Building out the infrastructure for Snapchat was an act of faith, according to co-founder and CTO Bobby Murphy. The company, which apparently was so easy to build that a Facebook engineer took two weeks to mock up a similar service, operates on Google’s Compute Engine. That’s a notable choice in a field of startups that have chosen the more popular Amazon’s cloud services.

But Murphy told me in a phone call that he likes Compute Engine and he believes Google is scaling out and willing to invest in this platform. He prefers some of the features for Snapchat’s purposes and believes when it comes to scale, Google could offer more than AWS for his application. The details behind his consideration will be the focus of Murphy’s chat onstage at the Structure conference occurring June 19 and 20 in San Francisco.

So if you caught Murphy’s appearance on The Colbert Report and want to learn more about the infrastructure and the economics of scaling out an app with 150 million photos uploaded daily, then register for Structure.

Murphy’s is one of several developer-focused talks we’ll have this year as we try to draw more attention to the fact that building out applications on massive cloud infrastructures requires a change in thinking. It’s not just about learning how to build an application in the cloud, but also mandates a strategic approach regarding how to architect your applications in a way that takes into consideration to the economics of hosting them on someone else’s infrastructure.

We’ll have conversations with Cory von Wallenstein, the CTO of Dyn, focusing on how to build a process for evaluating and changing your architecture without disrupting your existing users. There will be another with Gleb Budman, the co-founder and CEO of Backblaze, and Adrian Cockcroft, cloud architect at Netflix, about building hugely scalable infrastructures in the face of serious logistical obstacles.

Structure 2012: Aditya Agarwal – VP Engineering, Dropbox, Adrian Cockcroft – Director, Architecture, Netflix, Alexei Rodriguez – VP of Operations, Evernote Corporation, Jonathan Heiliger – General Partner, North Bridge Venture Partners

Six-and-a-half years ago when we started thinking about our first Structure event, it was a hard sell. People didn’t understand what cloud computing was, nor why a small technology blog would want to build a conference around web infrastructure. Our advertising team got questions like, “You want to hold a show on servers? Why?”

But we knew that just as the printing press changed the distribution of knowledge, the emergence of cloud computing, web-based services and even mobility would change how we disseminate information all over again. And in the process it would create new economic opportunities and change the way the world works.

However, that first Structure conference was about building that vision, not about the servers. If we were around back in the 1400s, we’d hold a gathering at a local tavern not about paper, but about the coming revolutions promised by that technology and and maybe even looking forward to the creation of the novel and widespread literacy.

So make sure you are in the audience at this event so you can predict how the future of the web is changing; not just how infrastructure has evolved, but how we’ll build businesses on top of it. Register here and we’ll see you in June.

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Last week we showed you pictures of Huawei’s new ultra-thin phone, the P6-UO6. Today we bring you more photos of the Chinese manufacturer’s newest offering, this time in a sleek black variation. While Huawei hasn’t made any official announcements regarding the P6-UO6, the phone will reportedly come in black, pink and white variations and will be available in Asian markets, with no word on whether or not we’ll see it stateside.

Thanks to the photos, we now know that the device has what appears to be a microSIM and microSD slots on the right side of the device, with the 3.5mm audio jack awkwardly placed on the left. As reported before, the device is powered by a quad-core processor, 2 GB of RAM, an 8 megapixel rear camera and a 5 megapixel front-facing camera. Hit the break for more photos.

(more…)

Anyone who has served on a board of directors can appreciate that each board has its own characteristic rhythm, social rules and level of effectiveness. I’ve been advising boards and management teams for 25 years as a consultant and C-Suite executive, and have served on several corporate boards, and can attest that it’s long been a puzzle to me what exactly makes a board effective.

To try to answer the question, I went back to school. As part of my PhD research, I interviewed directors at 22 small- to medium-sized publicly traded companies about board practices and dynamics. Half the companies had received above-average rankings for governance quality from Governance Metrics International; half had received below-average rankings.

What I found was that there is something powerful about the way directors speak to one another, especially when they disagree. My interviews revealed two kinds of boardroom conflict — cognitive and affective — with very different implications for board performance.

• Cognitive conflict is task-oriented, with a focus on how to get things done to achieve optimal results. Cognitive conflict can sound like: “I don’t think your idea will work, maybe we need to look at it a different way…have you thought of this?” This kind of conflict is essential in creating value as it stimulates conversation around topics, addresses ideas or points of view with an opening for directors to offer something creative, innovative and positive.
• Affective conflict, conversely, is emotionally oriented and focused on personal differences or shortcomings between people. Affective conflict can sound like: “I don’t think you have good ideas and you don’t understand the issue.” This kind of conflict destroys any chance of creating value as it is a personal attack on the capabilities and perspective of the individual director, inhibiting individuals from participating in dialogue.

Boards that recognized affective conflict and addressed it quickly were associated with high governance quality, whereas boards that were less willing to address affective conflict or ignoring it altogether were associated with low governance quality. High governance ratings were also more common for boards that had engaged directors generating high levels of cognitive conflict.

Possibly associated with this are attrition rates — higher on boards that didn’t address affective conflict, at 24% attrition, compared with 13% attrition on boards that actively address affective conflict. Given that boards have infrequent face-to-face meetings, stability is critical for effective board dynamics.

Two distinct recruiting sources

There also appeared to be a relationship between board governance quality and prior personal relationships of directors. High-governance boards cast a wide net when recruiting directors, and often recruit people with whom the other directors did not have a prior relationship. The study showed close to 70% of high-governance-board directors were “strangers” when they joined their board, while only 25% of directors recruited to low-governance boards were unknown quantities.

These different recruiting approaches appeared to affect boardroom dynamics. When directors had a prior relationship with a newly-recruited director, they were driven by their desire to maintain a congenial relationship — to not “rock the boat” of their extra-board relationship by addressing affective conflict in the boardroom. Conversely, in high-governance-rated boards, where directors only have the boardroom as the context of their relationship, it became even more important to address affective conflict to make sure that the work environment be productive. Directors were not willing to sweep issues under the carpet for the sake of keeping peace when the health of the company was at stake, and tackled affective conflict head-on.

What does this teach us about creating good boards? Recruit the best people you can by casting a wide net beyond your personal network. Screen directors not just for professional capital, but also for behavioral characteristics and “fit” to your boardroom culture. Address affective conflict as soon as it arises — easier done if you don’t fear the consequence of damaging a prior relationship. Don’t be afraid of cognitive conflict — embrace it as a source of innovation and creativity in problem solving.

Rovio’s games, including Angry Birds, have been an enormous hit in the mobile games market, but one inconvenience had been that game progress didn’t sync across devices. Rovio Accounts have been rolled out to fix this annoyance.  Requiring only an email address, the new feature allows users to sync game progress on one device and continue playing where they left off on another device.

Rovio Accounts are currently extremely limited. They are available globally for The Croods and Angry Birds for iOS in only Finland and Poland. Rovio will continue rolling this feature out to other apps and regions, but for now, you’re going to have to wait if you want to sync your Angry Birds game in North America.

If you play The Croods, or Angry Birds in Finland or Poland, how is the new feature is working for you? Let us know below.

Source: Rovio

Come comment on this article: Rovio Accounts lets users sync game progress across devices

The CEO of plant protein startup Beyond Meat, Ethan Brown, says that in 50 to 100 years he thinks that the super market meat counter will no longer have a relationship with animals. The transition to a meat counter filled with plant protein will be similar to how society moved from the horse-drawn carriage to the automobile, said Brown at Wired’s business conference in New York on Tuesday.

Beyond Meat makes plant-based meats and is currently selling a chicken product at select stores like Whole Foods. The product hasn’t been widely available, but is supposed to be scaled up at stores in the coming months. Beyond Meat has a partnership with Whole Foods, and the startup is looking to sell its products out of the meat counter, instead of in an alternative meat section, which Brown described as “a penalty box.”

In contrast to the current fake meat products on super market shelves, Beyond Meat is trying to use technology to create food that mimics the taste and feel of eating meat. We’ve got “OCD, obsessive chicken disorder,” joked Brown, explaining the company is looking to replicate “the fibrous structure of meat.”

The company is backed by Kleiner Perkins and Obvious Corp, the company behind Twitter. As I wrote in this article earlier this year, Silicon Valley investors have been looking to fund sustainable food innovation. Brown said that Beyond Meat grew 50 percent last quarter. “If we’re successful, we can be like Tyson or Perdue,” said Brown.

The animal meat market is a $177 billion market, said Brown. While Beyond Meat is focused on selling its chicken product, it’s also working on a beef product made from pea protein and sea salt, said Brown.

The World Bank says that livestock contributed to 51 percent of the greenhouse gas emissions globally. “The efficiencies around taking protein from plants instead of animals is massive,” said Brown.

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The T-Mobile Galaxy S 4 will be receiving its first update today via OTA and over Samsung’s desktop application, Kies. The newly updated version, M919UVUAMDL, includes improvements to both visual-voicemail and the ISIS application, a Google Wallet competitor. There also may be some unannounced hidden bug-fixes as well.  If you received the update, let us know how it went!

Source: T-Mobile

Come comment on this article: T-Mobile ships out first update to Galaxy S 4 with minor improvements

You may have noticed a big trend lately that involves pushing mobile computing onto wearable devices like Google Glass. RunKeeper is hoping to cash in on the growing popularity of wearable devices by releasing an app that runs on Pebble’s Smart Watch devices. The new app will let users control RunKeeper from their Pebble device instead of having to fish their smartphone out of their pocket during a workout. Users can access pace, mileage, workout start and workout stop functions via the Pebble Smart Watch and RunKeeper says other functions will be available.

RunKeeper CEO Jason Jacobs says, “Pebble is such an exciting partner for RunKeeper; it is a great device and a powerful showcase of how your runs, walks and bike rides with RunKeeper can be enhanced by wearable device integration. We look forward to integrating with more wearable devices in the future.” RunKeeper indicates they will be announcing more partnerships in the coming months to help users with their fitness tracking.

The Pebble Smart Watch is currently shipping to Kickstarter backers and pre-orders are now being accepted at getpebble.com. Check out the full press release after the break.

Introducing RunKeeper for Pebble Smart Watch

Kickstarter Phenomenon Is First of Many RunKeeper Wearable Integration Partnerships

Come comment on this article: RunKeeper releases app for Pebble Smart Watch

The recent news that more messages are being sent over mobile chat apps than through SMS was, I think, quite significant. Not necessarily in terms of straight numbers — the analyst figures that sparked the story were certainly conservative, so the shift must have happened a while ago — but as a reminder of how one technical means of communication can supersede another, and also as an indication of the challenges that mobile operators currently face.

Mobile analyst Dean Bubley, on the other hand, is clearly unimpressed with the coverage of this subject. In a somewhat irate blog post today, he attacked the notion that there is a simple dichotomy between SMS and “over-the-top” (OTT) apps such as WhatsApp, along with the idea that the carriers’ Joyn collaboration might save their bacon:

“A central theme in these articles is a supposed battle for the ‘messaging market’, with lazy journalists or vendor marketeers painting a dark picture of mortal combat between the righteous fortress of SMS revenues, the marauding hordes of barbarian OTT players at the gates, and the Knights of Joyn riding to the rescue in their shining armour of interoperability.

“This is all palpable nonsense — a strawman argument to reframe a complex and dynamic situation into the usual fatuous and imaginary Us vs. Them, Telcos vs OTTs narrative, coupled to a desperate attempt to make RCS and its GSMA-branded offspring look relevant. Not only is this argument flawed, the likely outcomes will in many cases be worse than useless.”

What really gets Bubley’s goat is the idea that there actually is a “messaging market” as such. As he points out, there is little to compare between a WhatsApp chat and an embedded customer support IM conversation, or between an SMS exchange and an email with a document attached. They’re all messaging, but they’re not the same thing at all.

And what’s more, each one of those scenarios could be supported by a variety of “messaging” technologies:

“Any worthwhile analysis would look at various ways to slice up this supposed monolithic market into separate buckets reflecting context or intent. Perhaps social messaging vs. advertising vs. standalone information vs. gossip vs. B2B meeting arrangement vs. one-way app updates. Or sliced by length of a messaging ‘session’ or number of participants, or a hundred other ways.”

This is very true, and it has me thinking about what we mean when we talk about messaging. But it also has me thinking about our use of other terms, in particular the word “social”.

Facebook, for example, is a service we would think of as quintessentially social — but it’s also a messaging service. Just look at Facebook Home, where the social network takes over the user’s Android handset in a way that effectively melds Facebook messaging and SMS. When you’re sending a message through that interface, which medium are you using? Who cares?

When I was talking to Viber CEO Talmon Marco ahead of today’s desktop app launch, he characterized his Skype-rivaling product in interesting terms:

“We’re starting to see the lines between communication and social are breaking. Once you go into groups and larger groups — today we support groups of up to 40 people — and put a picture in there, is that a communication or social?

“I exchange Viber messages hundreds of times a day. On Facebook I share something once a week, once every two weeks. I’m always thinking twice about what I put on Facebook. I find myself more engaged with an app like Viber than with Facebook. I create far more content for Viber than with Facebook and I think the same applies to most people.”

Most people, of course, aren’t the CEO of Viber, but his underlying point is nonetheless valid. “Messaging” and “social” are merely two facets of modern communications (which can itself be a subset of some other service) and trying to tease the two apart is increasingly difficult.

Which brings us back to Bubley’s post. As I suggested above, I don’t think it’s entirely fair to discount the recognition of OTT apps’ acceleration past traditional SMS. However, it is certainly true that clear-cut comparisons between the various messaging options out there today are near-impossible, if not futile.

Ultimately, messaging is increasingly just a feature, as is the case with social. When you’re designing the communications services of the future, or even the services that make use of communications, context and intent are what count.

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Dr. Phil is majorly mad that Deadspin posted a video clip of Ronaiah Tuiasosopo speaking in the voice he used to convince football star Manti Te’o he was a woman. So mad, in fact, that he wants to sue.

Phil says that Deadspin–under the umbrella of Gawker Media–totally screwed him over when they posted the clip, because he was going to use it in the second half of his interview with Tuiasosopo after a “cliffhanger” in part one. The clip was posted before the second part aired to the majority of his viewers, he says, and that ain’t cool. Claiming that they stole the clip, he’s now suing the company for an unspecified amount.

Tuiasosopo made major headlines last year when it came out that he’d been posing as a woman for over a year in phone conversations and online with former Notre Dame player Manti Te’o. Te’o claims he never realized he’d been talking to a man and had been calling Tuiasosopo’s character–Lennay Kekua–his girlfriend. Tuiasosopo eventually killed Lennay off in an elaborate story involving her having cancer, and, in a recent interview, claims he was molested as a child and that the experience changed him profoundly.

“I felt that I couldn’t do things, accomplish things, pursue things, live out as Ronaiah,” Tuiasosopo said. “And I felt the need to create this. It has everything to do with what I went through as a child.”

Image: CBS

Little over a month ago, AT&T announced that on a two-year contract the Samsung Galaxy S4 in 32GB storage trim will be available for $249.99. In the meantime the 16GB version hit the mobile operator’s stores for $50 less, but even today the 32GB Galaxy S4 is still nowhere to be seen.

On its Twitter account, AT&T sheds some light on the matter and reveals that the 32GB Galaxy S4 is available starting this Friday, May 10. In just a couple of days prospective customers will be able to purchase the smartphone for $249.99 alongside a two-year contract and qualifying plans.

The 32GB Galaxy S4 only runs for $50 more on top of what AT&T charges for the 16GB version, but provides twice the storage capacity. Considering that Android 4.2 Jelly Bean and adjacent apps can take a significant part of the built-in storage, the larger capacity model might make more sense for demanding users.

By comparison the price difference between the 16GB and 32GB Apple iPhone 5 storage trims is $100 — twice as much. AT&T charges $199.99 and $299.99 for the 16GB and 32GB version, respectively, of the fruit-branded smartphone.

In its current state, Google Glass is incredibly expensive. Those who signed up for the Google Glass Explorers program last year had to fork over $1,500 to get a crack at the device. The price will come down when it’s made available to consumers next year, but a new survey suggests that the price will have to come down a lot before consumers bite.

Last week, TrendBlog posed a question to its audience – “How much are you willing to pay for Google Glass?” The respondents were given a wide variety of price options ranging from below $100 to more than $2,000. The end result found that most were willing to pay near the bottom of the price spectrum.

Overall, 48 percent of respondents would pay between $200 to $300 for Google Glass when it launches next year. Going lower or higher than that causes interest to drop dramatically with only 13 percent willing to pay less than $100 with only one percent willing to pay between $1,200 and $2,000. Unsurprisingly, nobody would pay more than $2,000.

How Much Are People Willing To Pay For Google Glass by trendblog.net

Pricing is incredibly important, especially when it comes to consumer electronics. Microsoft has learned this lesson the hard way as Windows 8 PCs have failed to take off partly due to the high cost. Apple was able to sell high priced electronics because it was able to convince consumers that its products contained exceptional software value. Google will have to do the same if Google Glass is priced above $300.

The sharks are in the water smelling Microsoft blood. It’s the company’s “New Coke” moment. Windows 8 is too little too late (hey, that rhymes).

Over the years Microsoft has had a number of true product failures, genuine losers, but fewer than you’d think. I’d certainly count Microsoft BOB as one of these; BOB was an attempt at a cartoony, fun interface to Windows that was laughed off the market in short order. (Microsoft reps told me at the time that the focus groups loved it.)

But Windows 8? We should all fail like this. If the government failed like this we’d be running a trillion dollar surplus. Today Microsoft announced sales of more than 100 million Windows 8 licenses. (“This number includes Windows licenses that ship on a new tablet or PC, as well as upgrades to Windows 8.”)

During last year’s Worldwide Developer Conference, Apple claimed there were 66 million Mac users. I don’t think there are 100 million Windows 8 users, maybe not even 66 million, but surely there are tens of millions by now. That’s a big market and translates to hundreds of millions of revenue for Microsoft.

The latest NetMarketShare numbers tend to support this view. Windows 8 is already substantially ahead of any one version of OS X and on a trajectory to pass all of them combined before long. These numbers are for desktop operating systems:

• Windows 7: 44.72%
• Windows XP: 38.31%
• Windows Vista: 4.75%
• Windows 8: 3.82%
• Mac OS X 10.8: 2.82%
• Mac OS X 10.6: 1.82%
• Mac OS X 10.7: 1.78%
• Linux: 1.21%

Before you say it, I know NetMarketShare’s numbers are somewhat opaque, but they’re pretty much all there is in the public domain and they roughly make sense to me. The biggest anomaly in the list above is that Linux has 1.21 percent of desktop users. That can’t be true. Another interesting, debatable point: NetMarketShare doesn’t include Windows 8 in the Mobile/Tablet numbers, so anyone using it as a tablet is counted as a desktop user. Microsoft’s convergence of the two uses in one operating system messes with NetMarketShare’s zeitgeist.

By the way, back to the tablet numbers above: See the number just above Windows 8? That’s the near-universally reviled Windows Vista, still at 4.75 percent, more than Lion and Mountain Lion combined. Two years ago NetMarketShare had Vista at 10.46 percent of desktops. Many hundreds of millions of Vista licenses were sold. Sure, it was a bad version and generated ill-will, but Microsoft made a ton of money from the OS. Any other company would love to have a failure like Windows Vista.

No doubt there are a lot of mistakes in Windows 8. But is any product that sells in the tens or hundreds of millions a failure? We should all fail this badly.

As the finale of The Office approaches, speculation is growing on where the show’s characters will end up and what the ending will be for what was once the most popular comedy on network TV.

As a major part of the show’s success before leaving in 2011, it seemed like a given that Steve Carell would return to reprise his role as ineffectual manager Michael Scott. However, last week The Office Executive Producer Greg Daniels stated that Carell will not be a part of the show, saying that Carell felt it wouldn’t fit the character.

Now, however, the rumor of Carell’s return is back, despite the denial. TVLine is reporting that Daniels’ statement was a ruse, and that Michael Scott will, in fact, be making a cameo in the final episode of The Office. The publication’s unnamed sources have stated that his appearance in the episode will be very brief.

It seems only fitting that Carell should be seen in the series’ finale. His character was one of the most important on the show, a linchpin that held The Office together. Despite Will Ferrell coming on as the big-name replacement for Carell in the show’s seventh season, ratings for The Office have fallen since the departure of Michael Scott.

Green Courte Partners, a private equity real estate investment firm, has promoted Braden Rudolph to vice president, asset management. Rudolph joined Green Courte as a Senior Associate in June 2011.

PRESS RELEASE
Green Courte Partners, LLC (“Green Courte”), a private equity real estate investment firm targeting parking assets and land-lease/manufactured housing communities, announced today the promotion of Braden L. Rudolph to Vice President, Asset Management.

Since joining Green Courte as a Senior Associate in June 2011, Mr. Rudolph has been involved in Green Courte’s acquisitions and asset management efforts. Mr. Rudolph was actively involved in Green Courte’s acquisition of The Parking Spot, one of the nation’s leading owner/operators of near-airport parking properties, with 35 locations and over 60,000 parking spaces. Most recently, Mr. Rudolph has been involved with implementing strategic initiatives at American Land Lease, Inc., an owner/operator of 50 land-lease communities with over 18,500 home sites. As a Vice President, Mr. Rudolph will continue his involvement in the firm’s asset management efforts, primarily focusing on the near-airport and urban parking sectors.

Mr. Rudolph graduated from the University of Wisconsin in 2003 with a Bachelor of Science in Biomedical Engineering and from Northwestern University’s J.L. Kellogg Graduate School of Management in 2010 with a Masters of Business Administration.

About Green Courte Partners, LLC

Green Courte Partners, LLC is a Chicago-based private equity real estate investment firm targeting niche real estate sectors, including parking assets and land-lease/manufactured housing communities. The firm combines focused investment strategies with a disciplined approach to transaction execution and asset management. Green Courte’s goal is to invest in high quality assets that will generate attractive risk-adjusted returns over a long-term holding period. For additional information, please visit www.GreenCourtePartners.com.

The post Green Courte Partners Promotes Rudolph to VP appeared first on peHUB.

Although the U.S. is a highly developed country, the US government’s work/family policies have not changed since 1993,when the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) passed. We are the only developed country without any required paid parental leave. (FMLA entitles employees 12 weeks of unpaid leave with an equivalent position available on return.)

Even so, most large companies provide six weeks of paid leave, usually covered by a short-term disability insurance plan. Such insurance only works economically for companies with an employee base so large that many people might be out at the same time. FMLA applies to companies with over 50 employees, so smaller enterprises, which comprise over 50% of US businesses, need to create their own policy.

I run one such company — a growing, 11-person investment management firm — and this is a challenge I’ve been grappling with: how can we offer fair parental leave or flexible work policies to retain talented employees while also covering our costs and making sure our workflow remains on track?

The research on this is inconclusive, and mostly focused on country-wide statistics or on large firms. Scandinavian policies provide evidence that generous parental leave and work schedule flexibility translates into greater participation of women in the labor force. While there is mixed evidence of this resulting in more female executives at top levels than the 14% in the US, the data does indicate that mothers do continue to work, at least part-time, in Norway, Sweden and Denmark. The debate rages about whether these policies discourage subsequent full-time employment or actually set women up to re-engage full time and move into higher level positions.

Our company’s goals include retaining talent, preserving our investment in those people we have trained, and keeping those who work well with clients and colleagues. We also desire a diverse workforce, which we believe is preferable in making investment decisions, serving our customers, and building an enjoyable and well-rounded corporate culture. In a small firm, the retention of any one emerging key player can be more meaningful than for a large corporation. However, these goals come with costs.

When I had four children, all under age four, my company gave me an eight month leave, after which I came back full time, eventually managing a $10 billion mutual fund. When Nancy, a managing partner of a major law firm, had her second child, she worked three and then four days per week for years, until she was comfortable returning full time. George, the CEO of a small investment company, offers mothers re-entering after a leave a reduced schedule. Three quarters of them eventually came back full time. This and many other examples suggest that employer flexibility does lead to women returning and advancing at the same company.

The question is whether a small business should articulate a policy, or whether our best approach is to offer each person a customized plan. Spelling out all benefits in writing could be a useful recruiting tool, but could require delivery of equally generous plans to people of varying value to us. For that reason, we have chosen to explain that we offer a mix of set and customized work/family benefits. We see this as fair to our employees and to ourselves, as a small enterprise.

In eight years, no woman at our firm has yet had a baby, although three men have become fathers. We have not had any explicit paternity leave, but I now feel that we should offer a fixed amount of time off for fathers, probably two weeks. Women physically bear the burden of having children, so although expensive, a six week paid leave is probably the appropriate level to be competitive.

Greater complexity arrives after the initial leave, when the primary caregiver, either the mother or father, needs a longer leave or a more flexible or reduced schedule. Big corporations contain redundancies, which allow colleagues to cover for each other over a period of months. Without that luxury, small companies must hire long-term temp replacements for administrative, research, investment, trading, or other positions. Other costs include management time and effort and the risks of errors or a poor cultural fit.

Since we and other firms offer an annual allowance for continuing education, we might offer the same amount for child care over a specific duration. The greater the expected value or contribution of that person to the organization, the more attractive the package. The government should consider a credit for firms offering these benefits despite the lack of legal requirement.

Recently, a young woman in our office documented a cash withdrawal from an account in a thorough manner. There was a snafu at the custodian’s end that could have cost us many tens of thousands of dollars and might have been disputed, if our colleague hadn’t been so thorough. That expertise is very valuable, which we should keep in mind as we craft a policy for anyone needing leave or flexibility in the future. Particularly at a small company, the costs of being inclusive and pursuing an egalitarian ideal are more immediately tangible than the benefits. It’s up to the management to carefully weigh these expenses against intangibles that pay off handsomely in the long run.

Infinio, a provider of downloadable storage performance software, named entrepreneur Steve Papa chairman of the Infinio board of directors. Papa is best known as the founder of Endeca Technologies, acquired by Oracle in 2011 for $1.1 billion. Infinio is based in Cambridge, Mass., and is backed by investors including Highland Capital Partners, Bessemer Venture Partners, and Lightspeed Venture Partners.

PRESS RELEASE
Infinio, innovative provider of downloadable storage performance software, today announced that well-known investor and entrepreneur Steve Papa has agreed to chair the Infinio board of directors.

Papa is best known as the successful founder and CEO of Endeca Technologies, acquired by Oracle in 2011 for $1.1 billion. Several members of the Infinio executive team helped build Endeca, including Infinio Vice President, Engineering Fritz Knabe as well as Infinio co-founder and CEO Arun Agarwal.

“We’re honored to have Steve as our board chairman, and are excited about the value he brings as an advisor,” Agarwal said. “Steve has been a mentor and friend for many years, and his success speaks for itself. His counsel will be invaluable as we scale and grow.”

Papa founded Endeca in 1999 and was CEO until its acquisition by Oracle in 2011 – at the time, Oracle’s 6th largest acquisition. Endeca enjoyed five consecutive years of 100%+ growth, culminating in $750M in cumulative worldwide revenue and 700 customers.

Prior to Endeca, Papa was part of the original MIT $50K team that created Akamai, a member of the early team at Inktomi in charge of creating the company’s infrastructure caching business, and spent time at Teradata and also at Venrock, the Rockefeller Family’s venture capital arm.

“Infinio is in its early days, but I believe the company is poised to disrupt the storage industry with an easy-to-try, easy-to-buy downloadable storage performance product for virtualized environments,” Papa said. “The first product launch will be later this year, and I look for great things from this team.”

Infinio is developing software solutions to address the most expensive bottleneck in virtual environments: storage performance. Those interested in joining the company should email [email protected].

About Infinio Infinio Systems, Inc. is building solutions that improve the data storage performance of virtualized environments. Based in Cambridge, Mass., with offices in New York, the company enjoys strong financial backing from tier-one venture capitalists including Highland Capital Partners, Bessemer Venture Partners, and Lightspeed Venture Partners. Infinio is an Elite-level member of the VMware Technology Alliance Partner program.

The post Steve Papa Joins Infinio as Chairman appeared first on peHUB.