to identify competitive advantages and opportunities for high-impact improvement in the customer experience.”

STELLAService operates a nationwide team of analysts and highly trained mystery shoppers dedicated to stress testing the customer service performance of online retailers. The measurement process is audited by global auditing and accounting firm KPMG.
Through the STELLA Metrics online portal, retailers can monitor and manage performance across phone, email, chat, Twitter, shipping and returns. STELLA Metrics also allows retailers to analyze specific performance of their closest competitors, something that has never before been available.

“Not only does STELLAService capture how we are performing against the customer service targets we’ve set for ourselves, the greatest value has been the benchmarking data,” said Eddie Bauer’s senior vice president of sales and services. “With STELLAService, we know where we stand amongst the leading retailers and where the best in class perform across key customer service metrics. This insight pushes Eddie Bauer to continually make improvements to be the best.”

STELLAService also announced that Josh Goldman, General Partner at Norwest Venture Partners, joined the company’s Board of Directors. At NVP, Josh focuses on investments in consumer-facing Internet products and services including search, e-commerce, social networking and digital media. His current investments and board seats include ModCloth, Quirky, Lumosity, Gilt Groupe, Sojern, and WhaleShark Media (RetailMeNot), and he also holds board observer or advisory roles with Retrevo, Apigee, Sabre Holdings, and JiWire.
Goldman’s first executive leadership role was as president and CEO of mySimon, Inc., a pioneer in online comparison shopping services. Josh oversaw all aspects of the company’s growth culminating in its acquisition by CNet Networks in early 2000 for $703 million.

“There is no other objective, third-party rating system or reliable measurement of merchant quality in the online retail sector today that accurately evaluates customer service. STELLAService is the first and only company to utilize a consistent, bottom-up approach to rate businesses,” said Goldman. “As the first-mover in a vast market, STELLAService has already established critical relationships with the leading retailers, comparison shopping engines, and top academic and thought leaders in the customer service industry. The company’s proprietary data offering provides valuable, objective insight for measuring, benchmarking and improving customer service, and it has already proven to increase sales conversion for merchants. We look forward to partnering with STELLAService at a time when customer service is emerging as an increasingly important decision factor for the growing number of online shoppers in the U.S.”

With this Series B financing, STELLAService has now raised a total of $22 million.

About STELLAService
STELLAService is dedicated to customer service – helping consumers find it and helping businesses achieve it. STELLAService is the first and only independent provider of customer service ratings for online retailers. The company leverages a nationwide network of full-time mystery shoppers to evaluate each site undercover, ensuring findings that are unbiased and true to the shopping experience. Based in New York City, the company also builds STELLA Metrics, a platform for monitoring and benchmarking customer service performance across hundreds of metrics. In addition, the company publishes reports and other research to help companies worldwide improve their service operations.

About Norwest Venture Partners
Norwest Venture Partners (NVP) is a multi-stage investment firm that has partnered with entrepreneurs to build great businesses for more than 50 years. The firm manages over $3.7 billion in capital and has funded more than 500 companies since inception. Headquartered in Palo Alto, Calif., NVP has subsidiaries in Mumbai and Bengaluru, India and Herzelia, Israel. NVP makes early to late-stage venture and growth equity investments across a wide range of sectors including: technology, information services, business services, financial services, consumer products/services and healthcare. For more information, please visit www.nvp.com Follow NVP on Twitter @NorwestVP

The post STELLAService Raises $15M Series B appeared first on peHUB.

Investment firm CoBe Capital is acquiring the furniture division of Gorenje, which includes Gorenje Kuhinje and Gorenje Notranja oprema. Terms of the deal were not released. The Gorenje furniture division is a Slovenian manufacturer of kitchen and home interior cabinetry.

PRESS RELEASE
Velenje, Slovenia – CoBe Capital, a global private investment firm focused on operation of non-core and underperforming business units, announced today it has signed an agreement to acquire Gorenje Kuhinje and Gorenje Notranja oprema, collectively the furniture division of Gorenje, d.d. (LJSE:GRVG). The transaction is expected to close on March 1, 2013.

The Gorenje furniture division is a Slovenian manufacturer of kitchen and home interior cabinetry. The furniture division has nearly 400 employees across its three productions locations in Velenje, Nazarje and Maribor, Slovenia.

Gorenje had implemented several measures in recent years to improve the performance of the furniture division, however the desired results remained elusive and Gorenje decided to look for a strategic partner and divest the business.

Neal Cohen, CoBe Capital’s founder and Managing Director, stated, “We are extremely honored to have the trust and faith of Gorenje to be a brand partner going forward. We see tremendous opportunity to grow the furniture division of Gorenje through its quality craftsmanship, design and efficient production facilities offering quite competitive cost structures. We couldn’t be more pleased with our first acquisition in Slovenia.”

Dr. Henning Walf, CoBe Capital’s Managing Director for Northern Europe, stated, “Gorenje needed a strategic partner who was committed to maintaining the high standard of quality that the Gorenje brand represents. We view the Gorenje furniture division as a highly complementary operation to Warendorf in terms of process capabilities, market presence and breadth of product range.”

Dr. Walf will work closely with the existing management teams at Gorenje Kuhinje and Gorenje Notranja oprema to strengthen the company’s operational and financial fundamentals, as well as drive expansion across Europe and into other markets around the world.

Dr. Walf and Mr. Darren Chaffee led the transaction on behalf of CoBe Capital. This is Dr. Walf’s third transaction with CoBe Capital, following the acquisition of Warendorfer Küchen and the assets of Kornmüller GmbH & Co KG. This transaction represents CoBe Capital’s first investment in Slovenia. Within 60 days of closing the acquisition of Warendorfer Küchen, CoBe Capital has now added two high-quality, low-cost European kitchen cabinetry manufacturers to complement Warendorf and deliver cost synergy to the operation. With the addition of Gorenje Kuhinje and Gorenje Notranja oprema, CoBe Capital will have operations in France, Germany, Austria and Slovenia, in addition to its satellite offices in Paris, France and Cologne, Germany.

CoBe Capital was represented by Markus Bruckmüller, WolfTheiss.

About Gorenje Kuhinje and Gorenje Notranja oprema

Gorenje Kuhinje and Gorenje Notranja oprema, together comprising the furniture division of Gorenje, are Slovenian manufacturers of kitchen and home interior cabinetry. Their product range includes modern, classic and rustic designs that allow for unlimited customization of color, surface and measurement with a highly engineered production process for both solid wood and veneer kitchens that ensures furniture of the highest quality.

About Gorenje, d.d. (LJSE:GRVG)

Gorenje Group is a leading European home appliance manufacturer with a tradition spanning over 60 years. The offer of home appliances branded Gorenje, Gorenje+, Asko, Atag, Pelgrim, Mora, Etna, Upo, and Körting is extended with HVAC equipment, other home appliances and kitchen furniture. Gorenje Group, with worldwide annual revenue of EUR 1.34 billion, exports home appliances and other home products to over 70 countries.

About CoBe Capital

CoBe Capital, a global private investment firm with a permanent capital base, specializes in the acquisition and operation of non-core and underperforming business units in the Americas and Europe from leading global corporations. CoBe Capital owns and operates a diversified portfolio of companies and strives to achieve long-term growth based on lean management and continuous improvement business philosophies. CoBe Capital was founded by Neal Cohen in 1994.

The post CoBe Capital Buys Furniture Biz of Gorenje appeared first on peHUB.

Just because somebody owns an iPad doesn’t mean they use iTunes. There’s a wealth of options available to the iPad owner looking for an app to store their music collection. Amazon’s Cloud Player could be a strong competitor, but the lack of a dedicated iPad app was a hurdle it didn’t overcome until today.

Amazon announced that its Cloud Player app has finally been updated and optimized for the iPad. Just like the iPhone app, Cloud Player lets Amazon Cloud Player subscribers store up to 250 songs for free on the cloud, with support for 250,000 songs coming in at $24.99 a year.

“We introduced our Cloud Player app for iPhone and iPod touch last summer and it’s been incredibly popular with our customers so we’ve now expanded it to iPad,” said Steve Boom, Vice President of Digital Music for Amazon. “Our goal is to make Cloud Player the most widely compatible cloud playback solution available, giving our customers the ability to buy their music once and enjoy it everywhere.”

Amazon Cloud Player may not take over iTunes dominant position on the iPad, but it’s a good alternative for the rare consumer who owns an iPad and an Android phone. Cloud Player can sync songs between both devices for a relatively painless music listening experience.

You can grab the newly iPad optimized Amazon Cloud Player from Apple’s App Store for free.

Caffeine-addicted New York Times fans are in luck — the paper is offering 15 free articles a day to those who surf its website while sitting in a Starbucks. This is just the latest example of how news brands are using the public’s insatiable appetite for free WiFi as a vehicle to promote their content.

Under the Times‘ Starbucks plan, which went into effect last week but was announced today, readers will be entitled to read three articles a day from each of the News, Business, Technology and Most Emailed sections. The Times will also offer three more articles from a rotating list of other sections like Sports.

The Starbucks offer comes at a time when the Times is tightening loopholes around its so-called “metered paywall” which caps readers at 10 free articles a month.

Times spokesperson, Linda Zebian, confirmed by phone that the 15 articles available through Starbucks are in addition to the 10 free monthly ones. The catch, however, is that the Times’ chooses the free Starbuck stories. It offers them on a special landing page that looks like this:

Zebian would not provide specifics about the business arrangements between the Times and Starbucks, and only noted that the Times has long sold its newspapers through the coffee chain. Most Starbucks locations across the country provide free WiFi.

The Starbucks gambit is just one way that news brands are using WiFi to promote and distribute their digital content. In August, the Wall Street Journal announced a plan to provide free WiFi access in more than 1300 hotspots in New York and San Francisco; the only requirement is for readers to log-in to the Journal’s website. These WiFi schemes provide the news companies not only with exposure, but also allow them to glean valuable customer data such as where and when readers visit their sites.

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Update, 9:53 AM PT: Amazon’s updated the Kindle iOS app to fix the bug, and the updated app is in the App Store now.

After fielding complaints from users of its iOS Kindle app of reset reading settings and missing books following an update, Amazon is now cautioning its iOS users against downloading the latest software update to its ereader app.

TUAW spotted the warning from Amazon Wednesday morning. Amazon posted a note on the app’s page in the iOS App Store that read “There is a known issue with this update. If you are an existing Kindle for iOS user, we recommend you do not install this update at this time.”

Complaints lodged by users who downloaded the update include one who said the “upgrade erased all content on my iPad, including all of my bookmarks” and another who said the “update deleted all books from my iPad, and I had to register again, creating a second name for the same iPad. It’s like starting all over again. Now I have to upload over 130 books from the cloud.”

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In case you haven’t heard, they’re making a Titanic II. Not a sequel to the James Cameron movie, but a sequel to the actual ship. The project was announced last April by Australian tycoon Clive Palmer, as the flagship of Blue Star Line, his cruise company. The plan is for it to launch in 2016.

The ship’s blueprint has now been unveiled, along with artists’ renderings of what the interior will look like. The Daily Mail shares this video:

Noted Titanic experts Steve Hall and Daniel Klistorner were announced as design consultants in October.

The ship will begin a six-day voyage in late 2016, if everything goes according to plan. It is supposed to follow a similar route to that of the original ship. Construction will begin this year.

A dinner is being held in London on March 2nd, and it will display items salvaged from the original Titanic.

Tineesha Lashun Howard, a 22-year old Florida woman, is being sought in connection to the deadly Vegas Strip shooting that left 3 people dead last week.

Police say Howard was likely in the black Range Rover that suspect Ammar Harris was driving when he fired shots at fellow rapper Kenny Cherry, Jr. and are trying to track her down for questioning. Because Harris has a long criminal record–including robbery, sexual assault, kidnapping and soliciting prostitution, officials say Harris is considered a missing and possibly endangered person.

Harris has been the subject of a manhunt since the shooting last Thursday, which immediately killed Cherry and caused his Maserati to spin out of control, creating a chain-reaction crash that involved several other vehicles and killed two people in a taxi, including the driver. The cab company has pledged $35,000 to anyone who can help police track down Harris.

“I’m confident he’s going to be charged and prosecuted for murder and other related offenses,” Las Vegas DA Steve Wolfson said. “Let’s just get him into custody, because this is a dangerous man.”

Howard is described as being 5-feet 8-inches tall and around 120 pounds, with green eyes and dark hair. She is also known as Yenesis Alfonzo. Harris is described as 26 years, old, about 5-foot-11 and 180 pounds, with brown hair and brown eyes. Anyone with information about Howard or Harris is asked to call Metro’s Homicide Section at (702) 828-3521, or Crime Stoppers at (702) 385-5555.

How pissed off is television director David Petrarca that many of the shows that he directs are pirated by millions?

Not that much, really.

In fact, Petrarca thinks that downloading is crucial to the survival of the types of shows he directs.

Speaking at the Perth Writers Festival this past weekend Petrarca, who has directed episodes of hit HBO shows like Game of Thrones, Big Love, True Blood, and Boardwalk Empire, said that ‘illegal’ downloads don’t really matter because shows like those rely on “cultural buzz.” The piracy actually helps the shows succeed in a way, as more viewers equals more “social commentary.”

“That’s how they survive,” he said.

Petrarca also argued that HBO’s 60 million worldwide subscribers insulates them a bit from any negative effects of piracy.

HBO’s Games of Thrones was crowned as the most pirated television series of 2012 back in December. According to BitTorrent numbers, Game of Thrones logged over 4.28 million downloads, compared to 4.2 million estimated U.S. TV viewers.

Petrarca went on to tout the popularity of premium cable, saying that “everybody wants to do it now.” He said that it look Steven Spielberg years to produce Lincoln, and it could have been done in just months on HBO.

[Sydney Morning Herald]

The O’Reilly Strata Conference is underway this week in Santa Clara, and Cloudera, DDN and MapR all have big data announcements. The Strata Conference online conversation can be followed on the Twitter hashtag #Strataconf.

Cloudera Enterprise evolves. Cloudera announced the next evolution of its platform for big data, Cloudera Enterprise, designed to meet and exceed enterprise business continuity and compliance requirements and simplify integration with existing data management systems. New advancements in the Enterprise platform include Cloudera Navigator, Cloudera Enterprise BDR (Backup and Disaster Recovery), along with version 4.5 of the company’s market-leading management interface, Cloudera Manager. ”The market has reached an important milestone,” said Mike Olson, CEO of Cloudera. “There is now a wave of mainstream enterprise interest in the integration of Apache Hadoop into existing IT environments. At Cloudera, our experience — our large installed base includes more than half the Fortune 100 — gives us a clear understanding of enterprise requirements. With the new enhancements announced today, we offer customers the most advanced, most mature business-ready solution capable of supporting critical enterprise data and systems management needs.”

DDN launches hScaler appliance. DataDirect Networks (DDN) announced the hScaler appliance, an Apache Hadoop platform for big data with integration and flexibility optimized specifically for the enterprise. As an enterprise appliance the hScaler features a plug-and-play experience with a single-pane-of-glass management interface to simplify monitoring of the entire Hadoop infrastructure. It combines high throughput shared storage, powered by DDN’s Storage Fusion Architecture (SFA) capabilities, and a high performance server framework. It leverages the SFA12K platform, a 40GB/s InfiniBand storage appliance that crunches big data with 1.4M sustained SSD IOPS in real-time. “DDN’s hScaler appliance represents the next step forward in the democratization of big data. It takes an advanced analytics solution that was economical for only the richest and most information-driven organizations in the world and puts it well within the grasp of enterprise CIOs,” said Jean-Luc Chatelain, Executive Vice President of Strategy and Technology, DDN. ”For enterprises seeking to maximize the value of their information, hScaler technology presents an opportunity to do so at a lower cost — in terms of time, money, and resources — than ever before.”

MapR sets MinuteSort record.  MapR Technologies announced a new world record for MinuteSort, sorting 15 billion 100-byte records (a total of 1.5 trillion bytes) in 60 seconds using Google Compute Engine and the MapR Distribution for Apache Hadoop. The benchmark, often referred to as the World Cup of data sorting, demonstrates how quickly data can be sorted starting and ending on disks. The benchmark was completed on 2,103 virtual instances in the Google Compute Engine. Each virtual instance consisted of four virtual cores and one virtual disk, for a total of 8,412 virtual cores and 2,103 virtual disks. “The record is significant because it represents a total efficiency improvement executed in a cloud environment,” said Jack Norris, VP of marketing, MapR Technologies. “In an era where information is increasing by tremendous leaps, being able to quickly scale to meet data growth with high performance makes business analytics a reality in situations previously impossible.”

Amazon’s streaming music service, Cloud Player, has been available on iOS for more than six months, but designed for an iPhone or iPod touch screen. But as of Wednesday, it’s now optimized for both the larger display of the iPad and the slightly smaller iPad mini, Amazon announced Wednesday.

The service lets you stream music you already own from the cloud or store songs locally. The first 250 songs can be stored for free, but for $25 a year users can store up to 250,000 songs.

Cloud Player was once only available for Android users. But the company has expanded its music app’s reach to iOS, as well as to cars. In January Ford announced that it was adding Cloud Player to its FordSync connected car platform.

The Cloud Player app is free on iOS and the latest update is available in the App Store as of Wednesday morning.

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3D printers and the auto industry have a pretty good relationship. Major auto manufacturers use the technology to rapidly prototype new parts, and enthusiasts, like Jay Leno, use 3D printers to recreate auto parts that are no longer made. That’s why it’s not too surprising to see the next leap in 3D printed auto manufacturing be an actual vehicle.

Wired has a great piece up today on Kor Ecologic – a company dedicated to rethinking the automobile with the help of 3D printers. The company, started by Jim Kor, is building a new kind of car called the Urbee 2. The vehicle features a lightweight chassis made possible by the ABS plastic its printed with.

A lightweight plastic chassis seems kind of dangerous though. Is this 3D printed car even road safe? The answer is a resounding yes as Kor uses a 3D printing method called Fused Deposition Modeling that can make ABS plastic as hard and resilient as traditional cars produced in a factory.

What may interest most people about the Urbee beyond its 3D printed chassis is the fact that it should get exceptional fuel mileage. The car’s light weight means that it will burn far less fuel when on the road, and it will save even more fuel with its hybrid engine.

The Urbee may be desirable for its reported safety and fuel mileage, but how will various regulatory bodies feel about the vehicle? Will it get a pass? Kor told Wired that he feels confident that the Urbee’s three-wheeled design and light weight will ensure that it gets passed as a motorcycle. That being said, the team will conduct extensive safety testing to make sure it “exceed[s] most, if not all, current automotive safety standards.”

So, how much will the Urbee 2 cost when it goes into full production? The original prototype was priced at about $50,000. The price of the production model shouldn’t be too far away from that.

To get an idea of how the Urbee drives, here’s a video from last year of the first prototype being taken out for a test drive:

Last week, EA released a video in which SimCity creator Will Wright sat down with Ocean Quigley, creative director of the new SimCity, to speak about the design decisions made on the new iteration. Wright, who is not directly involved with the creation of the new SimCity, praised the new game for its depiction of consequences for player decisions and the ability to, possibly, make players feel guilty about mistakes or misfortune.

This week, a video of Will Wright sitting down with Maxis‘ Stone Librande, lead designer of the new SimCity (and narrator of earlier SimCity walkthroughs) to talk about his experience of trying out the new game. Wright praises the use of curved roads and the ability for cities to specialize. He also states that instead of identifying with the individual sims living in his cities, he identified with neighborhoods and pictured himself living in them.

Cloud computing and the growing usage of the Internet has placed even greater demands on a corporate data center. Now, organizations are relying more and more on their IT infrastructure to be the mechanism to drive growth and enable agility. Because of this focus on the data center, concerns around security have continued to grow as well. As a result, the growing scale and frequency of distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks are taking a toll on these businesses.

The creativity in attacks has evolved with the growth in data center utilization. Where “volumetric” attacks were common, now organizations have to deal with advanced application-layer attacks. Furthermore, they are seeing greater amounts of attack-based data being thrown at an organization. The challenge now becomes understanding how modern security system interact with DDoS attacks.

IPS devices, firewalls and other security products are essential elements of a layered-defense strategy, but they are designed to solve security problems that are fundamentally different from dedicated DDoS detection and mitigation products. When analyzing the structure and impact of a DDoS attack, administrators must understand that their current security infrastructure may not necessarily protect them against a denial of service attack. This is where working with Intelligent DDoS Mitigation Systems is a must. IDMS solutions are placed within a data center to help prevent both volumetric and application-layer attacks. Arbor Networks outlines the key features of IDMS and how they can benefit an organization. These features include:

• Stateless
• Inline and Out-of-Band Deployment Options
• Scalable DDoS Mitigation
• Ability to Stop “Distributed” DoS Attacks
• Multiple Attack Countermeasures
• Comprehensive Reporting
• Industry Track Record and Enterprise

Download this white paper from Arbor Networks to see where current security devices fall short and how a DDoS attack can actually maneuver around modern firewalls and IPS solutions. By securing both internal and external data center components, security administrators create a logical layered defense strategy. By doing so, managers are able to be proactive against attacks and help prevent data loss, unwanted intrusions, and increase uptime.

The rumblings have been around for weeks but now they’re breaking the surface: Cloud Foundry, the open source platform-as-a-service framework faces a bit of an insurrection. Several vendors, such as AppFog, ActiveState, Tier 3, Uhuru, etc. — have built PaaSes atop the framework and some have quietly been mulling forking the Cloud Foundry code, citing lack of clarity about the project’s future.

The attraction of the multi-vendor Cloud Foundry effort is that, in theory, it would provide customers an array of compatible PaaSes from different vendors. If they don’t like their experience with one, they can move their code elsewhere. But now the prospect of a “fork” looms with some other vendors thinking of splitting off and doing their own iterations. Worst case scenario: that could negate any promise of compatibility. And that raises the old bugaboo of vendor lock-in which even PaaS providers say has restricted business demand for PaaSes.

Some background: late last year, VMware turned over the Cloud Foundry effort and related projects to the Pivotal Initiative spinoff. Since then some of the third-party Cloud Foundry crowd have complained that they have not gotten information  they need from Pivotal. And, they worry that Pivotal or VMware will push its own commercial, competitive version of Cloud Foundry. And so they privately discussed forking the Cloud Foundry code. Any fork or forks raises the specter of a fractured standard.

Sinclair Schuller, CEO of Apprenda, a non-Cloud Foundry PaaS, raised a ruckus last week when he posted his take on the impact of any fork or forks on Cloud Foundry. (Long story short: it will be bad for customers, Schuller wrote.) That caused a kerfuffle which Redmonk analyst Stephen O’Grady addressed in his  blog post. O’Grady tried to downplay the negative impact of forks, writing:

“We reject the notion that forking is an undesirable outcome. Forking is, to the contrary, provably beneficial to modern open source projects – at least from a developmental perspective.”

But O’Grady also conceded that, because Cloud Foundry is not licensed under the General Public License (GPL) — as Linux was — it faces different issues;

“Compatibility, ultimately, is the key to determining whether the forks which are so beneficial to development are a problem for customers. Java, for example, had multiple distinct implementations, which ensured competition and thus continued innovation to benefit customers.”

In his own blog post, cloud pundit Ben Kepes cites “tensions in the Cloud Foundry world, ” and maintains the possibility of a fork should concern customers.

“Quite simply a fork, or even worse multiple forks, too early in a project is a sign of bad governance and questions the validity of the entire initiative. Let me reiterate – these are very early days and any doubt that factions in the community sow in end users minds are wildly damaging to the community. This is especially the case since, from what I’m hearing, some of the conversation around forking is happening for all the wrong reasons – it comes down to vendors making the right decisions for the right reasons.”

I’ve asked Cloud Foundry and some of the third-party PaaS providers for comment and will update this when they get back to me.

Photo courtesy of  Flickr user Marshall Astor – Food Fetishist

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It appears that after seven years of coaching the Team USA basketball team, Duke Coach Mike Krzyzewski (otherwise known as Coach K) will not be coaching it any longer.

Krzyzewski said on ESPN’s Mike & Mike in the Morning, “I’ve loved, loved, loved, and it’s been an honor being with the USA Basketball team. And to coach the team and work with [chairman and president Jerry Colangelo] for seven years has been marvelous.”

In 2005, Krzyzewski was appointed coach. His record as head coach of the USA National Team was 62–1. His team got four golds in all (FIBA Americas Championship 2007, 2008 Summer Olympics, the 2010 FIBA World Championship and the 2012 Summer Olympics) and one bronze (2006 FIBA World Championship).

Here’s what people are saying on Twitter:

If Coach K is done coaching the USA team, the 3 replacement candidates should be (in no order) Gregg Poppovich, Doc Rivers, or Rick Carlisle

— GrizzlyBlair (@grizzlyblair) February 27, 2013

Coach K is steps down as coach of Team USA. He finally realized to deal with NBA attitudes, he just needs to keep coaching college.

— Captain Chris (@CatCappy) February 27, 2013

Saw a story that said “Coach K Done” I must admit my heart skipped a beat before I clicked on the story. #Relief

— Gylee Brooke (@gbrooke21) February 27, 2013

Amazing work what Coach K did with Team USA…Made it popular again for our best athletes to represent our country.

— Kevin Snyder (@CoachKSnyd) February 27, 2013

Team USA facing crisis as both Kobe Bryant and Coach K not returning to future FIBA or olympic games!!

— Joshua Koh (@JoshuaKys) February 27, 2013

@kyrieirving should try play for Australia now that Coach K has stepped down as coach of Team USA! would love to see him in the Green & Gold

— James Darrell (@JimmyDaReal) February 27, 2013

If what you have done yesterday still looks big to you, you haven’t done much today. -Mike Krzyzewski

— Duke Vitale (@DukeVitale) February 27, 2013

In my opinion, Doc Rivers. RT @sinow: Who should replace Coach K as head coach for Team USA? bit.ly/WgOj9i

— Arthurlee Mitchell (@Arthurlee_M) February 27, 2013

I get that you built a super-complicated machine to separate the Oreo cookies from the Oreo creme. Seriously, I get it. It’s so you can harvest all the creme and make one mega creme-filled cookie, right?

No? It’s because you hate the creme? What the hell?

[Oreo]

Canadian government agency Public Safety Canada, which is tasked with overseeing cyber-security across all federal departments, has issued a memo warning government workers that communicating using BlackBerry Messenger PIN-to-PIN messaging is “the most vulnerable method of communicating on a BlackBerry.” Canada’s Postmedia News obtained the memo this week, which repeatedly advises workers to avoid sending PIN-to-PIN messages on their BlackBerry (BBRY) phones.

Continue reading…

Verdesian Life Sciences has acquired Northwest Agricultural Products, a provider of specialty agricultural products. Terms were not disclosed. Verdesian Life Sciences focuses on investments in plant health and nutrition.

PRESS RELEASE
Verdesian Life Sciences, LLC (“Verdesian”), a Paine & Partners, LLC (“Paine & Partners”) company, today announced that it has acquired Northwest Agricultural Products, LLC (“NAP”), a world-class provider of specialty agricultural products. Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

NAP specializes in eco-friendly products designed to meet the diverse needs of the agricultural community through advanced chemical and biological innovation, with a focus on enhanced plant health, optimized crop yields and overall quality. The company’s strong portfolio of products is highlighted by Sterics�, which enhance the absorption of phosphorous, and PolyAmines, which deliver essential micronutrients. It also produces biostimulants and biopesticides, with its Intracept and Bloomtime FD product lines. NAP’s technical strengths include plant pathology and physiology, advanced fermentation, bioprocess development and chemical, biochemical and environmental engineering. As a subsidiary of Verdesian, NAP will continue to operate independently out of Pasco, WA, through the 2013 season.

JJ Grow, Chief Executive Officer of Verdesian Life Sciences, said, “We are excited about our transaction with NAP, which is an important next step in Verdesian’s growth strategy. The acquisition of NAP underscores Verdesian’s strategic focus on plant technologies that enhance the uptake of key nutrients using multiple modes of action as well as aligning plant health nutritional technologies with agronomic practices. NAP’s differentiated products – its bioscience lines, in particular – are highly complementary to Biagro Western’s, which Verdesian acquired in 2012. NAP has built a strong position in its markets, and Verdesian will leverage its international platform to expand NAP’s customer base to take it to a new level of growth. We look forward to working with NAP’s employees and we welcome them to the Verdesian family.”

David Bergevin, Founder of NAP, said, “We are excited to team up with Verdesian – a strong platform that offers the experience and resources necessary to help a highly specialized company like NAP to grow and develop. We are confident that NAP can use the Verdesian platform to expand its business and energize its sales and marketing capabilities so that its products can enhance plant health and nutrition in markets where they are needed most.”

Verdesian focuses on investments in plant health and nutrition and was established in September 2012 by Paine & Partners, a global private equity investment firm that specializes in the food and agribusiness industry globally. Verdesian acquired Biagro Western Sales, LLC, a leader in protected technologies for developing plant health and plant nutrition products, in September 2012. Further information about Verdesian is available at www.VLSci.com.

About Northwest Agricultural Products, LLCEstablished in 1989 by David Bergevin in Pasco, WA, Northwest Agricultural Products, LLC is a world-class provider of specialty agricultural products. The eco-friendly products are designed to meet the diverse needs of the agricultural community through advanced chemical and biological innovation, with a focus on enhanced plant health, optimized crop yields and overall quality. Its strong portfolio of products is highlighted by Sterics� and PolyAmines. Northwest Agricultural Products also produces biostimulants and biopesticides, with its Intracept and Bloomtime FD product lines. The Company’s technical strengths include plant pathology and physiology, advanced fermentation, bioprocess development and chemical, biochemical and environmental engineering.

About Verdesian Life Sciences, LLCVerdesian Life Sciences focuses on investments in plant health and nutrition. Verdesian’s strategy is geared towards plant technologies that enhance the uptake of key nutrients using multiple modes of action as well as aligning plant health nutritional technologies with agronomic practices. In September 2012, Verdesian acquired Biagro Western Sales, LLC, which focuses on protected technologies for developing plant health and plant nutrition products. Further information about Verdesian is available at www.VLSci.com.

About Paine & Partners, LLCPaine & Partners provides equity capital for management buyouts, going private transactions, and company expansion and growth programs. Paine & Partners engages exclusively in friendly transactions developed in cooperation with a company’s management, board of directors and shareholders. The firm currently makes investments through its $1.2 billion fund, Paine & Partners Capital Fund III, L. P. and related entities.

Paine & Partners focuses on the food and agribusiness industry globally, and its principals, through a predecessor fund, have made successful strategic investments in Seminis, then the world’s leading global developer, producer and marketer of vegetable and fruit seeds; and Advanta Netherlands Holdings BV, at the time, the largest independent agronomic seed company in the world. Paine & Partners also invested in Icicle Seafoods, a leading producer, harvester and processer of salmon, pollock, halibut, cod, crab and other seafood products with operations in North and South America and sales globally. Paine & Partners’ most recent investments include Eurodrip, a global manufacturer and supplier of drip irrigation solutions; Verdesian Life Sciences, LLC, a U.S.-based plant health and nutrition investment platform; Scanbio Marine Group, a leading Norwegian producer of fish protein concentrate, fish meal, and fish oil; and Costa Group, Australia’s largest integrated grower, packer and marketer of fresh fruits and vegetables. The complex investment opportunities in today’s rapidly evolving agribusiness environment play to the strengths of Paine & Partners’ differentiated approach. For further information, see www.painepartners.com.

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One week before delivering the final manuscript of my book, Taking Smart Risks, I came to a disturbing realization. There were 38 stories in the book, but only seven were about women.

Jill Logan, an employee helping me get the final product out the door, noticed it. I was stunned. My first reaction was That can’t be true. I walked over to the whiteboard listing each story and counted them myself: Seven out of 38. She was right.

I looked at Jill and said, “How in the world did this happen!?” I had run that group of stories through so many filters to ensure I was capturing everything in a balanced way — age, size of company, industry, geography. How did I not keep a closer eye on gender? Only 18% of the stories involved women. I felt embarrassed. I thought to myself, “I, of all men, should have caught that.” More than half of my leadership consulting clients over the last decade have been women. Furthermore, twenty years ago, my mother, a PhD in Organizational Psychology, had written a 454-page dissertation titled On Being a Bright and Ambitious Woman — which was, in essence, about women taking risks in business.

After berating myself for 30 minutes, I got genuinely curious. I wanted to answer the rhetorical question I had asked Jill. Really, how in the world did this happen?

I started by looking at the original network of people I had contacted to source the stories: seventy-eight successful, intelligent, forward-thinking men and women. I thought that perhaps I had introduced the bias from the start by contacting more men than women. Nope. The network actually contained more women than men, forty to thirty-eight.

Then I did my best to recreate the universe of potential stories that the network generated. I counted 129. I quickly realized that this is where the imbalance started. Only 47 of the stories (36%) contained women. When I had asked my initial question — “Who, from your personal networks, would you consider smart, successful risk takers?” — two-to-one, more men than women had come to mind, even though the responding group was more female than male.

That was an interesting data point worth further consideration. But it still didn’t account for the final outcome — only 18% of my stories involved women, not 36% or even close to that. I was the perpetrator of this further reduction. From the pool of 129 stories I had collected, eighty-two were about men and I chose thirty-one of them for inclusion — that’s 38% of the male stories. Forty-seven were about women, and I chose seven of them for inclusion — that’s only 15% of the female stories.

I was left with two questions. Why did my network share more male than female stories? And then, with both in hand, why did I still choose a larger percentage of the male stories? I’ve thought about and discussed these questions with both men and women in the six months since Jill brought the discrepancy to my attention. I’ve also pulled some research on the topic. Here are a few things I’ve learned so far.

Men are more inclined to take risks than women. This finding has been replicated in a variety of studies over the years with researchers pointing to economic and evolutionary reasons. A recent study by Mara Mather and
Nichole R. Lighthall found that gender differences are amplified even further under stress. Male risk-taking tends to increase under stress, while female risk taking tends to decrease under stress. One reason is there are gender differences in brain activity involved in computing risk and preparing for action. This seems to be an important finding given the stressful nature of our work lives today. Are men potentially too reckless and women too cautious in these scenarios? What are the implications? One implication might be that, under stress, men and women working together would make smarter risk-taking decisions than either gender alone. This is a topic ripe for further exploration.

People tend to perceive that women are more risk averse than men. Stronger, taller, and more attractive people are perceived to be more risk tolerant, according to research by Sheryl Ball, Catherine C Eckel, and Maria Heracleous. Women are perceived to be more risk averse. That means that women are at a disadvantage when it comes to getting support for risk-taking. This perception bias further compounds the inclination differences mentioned above. I fear this is one of the factors that snagged me as I chose stories for inclusion. I perceived a larger percentage of male stories were simply more compelling than female stories. But on second look, were they really? Did I count women out too early? Maybe I just found it easier to relate to the male stories. Maybe women conceive of risk-taking differently and I just didn’t look through the right lens. Ginni Rometty, CEO of IBM, makes some compelling points along these lines in a 2011 talk. This is another topic ripe for further study.

Risk-taking role models of both genders are important in an increasingly complex world. When facing a risky decision, leaders must weigh a lot of factors. Two of the biggest are, first, the likelihood that the risk in question will help hit strategic objectives and, second, the effect the risk will have on people involved. Accounting for one without the other is a recipe for disaster. In my consulting practice I’ve noticed a tendency for men to put a stronger emphasis on the former and women on the latter. Recent research by Seda Ertac and Mehmet Y. Gurdal supports this observation. To me, this tendency is further evidence that the most successful risk taking is a collaborative effort between men and women (and likely across other differences as well).

To go back to my opening question, “Do women take as many risks as men?” I think they do. The trouble is that historically risk-taking has been framed so narrowly that it skews our perceptions. For example, the majority of studies that point to men having a greater inclination for risk-taking define risk in physical and financial terms. They don’t point to risks like standing up for what’s right in the face of opposition, or taking the ethical path when there’s pressure to stray — important risks that I’ve found women are particularly strong at taking. If these sorts of risks were fully accounted for in our business culture, would it balance the gender perception? I think it would.

I believe that the stories I chose for my book present a thoughtful, balanced approach to risk taking. Many women who have read the book have commented that the examples resonate regardless of gender. At the same time, I realize I missed an opportunity. The only way we’ll redefine professional risk-taking more broadly is to identify and tell more stories of successful female risk takers, balancing the male stories that currently dominate.

Justin Timberlake isn’t the first person one thinks of when the Coen brothers are mentioned; the iconic, eclectic directors have a similar thread running through the music that sets the scenes in their films, and it just doesn’t include the likes of “Sexyback”. Nonetheless, Timberlake is preparing some music for the upcoming Coen brothers project, “Inside Llewyn Davis”, and he’s not doing it alone; he’s teaming up with Marcus Mumford of Mumford & Sons.

It’s a strange pairing, to say the least. Mumford seems like the perfect choice to create original songs for the brothers; he would have been right at home in any number of their past films, including “O Brother, Where Art Thou?”. But what will come of a union of bluegrass/folk and dance/pop? Even Timberlake realizes how strange it is.

“We all kind of worked on the music together and I don’t know any other world where we would get the opportunity to collaborate like that, but it was so much fun. So not only will it be a great movie, but the music to it will be fantastic,” Timberlake said.

The movie, which premieres in December, stars Carey Mulligan (who, coincidentally, is married to Mumford) and John Goodman, as well as Timberlake himself.