VentureBeat |
- Bo.lt launches an easy way to customize (almost) any Web page
- Hitting the G-spot: How green marketeers are doing it all wrong
- Verizon sells 2.2M iPhones in Q1, confirms dual network iPhone 5
- Deals & More: CrowdOptic gets $1M to track moving objects
- Mopay: Mobile payment interest doubled in North America last year
- 4 ways to raise prices without causing a customer meltdown
- Ebullient VCs pour $6.4B into 661 companies in Q1
- Verizon is lukewarm on RIM’s BlackBerry PlayBook
- Twitter ‘follows’ Facebook by hiding Tweets
- Mobile computing is changing software and the PC – but don’t be afraid!
- NComputing names ex-Citrix boss as new CEO
- Qualcomm saw record revenues, thanks to smartphones
- eBay gets hyperlocal with acquisition of Where
- More rockstars at VB Summit: Twitter’s Michael Abbott, Verizon’s Nicola Palmer
- By the numbers: Apple’s staggering results
| Bo.lt launches an easy way to customize (almost) any Web page Posted: 21 Apr 2011 08:13 AM PDT
This is one of those ideas that took me a few minutes to wrap my head around. After all, it's perfectly easy to share links with your friends and connections on social networks already, with or without the help of link shorteners such as Bit.ly. But Bo.lt co-founder and chief executive James Roche pointed out that what you share doesn't have your personal stamp. When you "Bo.lt" a Web page, on the other hand, the service creates a fully functional, fully editable copy. Bo.lt offers simple tools to edit any portion of the website, say by removing an image or changing some text, and if that's not enough freedom for you, it also allows you to go in and directly rewrite the HTML. Then you share can share that personalized version of the webpage with friends, family, or customers. From a professional perspective, Roche told me the goal is to "take IT out of the process" and allow marketers to edit webpages themselves. As an example, he showed me how a real estate agent might edit a home listing that they sent to their client by skipping over the photos they don't like and highlighting the most appealing image. Houseplans.com already uses Bo.lt to create pages for the 31,000 different house plans that it sells and to customize those pages for different audiences. But not everyone who uses Bo.lt will be a marketer, Roche said. If you're just a regular Web user, you might want to personalize Web pages before you share them with your friends, sometimes in serious ways (say if you were buying a house and wanted to share the listing with your parents, but you wanted to hide the price first), and sometimes in less-than-serious ways (for example by inserting your photo into a news story). So how are website owners going to feel about all this copying and editing? Roche said it should ultimately benefit them, because their ads still get served and it still counts as a pageview in services like Google Analytics. And visitors will be more motivated to share content that they've customized — as he put it, they will have "skin in the game." And if publishers aren't convinced? Roche declined to lay out a specific course of action, but he said he will ultimately side with consumers and their freedom to share. And he did note that Bo.lt will be excluding one type of Web page for now — those with financially sensitive information. San Francisco-based Bo.lt has already raised $5 million in funding from Benchmark Capital. The basic service is free, but it will charge for professional features like sharing pages with your own URL, rather than Bo.lt's. Companies: Benchmark Capital, Bo.lt People: James Roche
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| Hitting the G-spot: How green marketeers are doing it all wrong Posted: 21 Apr 2011 08:00 AM PDT
Proving that the road to hell is paved with good intentions, 82 percent of Americans have good green intentions, but only 16 percent are dedicated to fulfilling these intentions and over half feel guilty about their lack of action. The study puts this down, at least in part, to the way in which green products and activities are marketed. Marketeers still focus mainly on what the study calls the “Super Greens”; essentially preaching to the converted. 16 percent of American are considered to be Super Greens in that they are committed to a green lifestyle and are often motivated by altruism. Green Rejecters are cynical about the green movement and make up 18 percent of the population. So the vast majority of 66 percent, or Middle Greens, fall somewhere in between. This is the group that green marketing needs to target, according to OgilvyEarth, in order to turn a green lifestyle from niche into normal. To put this in context globally, the study also surveyed Chinese consumers. 48 percent of Chinese are Super Greens. Only 2 percent see themselves as Green Rejecters. Of course “normal” also varies between areas within the U.S. San Francisco, in particular, was highlighted as a city where a green lifestyle is more mainstream. Green marketing is alienating to many Americans. According to the responses in the study, half of Americans think the green and environmentally friendly products are marketed to "Crunchy Granola Hippies" or "Rich Elitist Snobs". Most Americans would prefer to buy a green product from a mainstream brand rather than a company which specializes in being green. Another major obstacle is the consistently higher cost of green products. 82 percent of the participants in the study also said that going green is "more feminine than masculine." The ranks of the Super Greens are dominated by women. This is changing amongst the young. 70 percent of teenagers cite "caring about the environment" as the top trending issue amongst their peers regardless of gender.
The study also advises targeting male customers with marketing that strikes a chord with them. Tesla, for example, has done a brilliant job of changing the image of electric vehicles from worthy to racy by emphasizing speed and design. Everyone wants to belong. Making a green lifestyle seem like the norm, rather than a niche, seems to be the best motivator of them all. Companies: OgilvyEarth, Practically green
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| Verizon sells 2.2M iPhones in Q1, confirms dual network iPhone 5 Posted: 21 Apr 2011 07:15 AM PDT
The carrier also let slip a major detail about the iPhone 5. In an attempt to deflect an analyst probing for details on Apple’s next phone, Verizon inadvertently mentioned that it will be a “global device” — meaning that it will work across both Verizon’s CDMA and AT&T’s GSM networks. Multiple rumors have been saying the same thing and Verizon’s gaffe seems to confirm them. The carrier beat Wall Street expectations with $3.26 billion in profit on revenue of $26.99 billion. Wireless revenue was up more than 10 percent from a year ago at $16.9 billion. Data revenue rose 22.2 percent to $5.5 billion — something that will only continue to rise as 4G smartphones become more readily available. Wireline revenue was down 2.2 percent at $10.1 billion. Verizon’s first batch of 4G devices also had a decent showing — though nowhere near iPhone levels — with over 500,000 units sold, which includes 260,000 HTC Thunderbolts. In comparison, AT&T sold 3.6 million iPhones in the last quarter — but it also had the benefit of selling the iPhone for the entire quarter, where Verizon only had it for around two months. AT&T is also offering a $49 iPhone 3GS, which was likely popular with bargain chasers, while Verizon only had the high-end $200 iPhone 4. Basically, we won’t see a fair iPhone fight between Verizon and AT&T until the results of the current quarter. Verizon says it added 906,000 postpaid subscribers (including tablets and smartphones) and ended the quarter with a 88.4 million retail customers — a curious drop from the last quarter, when the carrier reported 94.1 million customers. It had 104 million total connections, which takes into account customers with multiple devices. Smartphone sales accounted for 60 percent of Verizon’s wireless business last quarter, up from 36 percent last year. Overall smartphone penetration on Verizon’s network was at 32 percent by the end of the quarter. Judging from the carrier’s earnings report, it’s clear that its wireline business is slowly winding down, while the wireless (and specifically smartphone) business is accelerating.
Companies: Apple, Verizon, Verizon Wireless
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| Deals & More: CrowdOptic gets $1M to track moving objects Posted: 21 Apr 2011 06:00 AM PDT Today’s funding announcements include services for sharing photos and predicting solar energy:
Humble Bundle grabs $4.5M for pick-your-price games: The games site, which lets users decide how much they want to pay to play, has raised funding, according to a filing with the SEC. Founded in 2010, the Y-Combinator alum is based in San Francisco and launched its second official batch of games, created by indie developer Frozenbyte, this month. Geostellar brings in $2M to compute solar energy potential: The Reston, Virginia-based company has raised a new round of funding led by Flash Forward Ventures to precisely determine the ideal location for solar plants. The company has created solar mapping models of Washington, D.C., Philadelphia and Indianapolis and has plans to produce models for the United States and Western Europe. ChanelInsight raises $10M: The Denver, Colo.-based sales channel management company was previously known as IntoNow, but just rebranded under the new name. ChannelInsight says that it wants to take the “guesswork” out of channel sales, making them “as productive as direct sales.” The round was led by Rho Ventures with participation from Sevin Rosen Funds, Sequel Venture Partners and Vedanta Capital. The company has now raised $21 million. –Written by Anthony Ha Companies: crowdoptic, Flash Forward Ventures, Frozenbyte, Geostellar, Humble Bundle, Moon Express, Rho Ventures, Sequel Venture Partners, Sevin Rosen Funds, Vedanta Capital
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| Mopay: Mobile payment interest doubled in North America last year Posted: 21 Apr 2011 06:00 AM PDT
The 11-year-old company lets you pay for physical merchandise with your cell phone in online transactions in 28 countries — a process also referred to as carrier billing. As such, it now handles digital goods purchases for more than 400 customers, reaching 3.3 billion people — including well-known gaming brands like Bigpoint, Gameforge, Innogames, Sulake and Travian. The Munich-based company said it attributes this rapid, recent adoption in North American users to improved carrier agreements, easier integration, optimized usability and growing general acceptance among consumers. “Merchants are adapting to a trend where consumers are not using credit cards but phones to make online purchases, with games spearheading the implementations to make virtual goods available to unbanked and underbanked consumers,” Kolja Reiss, managing director of Mopay in the United States, told VentureBeat. Mopay (which spells its name “mopay”) said it gathered the stats after analyzing specific data from its international mobile payments platform and based their conclusions on conversion rates, transaction values and transaction numbers accumulated in more than 80 countries. The process works in three-steps: Once a service is selected as a form of payment, the consumer enters their mobile phone number when prompted. Second, the consumer will receive a special pin number via text message. Third, a user will enter that pin number in the designated field on the website, which will complete the transaction. The purchase is then billed directly to the buyer's mobile phone account. The ability to have companies charge a consumer’s phone directly has long been popular in Asia, where phones come equipped with near-field communication (NFC) chips and retailers have scanners that can process the transactions. But now that global consumers are demanding the service, there has been a boom in companies interested in taking a slice of the billions to be made in the space, including American startups such as Boku, Zong and BilltoMobile. Other findings from Mopay’s study included: –Regardless of region, adults use mobile payments more deliberately, making the average global conversion rate of adults more than twice as high. –Mobile payments work best within a value of $2.50 and $10. Global merchants have independently established a “sweet spot” of their mobile payment offers of around $8. Only three percent of all offers ranged below a value of $2.50 and two percent exceeded a value of $14. –Within this price range, the average transaction value of mobile payments increased in 2010, mirroring the growing trust of consumers in mobile payments. –Although mobile payments are broadly considered “micropayments,” consumers regularly spend up to $50 per month using mobile payments. This fact is apparently due to a high percentage of repeat customers, with the majority of consumers use mobile payments more than once a month — in 2010 almost 60 percent. Hence, as low as the pricing range may seem, mobile payments regularly generate macro revenue per consumer. So far, Mopay has raised $20 million to date from investors including T-Venture Mobile, Tempo Capital and Holtzbrinck Ventures, with its last round in 2004. Photo via Ed Yourdon
Companies: Bigpoint, BilltoMobile, Boku, Gameforge, Holtzbrinck Ventures, InnoGames, Mopay, Sulake, T-Venture Mobile, Tempo Capital, Travian, Zong People: Kolja Reiss
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| 4 ways to raise prices without causing a customer meltdown Posted: 21 Apr 2011 06:00 AM PDT (Editor’s note: Healy Jones is a former venture capitalist and the VP of marketing for OfficeDrop. He submitted this story to VentureBeat.) If you’ve spent the last few years improving your software as a service (SaaS) app and haven't raised prices then you are probably undercharging your customers. Your solution is getting better and better, your customers are getting greater and greater value – why can't you capture some of this value in the form of higher prices? In fact, you probably started your company with prices that were too low – either because you were afraid to charge more for your service or because you didn't realize just how much customers were willing to pay for your product. While raising prices can be risky, if done right it won't cause a widespread customer freakout. Raising prices doesn't always have to result in a negative media blitz or a mass customer exodus. Having gone through (what we consider) a successful pricing change ourselves, here are a few tips to getting the fair market value for your app or SaaS product without sending your loyal fans running for the hills. Do recon on similar services. – This may sound obvious, but how will you know the value of your product or service until you see what's already out there? More importantly, if you have been adding features and functionality to your app, the original competitive set against which you compared yourself when you launched may no longer be as relevant. Also, don't just do an apples-to-apples (or app-to-app!) comparison. A major problem OfficeDrop made when comparing our price to other services was that we limited ourselves to other SaaS applications – when we should have realized that most of our potential customers were purchasing expensive, off-the- shelf software from traditional vendors at very high, one-time prices – then repurchasing expensive new versions of this software every few years. So, check out the other similar services that follow a different pricing structure. Do the math. Are you leaving money on the table? Be very deliberate with your communications. – Over-communicate. Communication to existing customers is absolutely critical to making a successful pricing change. In fact, when Sixteen Ventures, a SaaS Value Pricing consultancy, analyzed the problems Zendesk and Chargify had with their pricing changes, it was clearly much more about communication than the actual price increase. We aggressively communicated with our customers and users via our blog, on Twitter and directly on our home page prior to the pricing change. For example, we posted on our blog several days prior to the pricing change to alert the world to the upcoming change. In addition, our CEO, Prasad Thammineni, sent an email directly to our paying customers and to the potential paying customers who were currently in our free trial period. We kept the email brief and hyped our new features. Most importantly, we made it clear the users did not have to change the price they pay. Prasad not only requested that users with questions email him directly (by simply replying to the email) he also provided his direct office phone number and our customer service number. Not a single user called, and he got two emails. One was email was, "Why are you bothering to tell me this?" and another simply said, "Ok." Potential crisis, averted. "Grandfather" current users in at their prior rate if you raise prices. – Let your paying customers keep their existing pricing. Give them the option to upgrade to the new prices, but keep your current paying customers happy. Critics of this move would say – "Man, if your service is getting better, then your old customers should be happy to pay the higher price. So don't bother grandfathering 'legacy' users in at a lower price point." I disagree. We chose grandfathering since it seemed like the most civil way to raise prices for our loyal customers. They took a chance and started using a startup company's software to run an important part of their business. Now they were reaping the reward by getting a substantially improved service at a lower price than the rest of the world. The most important point in Prasad's email to users was to let current customers know we were grandfathering them into their existing, current pricing plans. Additionally, we let users who were currently in our free trial period choose between the old pricing plans or the new pricing plans (different features for each, of course) when they upgraded to a paid plan. No bait and switch. Finally, we didn't promise that we'd eternally keep the old plans around, but made it very clear that we had no intention of changing their plans anytime soon. After all, inflation does happen. Above all, don't apologize. – Charge more because the service is getting better. Customers are getting more. Appearing defensive will automatically put customers on the offensive. Tie the pricing change to an increase in value – that is by bundling around new features/benefits that your customers and market will perceive as higher value. People are much more likely to accept new pricing if it is bundled with a clear message that the change is because of new, valuable features.
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| Ebullient VCs pour $6.4B into 661 companies in Q1 Posted: 21 Apr 2011 04:00 AM PDT Can you feel the froth? Investment in U.S. venture-backed companies rose 35 percent in the first quarter, according to a report by Dow Jones VentureSource. Venture firms invested $6.4 billion into 661 deals in the U.S. during the quarter. The increased activity is consistent with the buzz in the tech industry about an overall recovery, an increase in optimism, and a faster pace for innovation among start-ups. There is considerable discussion about whether there is a bubble in tech investing, with a major story on the topic every week or so. The Wall Street Journal ran its latest bubble piece on Tuesday, with the headline, “In Silicon Valley, investors are jockeying like its 1999. The debate is about whether there’s a comeback, with a recovery that is just beginning, or a bubble that is getting ready to burst. The media amount raised in the first quarter was $5 million for a round of funding, up from $4.4 million a year earlier and on part with the 2009 medium. "Large deals for capital-intense industries — such as renewable energy, healthcare and information technology — drove the investment increase in the first quarter," said Jessica Canning, global research director for Dow Jones VentureSource, in a statement. "Venture capitalists, however, were not the only investors giving venture-backed companies sizable cash infusions. With acquisition prices on the rise, corporations are more inclined to invest and they funded three of the 10 largest deals confirmed during the quarter." Corporations accounted for were the source of $448 million of the $6.4 billion raised by venture-backed startups. Business and financial services companies raised $935 million in 125 deals, 17 percent more capital and 21 percent more deals than a year earlier. Ad technologies and services companies — which raised $306 million in 43 deals — accounted for the largest proportion of deals in the business and financial services segment. Consumer services companies raised $1.2 billion for 106 deals in the recent quarter. That was more than double the $517 million raised for 102 deals during the same period last year. The consumer information services sector — which includes social media, gaming and online shopping companies — raised $875 million in 81 deals. That was triple the amount raised during the same period a year ago; the number of deals only increased 7 percent, which means the amount per deal was way up at $10.8 million, far above average. A handful of large rounds accounted for the big increase, said Scott Austin, editor of Dow Jones VentureWire. For consumer companies overall, the median amount raised is $4 million, which is less than half of the media round size during the dot-com bubble in 2000. Deals for healthcare companies were down 6 percent but capital invested rose 21 percent. There were 148 deals worth $1.6 billion in this sector. Biopharmaceuticals raised $849 in 61 deals, a 13 percent drop in deals and 15 percent increase in the amount invested. Medical devices companies raised $635 million in 60 deals, a 14 percent drop in deals and 31 percent increase in capital raised. Information tech companies raised $1.6 billion in 212 deals, a 10 percent increase in deals and 16 percent increase in capital invested. Within that sector, software companies closed 152 deals worth $741 million, up 24 percent in deals and 10 percent in money invested. Energy and utilities companies raised $742 million in 33 deals, almost double the amount of capital raised a year ago. Six renewables companies raised $50 million-plus rounds. Rewewable energy companies altogether raised $671 million in 26 deals. Early stage rounds were 38 percent of deals and 16 percent of capital invested. A year ago, 39 percent of deals were seed and first-round deals. They were 20 percent of capital raised. Later stage deals were 40 percent of the number of deals and 64 percent of capital raised. that was up from 35 percent of deals and 54 percent of capital raised last year. Companies: dow jones venture source
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| Verizon is lukewarm on RIM’s BlackBerry PlayBook Posted: 21 Apr 2011 02:30 AM PDT
If Verizon does decide not to sell the PlayBook, it could defer current BlackBerry mobile phone users on Verizon’s network (the largest wireless carrier in the US) from buying the tablet, since loyal RIM customers are thought to be one of the largest target consumer bases. However, it’s still too early to tell whether a PlayBook with 3G/4G support would attract more buyers than the WiFi-only version, which recently made its debut in retail stores across the US and Canada starting at $499. If mobile wireless support is a factor for current BlackBerry owners, it could push them into the arms of a competitor’s device, and thus introduce them to a new operating system. That would also eliminate a key selling point of the PlayBook, which can sync data seamlessly the tablet device and BlackBerry mobile phones via RIM’s Bridge technology. Mobile wireless versions of the PlayBook should be available to consumers in June or July 2011. Companies: Research In Motion, Verizon
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| Twitter ‘follows’ Facebook by hiding Tweets Posted: 20 Apr 2011 11:34 PM PDT
The company is testing a new feature that would hide excessive messages from users who send lots of messages in a short amount of time — an ability that has been standard in Facebook for ages. The “hide” feature is live for a small percentage of Twitter users and may have been active for months before turning up on anyone’s radar, reports The Next Web. The company did not indicate a time-table for full roll out, but the sooner it does happen, the better. As many long-time Twitter users may have experienced, a handful of over-active accounts can create enough noise to render your main feed useless. The two current options for eliminating that noise are to unfollow certain people, or create a separate “Twitter list” of users who update less frequently — both of which offer a broken experience for handling information overload. It makes a lot of sense that Twitter would want to address the problem of an increasingly noisy main feed. And now that we know the hiding feature is a reality, it probably won’t be long until the company copies another page from Facebook by giving users the ability to block applications that work in conjunction with Twitter. Yes, Twitter is indeed following Facebook. Not long ago, it was the other way around — with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg drastically changing the way his company’s platform operated in an effort to stay relevant and competitive with Twitter, which sounded ludicrous at the time since both Twitter’s user base and valuation were deemed much lower by comparison. If Twitter wants to remain relevant in the future, it will need to do more than update its welcome screen and keep pace with Facebook.
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| Mobile computing is changing software and the PC – but don’t be afraid! Posted: 20 Apr 2011 06:41 PM PDT
Even before Apple's iPad reinvigorated what was an all-but-dead tablet marketplace, the exponential growth of computing capability on mobile phones was well underway. Now, with millions of tablets and nearly a billion smartphones circulating throughout our always-on world, mobile computing is not just on the rise but is truly the future of computing – both for consumers and business. As we shift into this mobile-dominated computing world, it is likely that in a few years we'll no longer be talking about phones and tablets and laptops and desktops. Instead, we'll speak of mobile devices and "personal servers." The role of the PC for many consumers is already evolving into that of a personal server – a memory-rich, content loaded device that serves to store and sync content to mobile devices (their primary computer). Companies are behind in this trend. But with more and more business services being offered via the cloud, executives and workers will soon be able to access all critical information via their smartphones and tablets. There is, however, another factor in the move from the PC to mobile computing – software. When the laptop was introduced as an alternative to the desktop computer, no major change in software was necessary. But this is not true in the shift to mobile computing. The emergence of mobile computing is pushing us into a new era of software. An era when total functionality is expected, but now in combination with an engaging user experience and anytime, anywhere access. In short, apps. Apps represent the fastest growing marketplace in the history of marketplaces and continue to be a spark plug of entertainment and innovation, but many software and services companies have missed the mark on optimizing their offerings for the mobile user. As a result, the app marketplace has proven intimidating to many companies, especially those with enterprise software services. The reason is that the focus of enterprise software for the longest time has been 90% about functionality and 10% about the user experience. With smartphones and tablets – complete with interactive touchscreen capability, incredible processing power, and rich graphics – the future of software, even enterprise software, is 100% functionality and 100% user experience. There are a number of reasons for businesses to be excited by this mobile computing and app movement rather than intimidated by it: 1) Security Unlike with a PC, these remote security features for mobile devices are almost always available to IT because mobile devices have a persistent connection (unless they're on an airplane). Not all developers of business apps will provide this level of security, but many innovative app providers see security as an exciting challenge and may change the mind of even the most conservative CIO. 2) Connection and collaboration 3) Interactivity 4) Intuitive UI The mobile computing movement has already arrived. Cutting-edge companies are taking advantage by creating innovative mobile technologies and/or adopting mobile solutions that boost productivity and provide a competitive advantage in their industry. The always-on world is full of new ideas and new opportunities for decision makers to lead their businesses to their highest success points. Right now, many of the world's most powerful and innovative companies are investing in the future by supporting multiple smartphone devices, deploying tablets by the thousands, and adopting new business apps to boost productivity. What's your mobile strategy? Editor’s Note: Santiago Becerra is participating in VentureBeat's inaugural Mobile Summit this April 25-26 in Sausalito, Calif. The invitation-only event will debate the five key business and policy challenges facing the mobile industry today, and participants — 180 mobile executives, investors, and policymakers — will develop concrete, actionable solutions that will shape the future of the mobile industry. You can find out more at our Mobile Summit site. Companies: Mellmo People: Santiago Becerra
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| NComputing names ex-Citrix boss as new CEO Posted: 20 Apr 2011 05:07 PM PDT
Redwood, Calif.-based NComputing is on a mission to turn computing upside down by replacing full-blown PCs with lightweight clients that share a single computer. It’s like a return to the old time-sharing of dumb terminals connected to mainframe computers, only different because it makes a lot more economic sense by bringing down the cost of operating a PC.
NComputing has shipped more than 2.6 million client units to date, and its products have proven to be disruptive. They’re used by more than 20 million daily users. The company’s products have redefined what a PC is.
At Citrix, Dhingra, a 20-year veteran of the tech industry, helped grow the desktop virtualization business to close to $500 million in sales over three years. He said that his goal is to initiate the same leap forward in sales growth at NComputing. NComputing has done very well grabbing market share in the thin client business, although the exact share depends on how you define thin clients. Other thin clients often have no computing power at the client level and rely entirely on computing power stored in a web-connected data center. NComputing’s designs involve connecting a bunch of mostly dumb-clients to a single smart PC. IDC believes that NComputing is ranked third in thin clients behind Hewlett-Packard and Wyse. The overall market for desktop virtualization is getting bigger, with Gartner projecting that 15 percent of the business desktop market will be hosted on virtual desktops by 2014. That amounts to a market of 74 million clients in the business market alone. Virtualization is a threat to the traditional desktop based on the Wintel duopoly of Microsoft and Intel. But by lowering the cost of computers by 50 percent and cutting the power usage dramatically as well, NComputing believes it can make desktop computing available to a much wider audience around the world. “We believe the traditional PC replacement market is just the tip of the iceberg for virtual desktops, whose market potential is 10-100x larger,” Dhingra said. In markets such as India, NComputing has run its own virtualization software on its networks of machines. Windows applications could run across those networks, with each user accessing an app on the central computer. But in businesses, NComputing may begin to work more with other vendors such as Citrix, Microsoft, and VMware, which have all created popular virtualization software for companies. NComputing already has strategic partnerships with computer makers such as LG, Fujitsu and Panasonic. IDC says that NComputing ranks No. 1 in Asia-Pacific and Latin America in the category of enterprise clients and has more than 12 percent of the K-12 education desktop market in the U.S. Customers are in 140 countries and some have ordered more than 150,000 clients. Companies: citrix, Microsoft, NComputing, VMWare People: Raj Dhingra, Stephen Dukker
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| Qualcomm saw record revenues, thanks to smartphones Posted: 20 Apr 2011 04:23 PM PDT
Qualcomm makes chips for smartphones using CDMA technology. The company shipped 118 million Mobile Station Modems (MSM), up 27 percent year-on-year. MSM contains the necessary chips for a mobile phone. Qualcomm estimates that the quarterly CDMA-based mobile phone shipments were approximately 195 to 200 million units at an average selling price of $200-206 per unit. The revenues were $3.88 billion up 46 percent year-over-year and 16 percent sequentially. Net income was $999 million, up 29 percent year-on-year and down 15 percent sequentially. Qualcomm’s mobile television network FLO TV was shut down on March 27. The company sold its 700 MHz spectrum, used for FLO TV, to AT&T for $1.9 billion. The company announced in January that it is going to purchase Wi-Fi chipmaker Atheros for $3.1 billion. Now the transaction has the approval of Atheros' shareholders and foreign regulators. Qualcomm expects the merger to close in the third quarter of fiscal 2011. For the third quarter, Qualcomm expect to ship 115-119 million Mobile Station Modems. The revenue estimate for the third quarter is between $3.35 billion and $3.65 billion, up 24-35 percent year-over-year.
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| eBay gets hyperlocal with acquisition of Where Posted: 20 Apr 2011 04:11 PM PDT
Where operates a hyper-local ad network and a mobile app. It recently started to offer Groupon-style local deals. The app allows you to search for restaurants, entertainment, news, and more based on your location. Milo tracks inventory in local stores, so customers can find out where the product is available. Combined with Where the customers can find out about the best deals and even be able to get it immediately because of the real-time inventory. eBay is really pushing into the mobile space. The company plans on integrating PayPal into Where's mobile app so PayPal customers can access more local deals. Longer term, eBay could use Where's platform to help drive adoption of its point-of-sale offering. eBay is rolling out its mobile app to facilitate mobile transactions and plans on having pilots out for point-of-sale by the end of 2011. Where was previously known as uLocate. The company has received funding from Kodiak Venture Partners, GrandBanks Capital, and Venrock. The purchase price was undisclosed. Ebay doesn't expect it to impact the company's 2011 guidance. The company will provide more color around the deal on its first quarter earnings call on Wednesday, April 27. The monetization of mobile wil alsol be one of the key issues at VentureBeat Mobile Summit next week.
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| More rockstars at VB Summit: Twitter’s Michael Abbott, Verizon’s Nicola Palmer Posted: 20 Apr 2011 03:08 PM PDT
Michael Abbott (left), VP of Engineering at Twitter, will be joining us for an opening fireside chat on Monday. Michael helps lead Twitter’s mobile efforts, working closely with co-founder Jack Dorsey. As such, he can speak to mobile product development. Yes, he was referenced in that recent article by Fortune about the leadership shuffles and strategy discussions happening at Twitter. He’ll talk with us about Twitter’s investments in HTML5 versus native mobile app development, how he is making sure Twitter’s offering stays consistent across platforms, and also provide insights around Twitter’s roadmap. Previously, Abbott led Palm's webOS platform efforts, and before that was general manager of .NET Online Services at Microsoft. Prior to Microsoft, he co-founded Passenger Inc. and led the development of the company's consumer marketing SAAS platform. He also founded Composite Software, creator of industry-leading enterprise information integration software, where he served as CEO/CTO. Abbott’s talk segues nicely to the chat we’ll have with Keith Rabois of Square, who will talk about how to design for mobile. (Later in the event, we’ve got other presentations from some of the most dynamic private, disruptive companies too, from Dynamics, to Evernote, who will reveal insights about their efforts and mobile user stats.)
Palmer is responsible for Verizon Wireless' network support, including overall systems performance and quality assurance. She’s also responsible for implementation of new products and services within the network, along with transport interconnect, supplier management and ensuring regulatory compliance. People: Michael Abbott, Nicola Palmer
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| By the numbers: Apple’s staggering results Posted: 20 Apr 2011 02:45 PM PDT
Revenue:$24.67 billion, up 82 percent from a year ago. Net income: $5.99 billion, up 95 percent from a year ago. Mac sales: 3.76 million units, up 28 percent from a year ago. iPhone sales: 18.65 million units, up 113 percent from 8.8 million a year ago. Overall smartphone market growth is targeted at 74 percent, according to IDC. The iPhone is available from 186 carriers in 90 countries now. About 5.2 million units are in channel inventory. About 88 percent of Fortune 500 companies are deploying or testing iPhone. Corporations adopting include Cisco, Xerox, Deloitte, General Motors and more. iPod sales: 9.02 million units, compared to 10.9 million a year ago. U.S. market share great than 70 percent, according to NPD. iPad sales: 4.69 million (N/A year ago). iPad 2 launch March 11 in U.S. and 25 more countries by March 25. Available in 59 countries by end of March. No impact on supply chain as a result of Japan quake. Channel inventory is thin at 400,000 units. Overall 850,000 inventory. Enterprises deploying iPad include Xerox, ADP, Boston Scientific, Estee Lauder, and Disney. Adding 13 more countries next week. Total iOS sales to date: 189 million. iTunes sales: $1.4 billion. 1 billionth visitor coming soon. Japan quake: estimated $200 million less sales in upcoming fiscal third quarter due to disruption to business and supply chain from quake and tsunami. Apple stores: 71.1 million visitors, compared to 47 million a year ago. $3.19 billion in revenue, up 90 percent. 797,000 Macs sold in stores, half to customers without Mac history. Average revenue per store $9.9 million, up 67 percent. More than 300 stores open now, 40 more opening in 2011, including fifth store coming soon in China. Cash and cash equivalents: $65.8 billion, up $6.1 billion from previous quarter. Third fiscal quarter outlook: $23 billion in revenue and $5.03 a share in earnings per share. Companies: Apple
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A startup called 
Just in time for Earth Day, 
So how to make green products more attractive to the majority? Green marketing needs to change from being about polar bears to being about people. Make it personal. Marketing messages should focus less on guilt and more on enjoyment. Even the altruistic Super Greens got pleasure out of their positive green actions.
Verizon 
This April 25-26, VentureBeat is hosting its inaugural 
CrowdOptic lands $1M for photo service: The mobile app developer has raised a first round of funding led by its co-founder and CEO Jon Fisher with participation from angel investors and one of the company’s customers. The San Francisco-based 
Mobile payment system 
Though 
While microblogging site 
Santiago Becerra is CEO of MeLLmo Inc., creators of 
Desktop virtualization firm 
NComputing’s virtualization software allows several client machines — nothing more than monitors, keyboards and memory hubs — to share the computing power of a single PC. That way, one PC can deliver computing power to 10 or so users for lightweight purposes such as browsing the web or sending email. This set up works well in schools, emerging countries, big task-focused corporations and in retail. Dukker, who will remain co-chairman, helped get the company off the ground the last five years.
Dhingra is the former general manager and group vice president of the desktop virtualization business at Citrix. He said in an interview that he will help NComputing grow into the education and enterprise markets.
Qualcomm released its 
eBay has acquired location-based advertising company Where. The deal follows eBay's 
Our 
To round out Monday evening, we’ll also be joined by Nicola Palmer, VP of Network for 
Apple released its most staggering quarterly results in history today, with all parts of the business showing dramatic growth. Here’s a look at some of the most impressive numbers just released by the company on its fiscal second quarter earnings call.| You are subscribed to email updates from VentureBeat To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
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