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Autonomy, Not So Autonomous Anymore: HP CSO Bill Veghte Steps In, Founder Mike Lynch Steps Down

A D M I N — Thu, 24 May 2012 02:18:34 +0000

Within HP’s quarterly results today , a bit of a development for Autonomy , the company’s $10.2 billion enterprise software purchase from last year that was profitable when HP bought it but in the last quarter saw “significant” declines in its core licensing revenue: its founder and head Mike Lynch is stepping down, and he is getting replaced by a HP man: chief strategy officer and EVP of enterprise software Bill Veghte. HP says in its Q2 earnings release that this is being done to help improve Autonomy’s performance. In an internal memo to employees, which TechCrunch has obtained , CEO Meg Whitman says that the move is being made to as a mark of how HP is “investing to speed development across Security, Information and Management Infrastructure for both on-premise IT and in the cloud – with a key focus on software-as-a-service offerings.” The same strategy will be applied to the company’s Vertica business, Whitman noted in the memo. HP’s Q2 earnings saw revenues down by three percent to $30.7 billion. Within that, the company saw a mixed (but overall declining performance) in its different divisions: The Personal Systems group saw flat revenues with a 5.5 percent operating margin. Commercial revenues were up three percent but the bigger portion, consumer revenue, declined by four percent. Total unit sales were down by one percent. Services were down by one percent with 11.3 percent operating marging. Imaging and printing (which is merging with PSG) is down 10 percent. Enterprise servers, storage and networking also down by six percent. HP financial services up by nine percent with a 9.9 percent operating margin. Sofware revenue up most of all: 22 percent with a 17.7 percent operating margin (no wonder this is the part that previous CEO, Leo Apotheker, wanted to keep and ditch all hardware). However, within this Autonomy saw a “significant” decline in license revenue. Autonomy’s performance probably represents something of a disappointment — and perhaps surprise to HP, since the unit seemed to be doing much better when the acquisition was announced in October. At the time of the deal, Apotheker noted: “Autonomy presents an opportunity to accelerate our strategic vision to decisively and profitably lead a large and growing space…Together with Autonomy, we plan to reinvent how both unstructured and structured data is processed, analyzed, optimized, automated and protected. Autonomy has an attractive business model, including a strong cloud based solution set, which is aligned with HP’s efforts to improve our portfolio mix. We believe this bold action will squarely position HP in software and information to create the next-generation Information Platform, and thereby, create significant value for our shareholders…Autonomy is a highly profitable and globally respected software company, with a well-regarded management team and talented, dedicated employees. We look forward to partnering with a company who shares our commitment to solving customer problems by creating smart, cutting-edge products and solutions.” Mike Lynch, the founder and current head, will be stepping down after a transition period, HP says, and it doesn’t look like it’s giving up on Autonomy any time soon: “the market and competitive positioning for Autonomy remain strong, particularly in cloud offerings,” the company writes in its statement. Autonomy, currently based in the UK, offers a software infrastructure solution that lets enterprises wide portfolio of enterprise software services that have largely remained independent of HP’s other businesses. It has Autonomy offers a software infrastructure solution in which enterprises can get different applications to “communicate” with each other. It has 20,000 customers worldwide, and there are over 400 OEM companies that offer licenses to more than 500 products. Applications include those that handle information access technology, pan-enterprise search, information governance, end-to-end eDiscovery and archiving, records management, business process management, web content management, customer interaction solutions, and video and audio analysis. Here are some other founder departures from other companies HP has acquired — as you can see it looks like all of the others may have been working through their earn-outs (typically two years; although Chris Lynch stayed for just over a year after Vertica was bought, to join Atlas Ventures). Between Autonomy getting bought in October and today, it’s been about eight months. HP acquired Opsware for $1.6 billion in 2007. President & CEO Ben Horowitz stayed a year before leaving in 2009 to launch Andreesen Horowitz. HP acquired Vertica for $350 million in February 2011. CEO Chris Lynch left in March 2012 to join Atlas Ventures, a VC firm. HP acquired Stratavia in August 2010. Terms not disclosed. CEO Thor Culverhouse left in February 2012 to found new company. HP acquired ArcSight for $1.5 billion in September 2010. CEO Tom Reilly left HP in May 2012. HP acquired Fortify in August 2010. Terms not disclosed. CEO John M. Jack left in January 2012.

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Autonomy, Not So Autonomous Anymore: HP CSO Bill Veghte Steps In, Founder Mike Lynch Steps Down

Pandora’s Quarterly Results: $80.8M In Revenue, 52M Active Users & 3.09B Listening Hours

admin2 — Thu, 24 May 2012 02:15:37 +0000

Internet music service Pandora just announced its financial results for the first quarter of its fiscal 2013. The company had a total revenue of $80.8 million, a 58% increase year-over-year. Out of these $80.8 million, $70.6 million came from advertising revenue and $10.2 million from subscription revenue. Advertising revenue increased 62% year-over-year and subscription revenue increased 38%. Despite its increased revenue, Pandora still reported a net loss per share of $0.12 and Non-GAAP net loss of $0.09 per share. Pandora currently has $80.6 million in cash, cash equivalents and short-term investments. That’s down $10 million from the last quarter. The company’s cash used for its operating activities increased significantly from $2.8 million in the year-ago quarter to $10.6 million. Looking ahead, Pandora is raising its expectations for the full fiscal year. The company now expects to make between $420-427 million in revenue for its fiscal 2013, resulting in a net loss per-share of between $0.07 and $0.11. More Listeners, More Advertisers Overall, the company’s active users reached a record 51.9 million this quarter, up 53% year-over-year. Pandora now has a 71.7% share of the top U.S. Internet radio services and commands almost 6% of the total U.S. radio listening market. According to Pandora, this means that advertisers are also getting even more interested in its services, as “They are moving quickly to speak with their target customers across the Pandora platform, with the majority of the top 50 digital advertisers in the U.S. already having bought multiplatform advertising on Pandora. “

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Pandora’s Quarterly Results: $80.8M In Revenue, 52M Active Users & 3.09B Listening Hours

Tape.tv Raises $6.2 Million To Begin An International Roll-Out

admin — Thu, 24 May 2012 01:57:16 +0000

tape.tv has been around for a while – since July 2008 to be exact. It operates like a mix between an online version of MTV and Pandora. Just like the latter service, on Tape.tv users can skip, like or dislike the videos as they play, so the service starts to tailor itself to their tastes. I came across it in various visits to Berlin over the last couple of years but have been frustrated that this great service has only been aimed at the German market. However, I’m excited that it’s about to scale into new countries. The company has now raised €5 million ($6.2 million) in a Series B funding round. Participants include Atlantic Capital Partners GmbH , Dario Suter, Christoph Daniel and Marc Schmidhelny (DCM), prolific Berlin Angel investor Christophe Maire, alongside Investitionsbank Berlin and VC Kreativwirtschaft Berlin. The cash will be used to scale the business, appear on other platforms like smart TVs and launches into France and the UK in early autumn. The relaunch will also see the creation of an electronic program guide (EPG) for their own live shows and events. Its tape.tv’s catalogue of 45,000 videos has attracted around 3.5 million users in Germany, Switzerland and Austria, its main markets since it launched in July 2008. The company managed to navigate the tricky music licensing laws in Germany, which has seen YouTube hobbled in some areas. Founded by Conrad Fritzsch (CEO) and Stephanie Renner, Tape.tv plans to have an editorial team in each region it launches in, programming its sub channels, like Indie and Hip-Hop. Fritzsch says the company is now aiming at the convergence of Internet and TV towards SmartTV and hopes to extend to mobile as well. “The future of tape.tv will also be more social, based on user behaviour” he says. The company has 65 employees, many of them selling ads around the videos, and also has a real TV show on on the ZDFkultur channel in Germany. But it’s a lucrative business. It’s claiming to be running on €20 million in annual revenues. In Germany it has plenty of strategic partners, including ZDF.kultur, bild.de und spiegel.de and apps with Facebook, Spotify and Last.fm.

Talkdesk Puts Your Company Call Center In The Cloud

admin2 — Wed, 23 May 2012 01:45:18 +0000

Most businesses need to be able keep in touch with their customers and provide customer service over the phone, but rolling out a call center can be expensive. Not just that, but most call center software today isn’t very good at keeping tabs on customers and presenting all the information that businesses need to serve them better. That’s why Talkdesk is launching its cloud-based call center software Tuesday as part of the Startup Battlefield at TechCrunch Disrupt. The startup enables call agents to know everything about customers when they call, based on reverse lookup of the customer’s phone number, without having to ask for their information. It also integrates with the existing CRM systems that companies use, such as SalesForce, as well as helpdesk software like ZenDesk and Desk.com. But it also hooks into Twitter and Facebook to find public information about customers from social networks. Not only does Talkdesk handle CRM and help desk features, but it also allows agents to make, receive, record and transcribe calls. It gives a history of the customers’ previous interactions, including items purchased and searched, the amount of money spent, and previous calls made. Since the service operates in the cloud, all of this information is available in the agent’s web browser when a customer calls. Talkdesk is based on Twilio technology, and was founded as part of the Twilio Fund contest last year. Launching today, Talkdesk is making its cloud-based call center software generally available to anyone who wants to sign up. Because of its cloud-based infrastructure, businesses can sign up in less than five minutes. Talkdesk was part of last summer’s 500 Startups Accelerator class, and has raised $450,000 to date. It has three employees, based in Mountain View, Calif. Disrupt Q&A Q: What are the things that company buying your product gets ROI? A: When you use Talkdesk, you have all the information about the customer, and you can quickly answer problems and make suggestions. Q: Do people replace existing software, or layering on top? A: Customers we have now don’t have call center software. Q: Regulatory issues from recording phone conversations? A: You have to tell the person, but you can add information before someone answers the call. Q: Pick one customer and explain the use case? A: Chevy, for example, using for support and one for sales. They have two numbers, and can see all information about the customer. Q: What would a customer use instead? A: In the example of Chevy, they have big call centers, but nothing for this type of solution. Out goal is to eventually to go big in the enterprise. Q: Price points? A: First agent is free always. So customer tries one agent, and then expand. We charge $49 per month per agent. Q: A lot of your focus is on the telephony side of things and that’s important, but a lot is moving to social media. A: For now, we are only voice, but integrate with email systems like ZenDesk. But the phone is still the main avenue of conversation for all businesses.

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Talkdesk Puts Your Company Call Center In The Cloud

Key Details Of The Kleiner Perkins Gender Discrimination Lawsuit

kram412 — Tue, 22 May 2012 22:55:09 +0000

Silicon Valley venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caulfield & Byers has been sued by Ellen Pao, one of its investment partners, for sexual harassment and gender discrimination that she has allegedly encountered during her seven years at the firm. Before we get further into this, we need to note that we are only going to present the available information on the case. The story is breaking. Right now, the majority of the information is provided by the plaintiff. The following statement is what we have received from Kleiner: In response to a discrimination complaint filed in the Superior Court of San Francisco by Ellen Pao, Christina Lee, a Kleiner Perkins spokesperson, stated the Firm regrets that the situation is being litigated publicly and had hoped the two parties could have reached resolution, particularly given Pao’s 7-year history with the firm. Following a thorough independent investigation of the facts, the firm believes the lawsuit is without merit and intends to vigorously defend the matter. The Firm has been a diversity pioneer in its industry and was one of the first venture capital firms to hire women as partners. The number of women partners at the firm is one of the highest within the venture capital arena and the firm has actively supported women in all respects. We’ve uploaded the 19-page lawsuit in its entirety here at the very bottom of this post, and below we’ve excerpted some of the key allegations: In February 2006, about six months into her employment with Kleiner Perkins, Pao, then a junior partner, went on a business trip to Germany with another then-junior partner, Ajit Nazre. During that time, Nazre allegedly made “inappropriate sexual advances” toward Pao, which she allegedly “rebuffed” at the start. In the following months, however, Pao “eventually succumbed to Mr. Nazre’s insistence on sexual relations on two or three occasions.” According to the complaint, Nazre, who was married at the time, had “falsely told [Pao] that his wife had left him. In October 2006, Pao allegedly informed Nazre that their personal relationship was over. It was then that she alleges “Nazre started a consistent pattern of retaliation against her” that she says lasted more than five years and included him excluding her from business meetings, removing her from email discussions, failing to share information she needed for her job, blocking her from interviewing new employees, and more. According to the suit, Nazre was not the only one who made advances to Pao. Several months after Pao allegedly ended her relationship with Nazre, this allegedly happened: “For Valentine’s Day 2007 Senior Partner Randy Komisar came into [Pao's] office and gave her a book entitled ‘The Book of Longing’ by Leonard Cohen, inscribed with a handwritten note from Mr. Komisar to Plaintiff. The book contains many sexual drawings and poems with strong sexual content. At about the same time, Mr. Komisar asked [Pao] out to a Saturday night dinner, telling Plaintiff that his wife would be out of town.” Pao did not accept the invitation, the suit says. When Pao reported the situation, the suit says, “she was told that it was unfair, that it would never have happened to a male partner, but that she should just accept it.” Pao also claims she was not alone in being the victim of unwanted advances at work. According to the suit, “at least three administrative assistants complained that they were being harassed or discriminated against by KPCB partners in May 2007.” Kleiner Perkins allegedly hired an outside investigator to look into those claims. When Pao talked to an outside human resources consultant in August 2009, she was allegedly told that “she would not be successful at KPCB because she complained and that going forward she should drop her complaints, because no one would do anything about them.” Ray Lane, a senior Kleiner partner, allegedly asked Pao to let go of her complaints and encouraged her to have a romantic relationship with Nazre after all. The suit reads: “Ray Lane pressured [Pao] to drop the matter because of Mr. Lane’s close ties with and mentorship of Mr. Nazre. Though Plaintiff had formally complained about Mr. Nazre’s behavior, Mr. Lane encouraged [Pao] to engage in a personal relationship with Mr. Nazre and even to marry him. Mr. Lane said, however, that in such case, either Plaintiff or Mr. Nazre would have to leave the firm because two spouses could not work together at KPCB.” Firm-wide gender discrimination is also alleged in the suit, which says that women at Kleiner are regularly excluded from events. Here are a couple of recent alleged instances of this detailed in the claim: “In early 2011, KPCB partners led by Chi-Hua Chien organized a dinner event at the San Francisco home of one of the partners. The dinner was for select KPCB partners and leading executives at KPCB-funded companies, as well as leading executives of other companies KPCB thought were influential. Only male KPCB partners and male executives were invited and attended. Mr. Chien deliberately excluded all KPCB women from the event solely on the basis of their gender. Mr. Chien organized a second all-male dinner at the same partner’s home in August 2011. Women were excluded for the same reason. At a weekly Digital Group partner meeting partner’s complaint, Mr. Chien replied that women were not invited because they would ‘kill the buzz’.” Also in the complaint: “In December 2011, Randy Komisar, a Senior Partner, told [Pao] that the personalities of women do not lead to success at KPCB, because women are quiet.” Here is the suit in its entirety: View this document on Scribd

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Key Details Of The Kleiner Perkins Gender Discrimination Lawsuit

CallApp Uses Social Data To Build A Smarter Smartphone Contact Book

jos — Tue, 22 May 2012 01:23:35 +0000

One of my least favorite moments of the day comes when my iPhone rings and the number isn’t in my contact book. Is it an important call from an entrepreneur? A random PR person pitching me? Or just a telemarketer? I won’t know until I pick up. CallApp , a startup launching today at Disrupt, wants to eliminate those awkward moments, for starters. It’s creating what CEO and co-founder Oded Volovitz calls a “universal social contact book.” It’s drawing data from social networks and other data sources to give users more context about phone calls and other communication. The data also comes from CallApp users — users can edit CallApp listings, and if they choose, they can add their contact book into the company’s general database. So when you get a phone call, even if it’s from someone who isn’t in your contact list, you should be able to see information about them — say a photo, their most recent update on Facebook, and your most recent email exchange if you’ve corresponded with them. Of course, if your phone is already ringing, you’ve only got a few seconds before you need to pick up, but at least you can glance at your screen and go into the call with some basic context. CallApp should be even more useful when you’re about to make a call. Then, the social network updates can give you a way to start off the conversation, or tell you when someone has traveled out of the country, so maybe now isn’t the best time to reach them. You can also attach personal reminders to CallApp contacts, share your location with them, or set up a meeting. In some ways, the concept is pretty similar to an email plugin like Rapportive ( recently acquired by LinkedIn ) or Xobni. However, Volovitz says that bringing this information to the smartphone puts it in a different context. After all, when he gets a phone call, “I cannot wait until I can go to the Internet to see who is calling me. This is about giving you real-time, immediate, the most relevant information you can get, and the tools to execute on that information.” Volovitz also says CallApp, despite the name, isn’t just about phone calls — he estimates that he only uses it for phone calls 50 percent of the time. The app also lists and connects to other ways for reaching people, like WhatsApp Messenger and Viber. The core of the experience isn’t the phone call but the contact itself, Volovitz says. Nor is CallApp limited to personal contact listings. It includes businesses too, showing you things like Yelp reviews, Google Street View, or a menu for a restaurant where you’re thinking about making reservations. Moving forward, Volovitz says the company will be adding features that are more about encouraging “serendipity.” The app is available on Android phones (you can download it from Google Play here ). CallApp is developing a version for iPhones too, though Volovitz estimates that it will have 80 percent of the functionality of the Android version, due to “some technical issues.” Volovitz says the company isn’t monetizing the app (which is free) yet, but there are a number of possible business models, including affiliate fees. The company has raised $1 million in funding from undisclosed venture capital firms and angel investors. Disrupt Q&A Q : How does the iOS app differ? A: There are more limitations than in Android, like you have to use the built-in dialer rather than any dialer you want. Q : What are the viral hooks? A: If you use CallApp to share information with someone, they get an SMS message linking to the content and asking them to download the app. Q: Tell us about the technology. A: What we do is artificial intelligence, big data. The system knows how to link the right person to the right number, for example using location to narrow the search. Q: Why do other improved contact books fail, and why will you succeed? A: It’s all about the execution and the ambition. If you build an app on the client side, you only get a limited amount of information about contacts on your phone, versus CallApp’s crowdsourced, cloud-based approach.

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CallApp Uses Social Data To Build A Smarter Smartphone Contact Book

Comcast, Time Warner Cable, Cablevision, And Others Will Share Wi-Fi Hot Spots

kram412 — Tue, 22 May 2012 01:19:51 +0000

Imagine for a moment that you are sitting in your front yard in a lawn chair, sipping lemonade while attempting to read the latest news on your WiFi-only iPad. You’re just out of range of your WiFi signal. Your neighbor’s signal is super strong, but that selfish hooligan didn’t leave it wide open for you to leach onto. Relax. Depending on where you live and who your service provider is, you may be able to use your neighbor’s hotspot regardless of his futile attempts to lock it down someday soon. A consortium of cable companies (Comcast Corp., Time Warner Cable Inc., Cablevision Systems Corp., Bright House Networks LLC and Cox Communications Inc) have agreed to enable the sharing of WiFi hotspots at a grand scale, creating a large region of available signal, in select markets in the U.S. According to the Wall Street Journal, a single hotspot name and sign on scenario will be used to make it easier for consumers to log in and use available spectrum to surf. It will be a perk for paying broadband account holders in the consortium, but certain providers like Time Warner will let you pay as you go if you like. I assume there will be measures in place to prevent people from consuming all of the available bandwidth of someone else’s node, but they haven’t explicitly laid out how or when throttling will occur. [via WSJ ]

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Comcast, Time Warner Cable, Cablevision, And Others Will Share Wi-Fi Hot Spots

Report: Pakistan Blocks Twitter Over Blasphemous Content, Facebook Complies?

vertical8 — Sun, 20 May 2012 15:58:26 +0000

Another day, another example of a country making it harder for its people to use the web and some of its most effective channels of communication. There are reports coming in from Pakistan that it has become the latest country to ban the use of Twitter. According to the blog Dawn , the chairman of Pakistan’s telecommunications authority has today imposed the restriction because of blasphemous content: it reports that Chairman Mohammad Yaseen blocked the site today “because Twitter refused to remove material related to a competition on Facebook to post images of Islam’s Prophet Muhammad.” Facebook, apparently, has complied with the request, says the blog. Others are now starting to report the same circumstances, and below the break we have a screenshot of how accessing the site looks from one of our readers in Lahore who says he “cannot access the site at all.” Getting blocked in Pakistan is particularly ironic because the two, paired up, played a major role in one of the most important news events to be broken in recent history: the raid and demise of Osama bin Laden, which was tweeted by at least two people watching the raids as they happened in the mountains of the country. This is a developing (and slightly confusing) story: just yesterday, about 12 hours ago, Senator Rehman Malik, of Pakistan’s People Party, tweeted that nothing was getting blocked: “Dear all, I assure u that Twitter and FB will continue in our country and it will not be blocked. Pl do not believe in rumors,” he wrote. We have contacted Twitter and Facebook for their responses to this story. Update : more details coming in from Pakistan’s Express Tribune : The request to block the site was made by the Ministry of Information and Technology, it says, citing the competition on Facebook. The ministry, apparently, made several requests to Twitter, which responded that it “cannot stop any individual doing anything of this nature on the website.” Directives to block the site were sent to ISPs in several parts of the country, including PTCL Broadband and Wi-Tribe. It also reports that Twitter is still accessible by mobile using secure browsers like Opera, as well as proxies and VPNs like Vtunnel. [original report continues] This is not the first time that Twitter has been blocked in the country: a similar ban took place in 2010 for the same reason. That lasted for two weeks. The move underscores how susceptible social networks remain to higher powers in government. And Pakistan is not the only country to pull something like this. Sites like Facebook and Twitter are still officially forbidden in China (although millions use it anyway using VPNs — virtual private networks), with the bans often having strong political overtones around people expressing contary opinions. Developing countries with big populations represent some of the biggest potential growth opportunities for scale-oriented social networks — when they can get used. Even developed countries like the UK have floated ideas about how to restrict the flow of information on social networks — this was something that came up last summer during the London riots and the role that some believed services like BlackBerry Messenger played in gangs getting organized to loot. Update 2 : One of our awesome readers in Lahore, Waqas Ali , sent us this screenshot: Ali also played a role in a campaign in the country to keep Facebook from getting banned. He says that he cannot access Twitter at all right now but that a friend is able to use the Opera Mini browser to access the site. [Image: Farooq on Flickr]

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Report: Pakistan Blocks Twitter Over Blasphemous Content, Facebook Complies?

The Disrupt NYC Hackathon: We’re 8 Hours In

admin2 — Sun, 20 May 2012 05:32:33 +0000

There’s a strong murmur in the room with random spurts of excitement. Hackers and coders have teamed up and mostly (hopefully) decided on a project. There are only 15 hours left. But night is approaching. That’s when things tend to get loopy thanks to the sudden influx of food and beer. So far the event has been fantastic. There’s a 3:2 ratio of Macs vs PCs. Epic t-shirts are everywhere . Caffeine is flowing thanks to Red Bull and Outburst Energy Bites . The event runs until tomorrow morning. Coding a fantastic app is just part of the fun. Starting at 11:00 am tomorrow morning, teams will have one minute to present their project, hopefully winning over the judges for a shot to present at TechCrunch Disrupt. But first the participants need to make it through the night. Click to view slideshow.

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The Disrupt NYC Hackathon: We’re 8 Hours In

More Google+ In Gmail: Improved Circle Integration, Circle Search and Quick Access To Contact Details

kram412 — Thu, 17 May 2012 00:44:21 +0000

The folks over at Google just love their Google+ social network and more and more Google+ features have been creeping into Gmail lately as well. Today, Google is bringing even more of Google+ to its email client . With this update, Google is especially focusing on adding a deeper integration with Google+ circles. You will now, for example, see profile photos from people in your circles when you select a circle in the left sidebar. You can click on those images to search for email from a specific contact. In addition, if you really take your Google+ circles seriously, you’ll be happy to hear that you can now use circles as search filters in Gmail as well. Say you want to just see emails from your “friends” circle, you can now just type circle:friends to find them. How useful these features are for you probably depends on how actively you use Google+. We have, however heard from many of our readers that this incessant focus on adding Google+ to just about every aspect of the Google experience is taking a toll on people’s patience. Instead of focusing on the fundamentals of the Gmail experience, for example, it feels as if Google is getting sidetracked left and right by Google+. As Y Combinator’s Paul Graham rightly noted earlier this year, “GMail has become painfully slow.” Adding more Google+ features to it is probably not making it any faster. At least one new feature today, though, isn’t fully dependent on Google+ and actually quite useful (though it’s also integrated with it). When you search for an email address now, the search results will highlight your contacts’ details as well, including phone numbers, Google Chat status and email address. If you contact has a Google+ profile, this information will stay up to date automatically.

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More Google+ In Gmail: Improved Circle Integration, Circle Search and Quick Access To Contact Details