Israel Innovation 2.0

Most news from the week of November 23, 2008 was dwarfed by the terrorist attacks that took place in Mumbai, India. The Israel-related technology headlines that did make it through included skepticism for Shai Agassi’s electric car company, Better Place, Magic Software’s new platform application and Israel’s latest Web 2.0 entrant, wePapers.com. For these headlines and more, check out this week’s 12 below.

Magic Software Enterprises, Ltd., a provider of application platforms and business and process integration solutions, has released uniPaaS, its flagship application platform. The platform, which includes a .NET rich internet client, is designed to allow organizations to develop and deploy applications in approximately one-fifth of the time and effort it takes other technologies and is best suited for mobile, field service, supply chain and vertical business applications.

uniPaaS version 1.5 is Magic Software’s first Rich Internet Application (RIS) and SaaS Enabled Application Platform (SEAP). Some features and benefits include:

• uniPaaS features a single development paradigm that automatically handles the Client and Server partitioning. With no need to follow distinct Client and Server paradigms and no need to explicitly install Client-side software, total cost of ownership is greatly reduced.
• uniPaaS can deploy in multiple modes – on-premise as well as on-demand. Users can move smoothly between RIA and Client/Server without re-writing their application.
• Magic Software application owners and ISVs can extend their service and product offerings to include RIA and SaaS deployment, while significantly lowering their application maintenance and delivery costs.
• ISV’s and Enterprises new to Magic Software can implement their applications on a single platform while supporting both Client/Server and Web based deployments, significantly reducing their investment for moving to RIA.

Company Facts
Founded in 1986.

Headquarters in Or Yehuda, Israel.

Products: uniPaaS (application platform) and iBOLT (business integration).

Website: www.magicsoftware.com.

Related ITGumbo content:
Company in Focus: Magic Software Enterprises Ltd
VeNotion Technologies and Software AG sign agreement

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.

Featured during the week of November 16, 2008 were news of Michigan’s governor signing a water technology partnership agreement with Israel and news that Israel’s current drought is the worst its been in over 100 years. Security firm, Finjan announced that it raised $22 million and AOMi partnered with Cordys. Contradicting stories on the state of the Israel’s hi-tech sector from the Jerusalem Post and BusinessWeek also made the headlines. For these stories and more check out the headlines below.

Cleantech and Environment
1. Israel Facing Worst Water Crisis in More Than 100 Years

2. Mich. governor signs water technologies agreement

3. A Better Place In The San Francisco Bay Area

Investments and deals
4. AOMi Partners with Cordys to Enhance SaaS Business Model

5. ColdSpark Integrates Commtouch Messaging Security Suite into Mail Platform for Large Enterprises

6. Security firm Finjan raises $22 million

7. Boxee Raised $4M today

8. Taboola Funded for Video Recommendation Engine

Information Technology
9. Voltaire Powers World’s Largest Windows Supercomputer

10. HP and N-trig Deliver Innovative Hands-On Computing

11. WorkLight Helps Retail Banks Gain Edge by Embracing Secure Web 2.0

Miscellaneous
12. MSN Israel reborn

13. Infima Tech Introduces JPACK Compression Solution

14. Hard Times Hit Israel’s Tech Sector

15. US to lower Israeli airport’s safety ranking

16. Despite the tough times, Israel’s high-tech sector thrives

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.

*About the Weekly Headlines image: The Star of David in the image was found on Flickr and is used under the Creative Commons license. It was originally uploaded by Flickr member,zeevveez. The overall Weekly Headlines image was designed by Lisa Damast.

During the week of November 9, 2008, the Israel cleantech tour in the US began and CA announced its plans to buy Eurekify. On the funding side, Convergin secured $10 million from Pitango Venture Capital and Odysii introduced its marketing intelligence software to U.S. banks. Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu, the former Prime Minister and Foreign Minister of Israel who is running in the upcoming elections in February, received attention from the New York Times for the intentional strong similarity of his website and strategy to that of the U.S. president-elect, Barack Obama. Of course the biggest news in Israel was that former hi-tech businessman, Nir Barkat was elected to be the next mayor of Jerusalem. For more on these stories and the rest of the 17 Israel-related technology headlines from the weeks of November 9, 2008, check the list below.

Israeli data leakage protection company, Safend, has released a set of tips for how companies can keep their data safe during the Holiday season and long after. Tips include:

• Employ a Sound Auditing Process: Portable storage devices such as
  iPods, PDAs, smart phones and other mobile devices, have become pervasive
  in the workplace. Allowing your employees to use their iPods at work may
  be a good way to increase morale but it also poses a security threat.
  Knowing what devices are connecting to what endpoints will help
  administrators monitor and avoid these threats. Determining what kind –
  and how many — devices are accessing an organization’s network is the
  first step in developing an effective DLP strategy
• Access Control: To make sure that users cannot easily circumvent
  security policies, it is important to first make sure the policies in place
  are flexible enough that they don’t hinder productivity, but strong enough
  to prevent data leakage threats. This is accomplished through granular
  policies that allow administrators to block, allow or restrict access to
  data from everything from file type, device type and even specific device
  serial number.
• Encrypt Everything: Many enterprises feel that they have covered all
  their security bases with the implementation of security policies, employee
  training and endpoint protection technology and are reluctant to invest in
  another product or add another level of security. However, encryption is
  essential to ensure that unauthorized users cannot access data in the case
  of loss or theft.

Earlier this month Deloitte listed Safend as one Israel’s 50 fastest growing technology companies based on its revenues from the past 5 years. Safend’s products include: SafendProtector, SafendEncryptor and SafendReporter.

Another Israeli information security company, Promisec Ltd., was recently covered on Israel Innovation 2.0 for a video it posted on YouTube that also raises these points.

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 week of November 2, 2008 was filled with conferences and awards. Deloitte announced the 50 fastest-growing high-tech companies in Israel for the year 2008 with Runcom taking the top honor and last year’s top company, Voltiare coming in second place. On Monday, at the Globes and Ernst & Young Israel Journey ’08, Amobee was named Globes “Start-up of the Year.” Companies in the Top 10 that have been covered in Israel Innovation 2.0 in the past include, Aternity, Inforgin and N-Trig. Also making headlines was SportVu, which provided the hologram technology that CNN used on Election Day in the United States and iSkoot, which raised $19 million. For the links to these stories and the rest of this week’s 14 Israel-related technology headlines, scroll down.

Cleantech
1. Electric cars of the future at the Web 2.0 Summit

Investments and the Economy
2. Downturn-Busting Venture Round For iSkoot: $19 Million

3. Pawlenty’s Israel trade trip takes shape

4. Central bank chief says Israeli economy resilient

5. Top 8 Creative Ideas For Startups To Triumph Over the Current Economic Downturn

Information Technology
6. Red Bend Software Earns MobileVillage’s Mobile Star Award

7. Runcom Technologies Ranked First Place in the Deloitte “Fast 50″ Program for Fast-Growing High-Tech Companies

8. Tufin Technologies Moves Beyond Firewall Auditing to Support Cisco Routers and Switches

9. Aternity Named To Annual Top 10 List of Most Promising Startups

10. N-trig Offers Suite of Multi-Touch Solutions for Windows 7

Miscellaneous
11. XIV head Yanai named most influential figure in high tech

12. CNN’s ‘Hologram’ Shows How Far TV Has Come

13. Agent Vi Announces Launch of Video Content Analysis for Digital Media Processors Based on DaVinci(TM) Technology

14. ANALYSIS / Obama will star in Israel’s election campaigns

Caption: Panel discussion at the Ernst and Young and Globes Israel Journey ’08, titled “Digital media – trends, developments and future outlook,” with moderator, Michael Eisenberg (far right). Panelists from right to left after Michael Eisenberg: Shmil Levy (Sequoia Capital), Tomer Ben-Kiki (Oberon Media), Guy Bauman (Pelephone Communication)Uri Shinar (aniBoom), Peter Hirshberg (Technorati).

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.

*About
the Weekly Headlines image: The Star of David in the image was found on
Flickr and is used under the Creative Commons license. It was
originally uploaded by Flickr member, zeevveez. The overall Weekly Headlines image was designed by Lisa Damast.

The 12th annual Israel Journey took place yesterday in Tel Aviv. Organized by Ernst & Young and Globes, the conference provided VCs, investors, entrepreneurs and others in the industry with an update on the current economy and what is likely still to come during the different sessions.

Pessimism and optimism were discouraged throughout the event and realism was preached – a reality that the keynote speaker, Harry S. Dent explained would be grim not for 2009, but for the time period after that. Dent, a renowned economist and writer, illustrated through his trademark heavy use of charts how the best indicators for what will happen to the economy in the next few years and over a much longer period of time comes from lifecycle spending charts and the birth index, among others. While it provides some comfort to understand why there is a slowdown and that things will eventually pick up, the time frame that Dent gave, 2020-2020, extends the period longer than expected and marks 2010-2012 as likely to resemble a depression.

After the darkness of a depression and the 2010s in general though, Dent showed charts on innovation predictions and predicted that if Israel, which has been an innovation hotbed in recent years and has a positive population growth chart, plays its cards right, it can come out of a worldwide economic downturn ahead of the other developing countries. While A LOT needs to happen and not to happen for that to be a
reality, Israel’s innovation and leadership in such areas as robotics,
nanotech and cleantech, makes it a relatively strong possibility.

Whether or not Dent’s forecasts turn out to be true, it’s almost certain that there will be a light at the end of the tunnel for many of Israel’s innovative companies, even if Israel won’t come out on top.

What do you think? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

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 12th annual Israel Journey took place earlier today in Tel Aviv. During the conference, which is organized by Ernst & Young Israel and Israeli business newspaper, Globes, Globes announced its top 10 Israeli companies for 2008-2009 as follows:

YCD Multimedia Ltd.
Tulip Medical Ltd.
Dune Networks, Ltd.
Aternity Inc.
Payoneer, Inc.
N-Trig, Ltd.
Altair Semiconductor Ltd.
Vascular Biogenics (3rd Place)
InfoGin, Ltd. (2nd Place, picture on right is of CEO and Founder, Eran Wyler)
Amobee, Ltd. (“Start-up of the Year”)

Congratulations to the top 10 start-ups!

More on the conference to come tomorrow.

About the author: Lisa Damast currently resides in Israel. Any questions or inquiries regarding this blog can be directed to her via email at lisa (at) israelinnovation20 (dot) com. She can also be followed on Twitter, where she covers additional Israeli technology companies and headlines among other topics.

During the week of October 26, 2008, news continued out of Israel of the first lay-offs resulting from the turning economy. While companies such as AmDocs and Delver announced cut people, Check Point asserted that though its customers were being affected by the economy, the information security company wasn’t at the moment impacted enough by it to need to let go of any of its employees. The threat of Israel’s universities not opening this year was solved when Olmert ordered a NIS 515 million budget hike. Of course, this wasn’t the only news coming out of Israel this past week. For the full 15 Israel-related technology headlines, check below.

Cleantech
1. LucidLogix raises $18 million for parallel graphics processing technology

2. The Inaugural Israel Cleantech Tour to Arrive in California

3. Israeli cleantech start-ups head to the US to seek investment

4. Argonaut Increases Renewable Energy Interests with SolarReserve

Investments
5. Is The VC Vault Closing for Cleantech?

6. VC Drought? 70 Million Exceptions To The Rule

7. TC50 DemoPit Company Joongel Nets Investment for Stealth Product

8. $5.5 Million BlackBerry Fund Invests In Future Mobile Harvest

Information Technology
9. Will nanotechnology take over IT security?

10. MellanoxTechnologies Ranked Number 28 in Deloitte’s Technology Fast 50 Program for Silicon Valley Software and Information Technology Companies

11. Innovative data solution and remarkable funding rounds help secure nomination as ‘Best New Company of the Year’

12. Check Point Software CEO sees no layoffs

Miscellaneous
13. Digital billboards get a little creepier

14. Mich. may be hot spot for Israeli businesses

15. Higher education crisis ends as Olmert orders NIS 515 million budget hike

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.

*About the Weekly Headlines image: The Star of David in the image was found on Flickr and is used under the Creative Commons license. It was originally uploaded by Flickr member, zeevveez. The overall Weekly Headlines image was designed by Lisa Damast.