Sun’s New Integration Suite, MS Services, Term Sheet Series, Google Vs. Skype, Mayfield new fund, IBM Backup and Cisco and Intel WiFi
Sun Acquires SeeBeyond, Releases New Java Integration Suite - informationweek
Piece “Sun Microsystems Inc. has acquired SeeBeyond Technology Corporation and announced the release of a new Java Integration Suite.
SeeBeyond Stockholders approved the acquisition and will receive $4.25 per share for an aggregate consideration of about $383 million. The SeeBeyond subsidiary will operate under Sun’s software division. The move is expected to enhance the value of the Java Enterprise System platform.
Sun also announced the availability of Sun Java Integration Suite, the sixth suite in Sun’s Java ES. The suite, combined with the operating system Solaris 10 makes the ES even more attractive for business and system integrator development, Jonathan Schwartz, president and chief operating officer of Sun Microsystems, said in a statement. “
Microsoft reveals its subtle services strategy - insight.zdnet.co.uk
Piece “Rather than compete with third-party consultants, Microsoft’s services group is seeding demand for the company’s products and helping customers manage existing systems better. Senior UK staff from Microsoft Services claim the company is creating a series of standardised service modules, known internally as SKUs — short for ‘stock-keeping units‘. These are basically a mix of software, services and Microsoft-developed intellectual property that deliver ‘predictable results’ for clients. Multiple SKUs can be combined to form a Service Delivery Solution (SDS) — essentially a pre-packaged services engagement aimed at solving a particular problem. Microsoft is considering whether to allow partners to license and sell SKUs, which seems likely — though probably with a snappier name.”
The Perfect VC: Operator or Investor? - billburnham
Piece “Conventional wisdom has long held that the best background for a successful Venture Capitalist is that of a hardened industry “operator”. The reasoning behind this wisdom is that a VC with operating experience should be much better equipped to help portfolio investments deal with the day-to-day challenges of running a start-up and can therefore better help manage an investment to a successful outcome.
Indeed, when you ask someone to give you their impression of what a week in the life of a successful VC must be like, most people paint the picture of grizzled operator, sleeves rolled up, dispensing pearls of managerial wisdom as they make the rounds of their investments. Relying on their vast operating experience, these VC supermen are able to take fragile start-ups and through shear managerial brilliance mold them into the Ciscos, Ebays and Goggles of tomorrow.”
Term Sheet Series Wrap Up - FeldThoughts
Piece “For ease of reference, following are the various sections (linked to their corresponding post) that we covered.
Price
Liquidation Preference
Board of Directors
Protective Provisions
Drag Along
Anti-Dilution
Pay-to-Play
Dividends
Redemption Rights
Conversion
Conditions Precedent to Financing
Vesting
Information Rights
Registration Rights
Right of First Refusal
Voting Rights
Employee Pool
Restriction on Sales
Proprietary Information and Inventions Agreement
Co-Sale Agreement
Founders Activities
Initial Public Offering Shares Purchase
No Shop Agreement (also Unilateral or Serial Monogamy)
Indemnification
Assignment
Is Google Talk a Skype Killer? - redherring
Piece “When Google Talk launched this week, its voice-chat feature drew comparisons not just to other instant messaging services, but also to VoIP companies like Skype.
Granted, a comparison between a one-day-old product with few users and an industry leader with a cult-like following might seem a little odd. Skype, a Luxembourg-based Internet telephony company, has more than 40 million users and adds 155,000 new users every day.
However, when the challenger is Google, which has managed to establish a leadership role in the search sector, comparisons are inevitable.
“This isn’t the final product,” said Will Stofega, an analyst with IDC. “There are a lot of options for them as they develop this product further. The other way to think about this is that it’s not just a chat product, it’s a search engine doing a lot of fantastic things.”
How to hire a product manager - heynorton.typepad
Piece “I’m looking to hire a product manager at JotSpot (more on that below). It’s been a while since I was hiring at a startup, and recruiting at a startup is very different from hiring at a big company. At Yahoo! Search, it seemed like we were constantly hiring. I did an average of 5-8 interviews a week. It was a never-ending drumbeat of resumes, interviews, and offer letters. Now, I wasn’t always the hiring manager. I only hired a handful of product managers in my time there. But somebody was always hiring a product manager and I was usually on the interview team. “
Larry Ellison and the “Living Dead” - dealarchitect.typepad
Piece “We would rather see the four of you become well behaved Tier 1 suppliers and work better with us Tier 2 and 3 suppliers - and even compete with some of us for Tier 1 business.
Respectfully,
“The Living Dead”
Accenture, Adobe, Ariba, Apache, BEA, BMC, CA, Cerner, Cognizant, Cognos, Compuware, Epicor, FiServ, Infosys, Intuit, Lawson, Mercury, Novell, Parametric Technology, Progress, RedHat, salesforce.com, SAS, Siebel, SSA, SunGard, Symantec, Tibco, TCS, Wipro and hundreds of other business software and services companies”
How to Predict Google’s Next Product - nivi
Piece “Google takes existing apps (mail, maps, IM, VoIP) and adds one incredible feature that changes the game and leaves the competition scrambling.
Google Maps had drag-able maps and integrated satellite images.
GMail was fast and acted like a client-side mail program.
Google Desktop Search is a file browser that makes “browsing” irrelevant.
Now we have Google Talk:
Google Talk lets you use any IM client that supports Jabber and/or SIP to connect to Google’s IM network. Google calls this Client Choice. (I have read that Apple’s iChat VoIP already works with Google’s IM network. I have also heard Google Talk’s voice quality is excellent.)
Google Talk will federate IM networks so someday folks on Yahoo IM may be able to talk to folks with AOL IM. Google calls this Service Choice. People with Verizon can talk to people with Sprint so why can’t we do the same on IM networks?
Google’s is implying that any IM network that doesn’t support Client Choice and Service Choice is giving a big middle finger to their customers.
So how do you predict Google’s next product?
Take any piece of software you use all day: e.g. address book, calendar, web browser, iTunes, MS Office, stock charts.
Ask yourself: “What do I really really really wish this product could do?”
Wait for Google to make your dream come true. Or develop the dream product yourself so you can sell it to AOL/Yahoo/IAC/MS when Google launches their version.
What do you think Google will do with Google Finance?”
Mayfeld raises new fund - siliconbeat
Piece “Mayfield Fund, a big player in the Silicon Valley venture capital scene, announced today it has finished raising a $375 million fund, its twelfth. That’s down from Mayfield’s most recent fund, raised in 2000, which was just under $1 billion. As partner Kevin Fong told us yesterday: “The environment changed.”
Here’s the release (downloads file). Dan Primack has done a great job in covering the ins and outs of the Mayfield fund-raising process, including more today. Much of what Fong told us yesterday is well-covered by Primack. We asked Fong about Mayfield’s sub-par performance (bottom-quartile, according to Private Equity Intelligence) by on its most recent funds, relative to others firms in the venture industry. This was his response: “Judging performance has to be done in a relative sense,” he said. “Clearly, a Kleiner or Sequoia that have a Google in their 1999 and 2000 funds are in a class all by themselves. The rest of us have to fight for positions behind them.” However, this doesn’t explain why Mayfield has performed below average, because most other venture capital firms didn’t invest in Google either. Fong seemed to acknowledge that, but said that the firm’s performance stands for all to see, and that 3/4 of this latest fund’s money came from prior investors. “
Q&A: Rational exec explains app life-cycle management focus - computerworld
Piece “Lee Nackman, vice president of product development at Rational Software Corp., sat down with Computerworld to discuss the company’s increasing focus on application life-cycle management and the IBM unit’s future plans to more tightly link its development tools with IBM’s Tivoli Software product line. “
IBM software continually backs up files - infoworld
Piece “The product will join an emerging field of so-called continuous data protection (CDP) products. Other vendors include Storactive Inc., of Marina del Rey, California, and startup Lasso Logic, in San Francisco. In addition, Veritas is currently beta-testing a CDP product called Backup Exec Panther.
Still, IBM claims its product is a novel one. Some other systems require a dedicated server to monitor and store file changes, the company said, while others back up files only periodically, every hour or so, rather than continually.
IBM is aiming its product at both large and small businesses. While IBM is marketing it primarily for laptops, it also works on desktop PCs and enterprise file servers. It will be available via Internet download from Sept. 16 and on CD the following month, priced at $35 per laptop or desktop and $995 per server processor, IBM said. “
Unix server market shares in Q2 2005: IBM - 31%, HP - 30%, Sun - 29.5% - blogs.zdnet
Cisco and Intel Team Up on Wi-Fi - wirelessnewsfactor
Piece “Intel and Cisco unveiled the new Business Class Wireless Suite to prioritize network traffic for Internet telephony and improve the quality of VoiP calls from laptop computers.”
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