ITGumbo: spicing IT up

During the week of July 13, 2008, SAP announced its plans to open an R&D center in Israel, following in the footsteps of corporations such as Microsoft, IBM and Intel. Microsoft's purchase of data management company, Zoomix was officially announced and Magic Software signed a deal with Blat-Lapidot, a leading Salesforce.com Partner. Shopflick raised $7 million in funding while it was announced that Israeli startups, combined, raised over  $1 billion in the first half of 2008 (the highest since 2001). What happened in cleantech this past week? Not much in relation to Israeli companies. There were however other headlines. For those and the previous stories, check below for the full list of the 17 Israel-related technology headlines from the week of July 17, 2008.


M&A and Partnerships
Magic Software Signs up Blat-Lapidot - a Leading Salesforce.com Partner

Mobile location tech co Destinator bought by Intinsync

Nextlink to develop technology with Israeli partner through $1M grant

Alvarion, Ceragon and ECI in Danish WiMAX project

Microsoft Bolsters Data Management With Zoomix Purchase


Investments
Israeli start-ups raise over $1 billion

Israel to invest NIS 400m in alternative energy

Leon Recanati invests in Whitewater

Shopflick Closes $7 Million in Funding Led by Panorama Capital and Venrock

More investment for Israeli start-ups


Information Technology
SAP to open R&D center in Israel

Bill Gates, Microsoft Endorse PNMSoft Business Process Management BPM Software

Slovak Telekom Expands its Relationship with Amdocs

Tech Watch: Major US utility selects NICE Systems


Miscellaneous
The Economic Impact of Global Warming is Beginning to Show: IDE Starts Marketing Snowmakers for the Global Ski Industry

Tech budget cut, but engineers lacking

Playtech, Paramount Pictures Deal Announced



About the author: Lisa Damast is the Membership Manager of ebizQ.net and currently resides in Israel. Any questions or inquiries regarding this blog or ebizQ membership services can be directed to her via email at ldamast (at) ebizq (dot) net. She can also be followed on Twitter, where she covers additional Israeli technology companies and Israel-related headlines and topics.

During the week of July 6, 2008, news broke that Ness Technologies plans on selling its Israeli unit to SAP and there was a rumor that Google plans on buying VoIP service, Jajah. Virtualization companies Xeround and Ceedo were active, while in cleantech, environmentalists claimed that solar panel pricing is wrong. While these are some of the stories that stood out, they weren't the only ones. Check below for the full list of the 21 Israel-related technology headlines from the week of July 6, 2008.


Cleantech
Environmentalists: Solar panel pricing wrong

Israel helps China with wave power

For most Israeli contractors, green isn't an issue

Funding rises for clean-tech start-ups


Deals and Partnerships
Jacada Signs Material Contract with Nationwide Insurance

PicScout Teams up with Splash News to Give Bloggers Access to the Hottest, up-to-the Minute Celebrity Photos at picapp.com

InstallFree signs SaaS OEM agreement with Click Manageware

Ness Technologies set to sell Israeli unit to SAP

Google Buying Jajah?


Information Technology
Mellanox InfiniBand Adapters Provide Leading Storage Connectivity to Galactic Computing’s Line of VSTOR Storage Systems and Gateways

Virtualization is “Xeround” The Corner With An Extra $16 Million

VMware sets up new R&D centre in Israel

Hagemeyer Chooses Ceedo Virtualization Technology to Reduce Enterprise Costs and Streamline Day-to-Day Operations

Microsoft Going After MSN Israel Ltd.

MSN Israel employees had little warning of Microsoft moves


Miscellaneous
Israel's global firms employ 63,000 overseas

Walla, ICQ launch new communications program

Digital photo co PhotoFree raises NIS 2.84m

Oil hits record ($145.98) above $147 on Nigeria unrest, Israel / Iran tension

Sightix Offers B2B Social Networking Search Solution [Israel Media Tour]

Meet BreadCrumbz, An Israeli Finalist of The Adroid Developer Challenge



About the author: Lisa Damast is the Membership Manager of ebizQ.net and currently resides in Israel. Any questions or inquiries regarding this blog or ebizQ membership services can be directed to her via email at ldamast (at) ebizq (dot) net. She can also be followed on Twitter, where she covers additional Israeli technology companies and Israel-related headlines and topics.

The main headlines coming from Israel's hi-tech scene during the week of June 15, 2008 were primarily related to water technology and future investments in Israel. It was announced that Los Angeles joined Israel on water research and Germany-based RWE made a bid for Israel's Negev solar plant. The MSCI index announced that it will be upgrading Israel from an emerging market to a developed one, joining the ranks of the United States and the UK among others. While being considered "developed" sounds nice, Israel will now be vying against these more established economies for funds. Although this was covered extensively in the media around the world (and is covered in it's own section on this list), there were plenty of other Israel technology-related headlines from the past week. Check out the full list of this week's 21 Israel-related technology headlines below:


Cleantech
BP seeks more Israeli cleantech investment

Arison's water venture gets name, launch date

Environmentalists unite against Red-Dead canal

Los Angeles and Israel to cooperate on water research

RWE reportedly makes bid for Negev


Investments (VC)
Neocleus Raises Over $11M in Series B Financing

Get with the consumer program, say Israeli VCs

Tax breaks urged for venture lending cos

Redpoint Gets Some Answers


Investments (Israeli Market)
A worrying look at the future of Israeli hi-tech

Markets slide on financial, oil fears

High-tech industry sees slowdown loom

Tel Aviv Bourse to Stay Independent, Forgo Alliances, CEO Says

Israel, S. Korea Have Emerged


Information Technology
Amdocs and IBM Introduce Unified Data Management Solution

Magic Software Nominated for SYS-CON's "SOA World Magazine Readers' Choice Awards"

ICQ – Ten Years After


Miscellaneous
Israeli telecom start-ups find success in Asian road show

TI in Israel says it "believes in fabs"

Walla! gains on Google

Partner launches video-on-demand service


About the author: Lisa Damast is the Membership Manager of ebizQ.net and currently resides in Israel. Any questions or inquiries regarding this blog or ebizQ membership services can be directed to her via email at ldamast (at) ebizq (dot) net. She can also be followed on Twitter, where she covers additional Israeli technology companies and Israel-related headlines and topics.

As mentioned in my previous post, I attended the Presidential Conference in Jerusalem this past Thursday. One of the sessions that I attended was a panel discussion entitled, "The Revolution of the Internet and the New Media." The panel was moderated by Yossi Vardi and the panelists included, Yahoo! President, Susan Decker; Google Co-founder, Sergey Brin; Publicis Groupe Chairman and CEO, Maurice Levy; News Corporation Chairman and CEO, Rupert Murdoch; and Windsor Media Chairman and CEO, Terry Semel. The question posed to the panelists was "What is the future of the new Internet media?"

While the panelists were able to paint an overall picture of what the relationship between the Internet and media will probably look like in the future, only Susan Decker's comments really stood out. She began by mentioning that "the more things change, the more they stay the same." She discussed the importance of the Internet for essentials and mentioned that while Yahoo! currently covers the "breadth" of the Internet, the future is in the "depth," such as processing speed, low costs storage, mass media distribution.

In relation to mass media distribution and the role that it will play, she emphasized the personal connection that will be widespread in the future, and how it will affect news and TV in the future. This new media, dubbed "we" media, will allow individuals to define news and entertainment and receive it for themselves based on their own personal interests and then to share it with their entire social graph. What role Yahoo! will play in this, is still a major question. In reference to that, Decker concluded by stating that with over 500 million users, Yahoo! is both the largest social network and the least useful, and that the social graph will be used in the future to prioritize one's information and interactions with others through it.

The means of attaining this in the future are what IT professionals should keep an eye on and try to really understand:
1. Creating open experience - figuring out the how and where.
2. Highly personal filters that are user generated and customized.
3. The connection of the online and off-line worlds and the digitization of everything.

(Note: Picture is of the stage before the panelists arrived.)

Last night, at the Jerusalem Business Networking Forum (which I co-organize), I had the opportunity to hear Orna Berry -- a Gemini Israel Funds Venture Partner and the Israel Venture Association (IVA) Chairperson -- give an overview of the VC process and discuss what VCs can offer Israeli businesses.

During the Q&A session, I asked her if she agreed with her Gemini colleague, Daniel Cohen's Op-Ed in VentureBeat last fall that explained why Israeli companies that have been founded in recent years don't reach their full potential and beyond, and if she thought that despite the current climate, there are companies that can reach the Nokia-level.

Her response was that she did agree with Daniel Cohen, but she only gave examples of successful companies that were established before the creation of VC funds in Israel, such as Comverse and Amdocs. Unfortunately, I didn't get a chance to follow up with her about this after the meeting and so, I am still left wondering, do any Israeli companies founded in the past 10 years have the potential to grow into a Nokia or Google and, if so, which?

I have set up a poll below with four Israeli companies that I have covered in recent months that seem to be very promising. Which one, if any, do you think can make it?
 
Think a different Israeli company not in the poll is more promising. Share your opinion in the comments below.

Related ITGumbo content:
People information and networking... Shouldn't the next big thing be from Israel?
Company in Focus: Red Bend Software
Company in Focus: Gemini Israel Funds
Company in Focus: Voltaire, Ltd.


About the author: Lisa Damast is the Membership Manager of ebizQ.net and currently resides in Israel. Any questions or inquiries regarding this blog or ebizQ membership services can be directed to her via email at ldamast (at) ebizq (dot) net. She can also be followed on Twitter, where she covers additional Israeli technology companies and Israel-related headlines and topics.

I wasn't going to list the top 10 most-read blog posts of 2007 for Israel Innovation 2.0, however, considering that I have covered a broad area of topics related to technology in Israel, the results are rather interesting. According to Google Analytics, the list is as follows:

1. First online TV-PC network: RayV?

2. Companies in Brief: 23 Israeli technology headlines from this past week

3. Israeli TV on the Internet: ahead of the curve

4. Company in Focus: Oberon Media

5. XJet Ltd. raises $9M in funding

6. Coming Soon: ooVoo.com video conference chatrooms

7. Facebook's Israel Network reaches new heights

8. Company in Focus: Precise

9. Company in Focus: Explay

10. Companies in Brief: 25 Israel-related technology headlines from the week of December 2nd

Are these the posts that you enjoyed? What other posts did you enjoy reading? Let me know in the comments below.

The week of December 23, 2007, saw American VC fund, Advanced Technology Ventures start to look for cleantech opportunities in Israel showing that investing in cleantech in Israel will continue to grow in 2008, despite predictions that overall funding to Israeli high-tech industries would remain stagnant in 2008. The week also saw Cepco's Med-O-Card's competitor, LifeOnKey end the year by raising $5 million, and sales and deals in Asia continue, among other news. For a full overview of the major headlines related to technology in Israel during the past week, check out these headlines and the rest of this week's 19 Israel-related technology headlines below.

Cleantech
Advanced Technology Ventures looks for cleantech opportunities in Israel

Foreign companies to take part in new Negev solar power plant tender

Israeli nanotech provides green electricity [VIDEO]

The garden city north of Tel Aviv

IDE to build desalination plant in Australia -paper

Israel's Ofer Shipping Invests $30M in Electric Car Venture

Investments
Israel's Lifeonkey Closes $10M To Help You Access Medical Records Via Net/Cell

Code testing co TypeMock raises $1.5m

'Emerging markets hold the key to Israeli VC success'

Stagnant market may mean trouble for local VCs in 2008

Israel-Asia deals
Israeli company Exalenz Bioscience signs distribution agreements in Korea and Hong Kong

Taiwan, Israel to collaborate on Information Technology, Biotech

Miscellaneous
Four Israeli finalists in the “Crunchies”

WorldMate Live's Mobile and Web 2.0 Travel Technology Garners Honor from BIRD Foundation

Babylon signs international deal with Google

Israel Mobile Operator Picks Ericsson

Israeli billionaire Lev Leviev is emigrating

Corporate social responsibility attracting more attention

Israel in 2007 has 7.2 million residents

Blogging is a phenomenon that isn't just perceived as important in the United States, but in Israel, too. Back in October, I wrote a few posts about blogging in Israel and the different networks and platform technologies that I noticed being used. A lot of the attention I gave to blogging in Israel was in anticipation of attending the first annual WordPress Israel conference.

Recently, there was some discussion on the Digital-Eve Israel listserv (an email list for hi-tech professionals in Israel) about how to start a professional blog and which blog platform to use for it. In one of the posts, Miriam Schwab, CEO of Illuminea Marketing and Media and an organizer of the WordPress Israel conference, directed everyone to an entry on her blog about how a "really professional blog" is hosted on WordPress.

As there are several blog platforms aside from WordPress that are used by some highly-regarded professionals, including Blogger and MovableType, I decided to leave a comment disagreeing with the idea that "really professional blogs" are only on WordPress. I also included my belief that professionals just starting to blog should consider different platforms and that if the blog isn't directly for their company, then it would probably be fine to start off on Blogger while learning the ins and outs of blogging.

Miriam's response to my comment and Jacob Share's short list of Digital Eve Israel members who blog (only 11!), piqued my curiosity as to how many Israeli companies (including VCs) that I have covered in my posts, have blogs. Surprisingly, and not so surprisingly, most of the companies I checked (especially the biggest companies, such as Teva Pharmaceuticals and Alvarion), don't have corporate blogs. Many Israel-based venture capitalists on the other hand, do.

Here's a list of a few of the Israeli companies that I have mentioned that do have blogs:
RedBend
eSnips
Metacafe
Gemini
Tvinci
Jajah
ooVoo

Here's a list of some companies, including ones that I haven't covered, that are noticeably missing:
Comverse
Commtouch
BluePhoenix
Magic Software
InfoGin
Alvarion
Vringo
Ness Technologies
Teva Pharmaceuticals
Voltaire

The U.S. dollar is falling, several foreign countries are experiencing significant growth rates, and the price of gold has risen from the $300 range to the $800 range. What should expatriates living in Israel invest their U.S. dollars in?

These questions and more were discussed at the first Jerusalem Investing Meetup event organized by portfolio manager extraordinaire, Zack Miller. Topics covered in depth included:

- Why investors invest internationally? Growth, valuation, diversification.

- How investors can invest internationally? Stocks, International bonds, currencies.

By applying what I have learned over the past few months about investing and technology in Israel with what was discussed at the meetup, here are my thoughts on investing in Israel and its high-tech companies:

While BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India and China) have had the most growth in the past few years and promise the most return. Return on investments in these countries aren't a guaranteed thing. Israel, on the other hand, also has a fair growth rate and a proven track record of getting money out of investments made in it. For reasons such as these, VCs are learning to love investing in Israeli companies and so should more individual investors.

To briefly expound, Israel is currently a bull market that has the highest concentration of engineers in the world and over 120 publicly traded companies in the US. After the United States, Israel has the largest amount of companies listed on the Nasdaq and is one of the top four countries American VCs invest in. Many companies, from Microsoft to Cisco to Google, have opened R&D offices in Israel. There is also talk that Google is planning to hire more local database experts as the demand for that increases.

If so many major companies find value in investing in Israeli technology, shouldn't the individual investor as well?

Here are some well-established Israeli high-tech companies that are being recommended to individual investors, such as the expats at the meetup:

Comverse Technologies
Teva Pharmaceutical
Elbit Medical
Africa-Israel

I think these companies should also be recommended:
Voltaire
Given Imaging
Ormat Technologies

Think other Israeli high-tech companies should be recommended to investors? Enter the company or companies you recommend and I'll add it here.

Tim Berners-Lee, the father of the World Wide Web, recently mentioned in his blog that social networking on the Web is providing people with the opportunity to share data about themselves and things related to them for the interest of others (i.e., for connecting to others). He explains though that the popularity of these social networks hide the reality of people using these closed sites not for the sites themselves but for the opportunities and connections that they provide them.

For those who aren't familiar with Israeli society, it tends to pride itself on giving advice and having connections (protexia). The connection of people and information are strong values that are practically innate in Israelis and has probably contributed to Israel's high-tech sector being very active in the Web 2.0 phenomena -- so active, that I have been thinking ever since Daniel Cohen's Israei Nokia article that if all these Israeli companies were pooled, Israel could have countered Google or created its own Facebook.

Unfortunately, it's a lot easier said than done or even fully imagined. However, with Berners-Lee talking about the Giant Global Graph and the need to transcend the limits of the current social networking graph, maybe there is still the chance that Israel will build the next big networking phenomena. Israeli companies just have to think outside the box of the Web and the set up of social networks as we know it.

For anyone who wants to get started on this, here's a list of some of the top Israeli Web 2.0 companies that offer interactive services that if were combined in a new way, I think could create the next big thing:

Fun:
Aniboom- Users can create animated clips, post clips, view clips here, and based on the popularity of content that you post, you have the chance to make some money as well.

Metacafe- A user-driven video-sharing site that shows only entertaining short clips that is first reviewed by users before it gets posted on the site. Program creators of the most popular content get paid.

BlogTV- For anyone who has something to share via video. This gives you the chance to create your own live channel on anything you want.

Search and Information:
Walla!- An Internet portal with free email for anyone, this is the first stop for local information and direction on the Web.

Answers.com- Formerly with the tag line, the encyclodictionalmanacapedia, Answers.com is a one stop information engine. It's popular wikiAnswers allows users to post and answer questions on anything they might be wondering.

Collaboration and work environment:
eSnips- While it is great for its music features, eSnips' 5GB storage gives users a way to easily store and share documents on the Web.

ooVoo- 6-way video conferences, video messaging and video chatrooms make this ideal for live video communication for business or for fun.

Verix- Offers solutions for Business Intelligence when it comes to sales.

Advertising:
Kontera- "Kontera is a leading provider of In-Text Advertising and Information Services based on patent- pending text and content analysis technology that maximizes relevancy and yield for online users, publishers, and advertisers."

TVinci - "The TVinci media management platform helps video content owners, broadcasting channels and publishers enrich, socialize and personalize video content, while maximizing monetization."

Hiro Media- Hiro's ad-supported video downloading technology allows any video distributor to allow the unlimited sharing of its product over the Internet with the ability to monetize it. monetized.