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Archive for the ‘Technology’ Category.
A start-up run by former Microsoft Corp. employees said it has made a tool to combat growing security risks on the Web. Haute Secure Inc. introduced a free online service says will let consumers detect and stop Internet-borne computer code designed to steal private information.
Continue reading ‘Start-Up’s Web-Security Tool Is Free to Consumers’ »
Danger Inc., a Palo Alto, Calif.-based provider of software and services for mobile handsets, has withdrawnits registration for a $100 million IPO. The move is related to Microsoft’s recent agreement to acquire Danger for approximately $500 million. Danger has raised around $142 million in total VC funding since 2000, including a Series E round in late 2006 at a post-money valuation of approximately $187 million. Shareholders include Mobius Venture Capital (17.6%), Redpoint Ventures (14.8%), T-Mobile (12.6%), Softbank Capital (12.7%), Motorola (11.2%), Meritech Capital Partners (7.8%) and VSP Capital (6.2%).
Leading Venture Capital Firm Starts Large Fund
Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers has launched a $100 million venture capital fund called iFund, which will invest in companies developing applications and services for Apple’s iPhone and iPod touch. KPCB partner Matt Murphy will lead the iFund effort, and be joined by partners John Doerr, Bill Joy, Randy Komisar, Ted Schlein and Chi-Hua Chien
Tesla Motors Inc., a San Carlos, Calif.-based maker of electric cars, has raised $40 million in “bridge financing.” Valor Equity Partners and Tesla chairman Elon Musk co-led the round. The company previously raised a $45 million Series D round last May from Musk, Technology Partners, Capricorn Investment Group, Vantage Point Venture Partners, Draper Fisher Jurvetson, JP Morgan Bay Area Equity Fund, Valor Equity Partners and Compass Venture Partners. Tesla recently said that it was hoping to raise another $250 million, via a combination of a private placement and an IPO in either the U.S. or Europe.
Lighting the Way: Toward a Sustainable Energy Future
The InterAcademy Council has released a new report, commissioned by the governments of Brazil and China, identifying and detailing the scientific consensus framework for directing global energy development. Continue reading ‘Report: Toward a Sustainable Energy Future’ »
Company Behind WordPress Raises More Money
Automattic’s Series B round of financing with co-investors Polaris Ventures and Radar Partners, as well as new strategic investor The New York Times Company. Continue reading ‘Automattic Raises $29M Series B Round’ »
Developing and Managing Your Network
The development and management of an enterprise’s IT infrastructure has long been a challenge for businesses of all sizes. IT systems and network management are critical functions because poorly performing and nonfunctioning systems can be very costly. Continue reading ‘How will you develop and manage your Web site?’ »
Managing Customer-Specific Relationships
Customer relationship management (CRM) combines a strategic business approach with technology. Managing customer relationships begins with a strategic awareness based on customer-focused themes. Continue reading ‘How will you manage your customers via the Internet?’ »
Discussion About The Benefits of a Networked Enterprise
It is important that your networked components of business become an extension of your business model and business practices rather than just some adjunct service to a complex revenue event or a small element of your value chain. Continue reading ‘How will the Internet help your business?’ »
Discussions About Creating a Collaborative Advantage
Created within each of these three relationships in your networked enterprise should be a system of constant interface to a value-added environment for information exchange. Rosabeth Moss Kanter, a business leadership series professor at Harvard Business School, describes this interface as a “collaborative advantage.” Continue reading ‘How will you collaborate with your customers?’ »
The Commoditization of Disruptive Information Technologies
It is important to understand the diffusion of disruptive innovations. This diffusion occurs when “innovators” buy and then, through an influence process, encourage others to buy. It always “starts with the first sale,” and the innovation can “diffuse” through society very quickly. Continue reading ‘What were the most disruptive information technologies?’ »
Discussion of the Information Technology Tidal Wave in the 1990’s
Throughout history, information had always been important. The problem was that information traveled at the speed of a human. In 490 B.C. a messenger ran the 41.3 kilometers to Athens from the plains of Marathon, Greece. He died after announcing the Greek victory over the Persians. Continue reading ‘What was the information technology tidal wave?’ »
Introduction of Management Science
As we discussed in a previous Article, for thousands of years entrepreneurial capitalism was, quite literally, the capitalism. That was the case until the early 1900s and the introduction of Industrial Capitalism. Continue reading ‘What is management science?’ »
Discussion of The Long Waves of Modern Technology
As we take our first steps into the twenty-first century we can see that technology is central to the economic growth of nations, large companies, and individuals. Technological change plays a major role in industry structural change, as well as in creating new industries. Virtually all contemporary accounts of how technological change proceeds in capitalist economies are based on Schumpeter’s work. Continue reading ‘What were the major trends in technology?’ »
Getting To The Future First And Winning
Eric M. Berg from the PricewaterhouseCoopers Global Technology Centre, based in Menlo Park, CA described to us that the second half of 1990’s was a period of massive investment in ICT. As discussed in a previous Article, this investment laid the groundwork of a “public world network” which is based on the Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP Protocol.) Continue reading ‘Catching The Next Wave on The High-Tech Revolution’ »
Linux is an operating system that was initiated by Linus Torvalds while a student at the University of Helsinki in Finland. Torvalds had an interest developing a UNIX-type computer operating system. He began writing code in 1991 and soon after released version 0.02, the first functional Linux operating system. He worked steadily until 1994 when version 1.0 of the Linux Kernel was released. Continue reading ‘Case In Point: Linus Torvalds and Linux Software’ »
No established company rode higher on the Information Technology Wave than Santa Clara, CA-based Sun Microsystems, whose sales nearly doubled, to $18.3 billion, in the three fiscal years that ended in June 2001. Stanford University graduates Scott McNealy, Bill Joy, Andy Bechtolsheim, and Vinod Khosla got together in 1982 to start SUN (Stanford University Network) Microsystems. Continue reading ‘Case In Point: Sun Microsystems Launches’ »
Created in September 1995 by Pierre Omidyar, eBay is “The World’s Online Marketplace” for the sale of goods and services by a diverse community of individuals and businesses. Eight years later the eBay “biosphere” included some 62 million registered members from around the world. It is the most popular shopping destination on the Internet. Continue reading ‘Case In Point: eBay and Its Digital Biosphere’ »
In the early 1980s Stanford University had some 5,000 computers of various types. There was no campus-wide network, the systems were like islands. Bridges were needed to connect them together. Cisco Systems was founded in 1983 in the living room where Len Bosack and his wife Sandy Lerner lived. Their solution was to create the bridge that networked the networks. Continue reading ‘Case In Point: Cisco Systems’ »
In 1961 Finis Conner headed for California with $100 in his pockets. After a studying at San Jose State University he worked at the Memorex Corporation where he met his future business partner, Alan Shugart. Together they founded Shugart Associates in 1973, where they produced and sold 8″ hard disk drives. The company was sold to Xerox Corporation in 1977. Continue reading ‘Case In Point: Finis Conner, A Salesforce of One’ »