Israel Innovation 2.0

Project Better Place, telecommunications and speculation about the current state and future of Israel’s hi-tech industry highlight the technology news related to Israel during the week of July 20, 2008. Both the UK and some fuel companies are mulling joining the electric car company, while telecom company, Amimon announced that it will be working with major electronics corporations to establish a WHDI standard for Wireless HDTV connections. Although, news about Israel’s hi-tech industry’s “brain drain,” isn’t new, news about the impact of the strength of the Israeli Shekel vs. the U.S. dollar, the latest crisis are. Companies that created R&D centers in Israel for the benefits of an educated work force that would require less money than their U.S. and Western European equivalents are now freezing their Israeli employees’ incomes and outsourcing to Eastern European countries where it is still cheaper. For more on these stories and the rest of this week’s 23 Israel-related technology headlines, check the list below.

Cleantech
Fuel cos may join Better Place

UK may join Project Better Place

M&A and Investments
New VC fund seeks TV, movie investments

Breach Security raises $6m

Road safety technology co GreenRoad raises $3m

Agro-biotech start-up Kiima raises $8m

Summary of Israeli High-Tech Company Capital Raising Q2 / H1 2008

Information Technology
SISENSE
Upgrades its Business Intelligence Software With a New Release to
Support Analysis and Charting on top of CSV, EXCEL 2007, Access 2007
FILES; Beta Available for Free

Company Uncovered: Commtouch

Reimagining computer repair

Internet/Web 2.0
Google as a start-up?

PredictAd Leverages Israeli Partnerships for Global Growth (Israel Media Tour)

American-Israel Chamber of Commerce Announces First U.S.-Israel Web 2.0 Business Exchange: “Empowering the Connected Enterprise”

Telecommunications
Cellcom markets mobile music

Israeli co to launch cellphone-based people finder

Mobixell pioneers technology for cellphone ads

modu selected by AlwaysOn as the Top Mobile Company of AO Global 250

Electronics Heavyweights Work Together on WHDI Technology

Next-Gen Cellphones To Have Israeli Ring

Miscellaneous
Venture IPO drought worst in 30 years

Israel Turns to Outsourcing as the Shekel Soars

Israel neglects its oil fields

Infrastructures Ministry to launch alternative energy center

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 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.

Israel’s hi-tech scene was in a bit of a lull during the week of June 29, 2008, perhaps because of July 4th in the United States. The biggest news was about Google AdWords killer, Peer39, which has a semantic search engine that brings back more accurate results and can thus display better ads. It also has the ability to differentiate between positive and negative contexts of words. After Peer39, Microsoft made headlines with two announcements. The first announcement was that it has partnered with Ben-Gurion University and the second was that MSN Israel will now be controlled fully by Microsoft and no longer jointly with Internet Gold. There was also a lot of technology investment-related news that took place. For these and the rest of the 12 technology-related headlines from the week of June 29, 2008, as well as a special bonus check below.

Technology
Microsoft and Ben-Gurion University of the Negev announce agreement

A First Look Inside Peer39 & Its Semantic Advertising Technology

Microsoft to take full charge of MSN Israel

Alvarion® Sets Off First Mobile WiMAX™ Internet Service in the U.S.

Business
Cleantech Index (CTIUS) Expands Globally, Adds 33 New Companies

Israel’s high-tech culture must rejigger, VC says

Options trade points to stronger shekel

VMware Completes Acquisition of B-hive Networks

IncrediMail and Google Sign AdSense Direct Agreement

Metalink files to raise $25m

Miscellaneous
What Determines the Price of Oil?

Destination: San Francisco. And Still NoGoBoingo

Bonus
This past Tuesday, popular Israel Web 2.0 blog, the.co.ils hosted its annual web startup competition, TWS2008. Ten Israeli Web 2.0 companies were selected by an impressive list of judges and gave brief presentations about what they do. Some of the winners included, Nuconomy, Dapper, HiveSight and WorkLight. WorkLight securely brings personalized Web 2.0 into the enterprise. Here are two video clips of part of WorkLight’s presentation:

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.