Earlier this week, Intrinsyc, a mobile and embedded software solutions provider, announced that it signed a Soleus license agreement with a large Original Design Manufacturers (ODM) of computers and consumer electronics devices to use the Soleus software platform to create a handheld barcode-reading payment device, and a mobile phone capable of delivering location-based services (LBS).

According to a description of Soleus,

“Soleus is a comprehensive mobile software platform, with a telephony stack and a large applications portfolio, which enables mobile and portable device makers to develop and deploy an array of mobile devices quickly. Built on Windows Embedded CE, the flexible Soleus software platform allows numerous feature-set variations to meet the requirements to develop multiple handheld and handset designs.”

Intrinsyc’s Soleus deal comes after several announcements by the company last month and in October regarding deals for its Israel-originated Destinator software. One of the announcements was that Intrinsyc signed an agreement with an OEM to license its Destinator  for touch-screen handset and another was that it released a version of the Destinator navigation product for Symbian smartphones and had a distribution agreement with SatNav Technologies for them in India. 

According to a description of Destinator,

“Destinator navigation software sets new standards for driver safety, ease-of-use, rich content and user interface customization. The software delivers world-class turn-by-turn navigation with market-leading safety features for personal navigation devices (PNDs), personal digital assistants (PDAs) and smartphones, while also providing cellular, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and PC connectivity. Destinator is an ideal software solution for in-vehicle and pedestrian-oriented navigation and content browsing.”

Under the touch-screen handset agreement, Destinator software will be integrated to provide a complete navigation solution for a GPS-enabled Windows Mobile handset that is being developed for Asia and Latin America specific Asian and Latin American markets. Additionally, the devices will come pre-loaded with country-specific maps and language support.

In the SatNav deal, SatNav, a GPS technology provider, will distribute the Destinator program for Symbian smartphones. Destinator software will offer Symbian users a feature rich onboard navigation application that combines location with a series of value-added features such as text message location tagging and auto re-routing based on traffic information.  The deal marks Destinator’s now being available on all the major mobile device operating systems. 

Destinator software was originally developed by the Israeli company Destinator Technologies. In July 2008 the company was acquired by Intrinsyc and remains in Israel now under the Intrinsyc name. 

Company Facts

Founded in 2001.

Intrinsyc Software Ltd. (Destinator division) based in Herziliyya, Israel.

Yuval Pecht, Director, PND Product Management.

Products: Destinator and Soleus.

Website: www.intrinsyc.com.

Despite reports that thousands of IT workers in Israel will lose their jobs in the coming months, Israeli companies seemed unfazed by economic woes during the week of December 21, 2008 which saw a lot of investment and M&A activity. Several deals were also made, including Mobileye landing a $150 million contract for its on-board Driving Assistance Systems and cleantech incubators from Israel and California signing a water deal. For these stories and the rest of the 12 headlines from the past week, check below.

Cleantech

1. Clean Tech Incubators from Israel and California Sign Water Deal

2. Algae in the Air: 5 Startups Turning Algae Into Jet Fuel

Investments and M&A

3. Scopus Video Networks acquired by Harmonic for $86 million

4. Runcom Technologies Ltd. to Invest in IXI Mobile, Inc.

5. Provigent Continues to Accelerate Growth — Secures $10 Million in Fifth-Round Funding

Information Technology

6. Business Transaction Management in the News (Correlsense)

7. Nokia to sell security business to Check Point

8. Imperva Achieves Compliance with Key US and Canadian Government IT Security Standard

Miscellaneous

9. Research group IDC predicts thousands of high-tech layoffs

10. Ran Harnevo, CEO and Co-Founder of 5min.com

11. Mobileye awarded $150m contract

12. 2tweet: Broadcast Instant Media Galleries To Twitter Via Email

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.

The week of October 12th was surprisingly busy in Israel. Talk of how Israeli universities and colleges might not open this year due to funding continued, while a serious solution to the recent “brain drain” problem was proposed. Though darker days are still ahead for the U.S. and global economies and VCs and others are warning startups and entrepreneurs that they will have to do more with less, if any, funding, money is still out there for strong companies, such as Wix.com and MyThings.com. For links to these stories and the rest of the 15 Israel-related technology headlines from the week of October 12, 2008, check out the list below.

Cleantech/Environment
1.  Israeli funds look to clean technologies

2. JNF, El Salvador style

Investments, Trade and M&A
3. AquAgro invests $1.5 million in Transbiodiesel

4. MyThings Raises $5 Million to Help you Organize Your Stuff

5. Wix Gets Cash Infusion, Intros New Technology

6. Pawlenty will lead trade mission to Israel

Information Technology
7. Sentrigo Updates Hedgehog Software Addressing Oracle Database Security Vulnerabilities

8. Introducing ‘Enterprise Data Recording’ technology

9. Omniture Agrees to Acquire Mercado’s Site Search and Merchandising Business

10. Florida-based InkSure Technologies wins $800K grant

Miscellaneous
11. Connect One Releases World’s Smallest, Most Versatile Embedded WiFi Module

12. Israeli airport trials shoe-scanning technology

13. More Americans Vault Overseas to Search for Jobs

14. Boston: Israeli consul attempts to reverse brain drain

15. Good times R.I.P – The Israeli version

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.

There may be trouble lurking around the corner for Israel’s economy given the current instability of the global economy, but it hasn’t entirely stopped investments being made in Israeli companies and probably won’t. During the week of September 21, 2008, there were announcements of funds being raised in several sectors of Israel’s hit-tech industry, with the most impressive one by far being the $63M in fourth round funding that business transaction software provider, OpTier raised. (Of course, as a fourth round, that indicates the company is fairly established so presumably much less a gamble than any seed and early stage startups.) Some other headlines from Israel include Kfar Saba became the first city in Israel to go green, Commtouch received an award for its messaging security technology and HP has chosen the Technion as a research partner. For more on these and the rest of the 16 Israel-related technology headlines from the week of September 21, 2008, check the list below.

Cleantech
1. Kfar Saba becomes first city to go green

2. 21Ventures and Quercus Trust award grant to support solar research at Weizmann Institute

Investments and M&A
3. InstallFree Secures $8.5 Million in VC Funding

4. Adap.tv Lands $13M in Venture Funding

5. Norwest Venture Partners sets it sights on Israel with new appointment

6. OpTier raises $63 million in funding

Information Technology
7. SiSense Launches Pricing and General Availability of Its Prism Business Intelligence Software

8. Jacada Announces General Availability of Jacada® WorkSpace 5.0

9. Frost & Sullivan Honors Commtouch with European Messaging Security Technology Innovation of the Year Award

10. Point-of-Sale Advertising Goes High Tech

Miscellaneous
11. Local economy set to grow 4.5%

12. Israeli Internet Companies Seek Partners in Atlanta

13. How to Expand into the U.S. Market

14. Hi-tech salaries drop as inflation heats up

15. New Worlds: Technion chosen as HP research partner

16. Startup Helps Find What You Weren’t Looking for (SemantiNet)

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.

Investment news related to Israeli companies was close to full force during the week of August 31, 2008 with SemantiNet and ASOCS leading the way with $3.4 million and $8 million raised, respectively. There was also some noise on the acquisitions end, with Red Hat announcing its acquisition of Israeli virtualization company, Qumranet. It was also a big week in surveys – a recent survey by Voltaire found that IT executives understand the importance of green data centers but that they don’t have the financial backing to make the transformation, while an NDS survey revealed that more than 80 percent of Americans with a DVR can’t live without it. These stories make up just the tip of the iceberg that is the 24 Israel-related technology headlines from this past week. For the full list and links, check below.

Cleantech
1. Cleantech Israel business network fills niche

2. The cleantech start-up nursery

3. Whitewater Technology Group Acquires Cutting-Edge Water Management Firms

Investments and M&A
4. Israeli hedge funds beat benchmark

5. SemantiNet Announces Combined $3.4M Series A Funding Round, New US Office

6. ASOCS Closes $8 Million in a Second Round Funding Led by FGF

7. Israel’s Infinity invests in Digital China spin-off

8. BRIEF: Corrigon raises $2m: The company’s solution enables real-time media tracking and visual search

9. Connect2Media buys Israeli mobile firm RayFusion

10. Expand Nabs NetPriva

Information Technology
11. Voltaire Survey Shows IT Executives See Greening of Data Center as Mission-Critical, But Lack “Green” To Go Green

12. Red Bend Enables Lenovo Mobile to Manage Software Over-the-Air

13. Oracle’s start-up matchmaker

14. MiniFrame’s Powerful Multi-User PC Solution Implemented by Nigerian Navy

Qumranet Acquisition
15. Red Hat buys Qumranet for $107M. What does this mean for KVM and SolidICE?

16. Red Hat Advances Virtualization Leadership with Qumranet, Inc. Acquisition

17. Red Hat buys Qumranet – Gets KVM and SolidICE

18. KVM vs. Xen vs. VMware. Is it a Hypervisor War?

Miscellaneous
19. Sharp drop in start-up failures

20. Entrepreneurs Find Ways to Make Technology Work With Jewish Sabbath

21. More Than 80 Percent of Americans with a DVR Can’t Live without It According to NDS Survey

22. The in-house laundry

23. Media Giant Bloomberg Coming to Israel

24. Shemaroo and Israel’s IMA join hands for mobile VAS

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 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.

First, it was IBM, now it’s Microsoft. Globes is reporting that Microsoft is in talks to purchase its THIRD Israeli tech company this year. As the year isn’t even half way over yet, there is no doubt, that more major corporations will likewise invest in Israeli tech companies and that maybe, they too, will make multiple purchases. On the Israeli company side, Zoran, announced that it purchased Let it Wave and solar energy company, Tigo raised $6 million for Smarter Solar. Information security companies, Commtouch and PineApp had a big week,as did Trustware. As usual, these aren’t the only Israeli companies that made the headlines last week – check below for links to all of this week’s 15 Israel-related technology headlines from the week of June 1st, 2008.

Cleantech
Israel cleantech start-ups show their wares

Tigo Raises $6M for Smarter Solar

Israeli start-up firms invest in ‘clean tech’

Information Technology
Ceedo’s CSO Dror Gill to Present at SYS-CON’s Virtualization Conference & Expo, June 23-24, in New York City

Microsoft may buy automated data correction company Zoomix

Microsoft, other firms take aim at Enterprise 2.0 market with new tools (WorkLight)

Information Security
3Com Selects Commtouch GlobalView Mail Reputation Service as Anti-Spam Filter Service

PineApp’s Mail-SeCure Selected by Geotest to Secure Email and Aggressively Block Spam

Trustware Releases New Version of Desktop Security Software, Enhancing Consumer Privacy Protection

Telecommunications
IPextreme Brings ColdFire Architecture to the FPGA Masses

Endace and Voltaire Collaborate to Bring Passive Monitoring to InfiniBand

Wavion Introduces Self-Backhaul Wi-Fi – Optimal Service With No Alignments

Startup markets WiMax basestation chip

Miscellaneous
Over one-third of Israelis are over qualified for their jobs

Zoran shares rise on Let It Wave buy, upgrade

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.

This past week didn’t see any new Israel-related IBM announcements. It did, however, see questions raised about the real potential of Project Better Place’s electric cars and the release of the latest version of Unisfair’s Virtual Events. Along the way, Red Bend Software raised $10 million and SanDisk announced a new 4-gigabyte USB flash drive that uses user-driven data management company, BeInSync. Check Point and Tel-Aviv University announced their plans to establish a new academic research institute for the study of information security. To find out more about these stories and what the rest of this week’s
17 Israel-related technology headlines are, check out the list
below.

Cleantech
SunHopes – Balloon Based Solar Energy

Who’s Driving the Hydrogen Highway?

Tel Aviv University displays its cleantech potential [VIDEO]

M&A and Investments
Mobile software management provider Red Bend secured $10 million

The Golden Age of Israeli Startups: Mergers and Acquisitions (Part III)

VC survey: Money still flowing to green and biotech

Israel venture capital is nervous about US trends

Web Hosting and Management Services Group, TriZetto, to be Acquired by Apax

Information Technology
A Four-Gigabyte Thumb Drive With Two Safety Nets

Mellanox Announces ConnectX 10 Gigabit Ethernet LAN on Motherboard
Design Wins Across Supermicro’s Server
Products

Gizmox widens Microsoft collaboration

Unisfair Releases Version 2.0 of Virtual Events

Check Point and Tel-Aviv University to Establish a New Academic
Research Institute for the Study of Information Security

Miscellaneous
Startup aims to replace NOR flash in mobile devices

SanDisk R&D boss discusses memory card business

Israel Venture Association’s Annual Hi-Tech
Conference 2008 Hits the Road

PineApp Named ‘Product of the Year’
Finalist for AeA High-Tech Innovation Awards

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.

Globes is reporting that in the next 24 hours, IBM is expected to officially announce its purchase of Diligient Technologies, an enterprise data storage and deduplication solutions provider, for an estimated $200 million. Here are some quick facts from the Globes article regarding the deal:

• Diligent Technologies is IBM’s third acquisition in Israel so far this year (after XIV in January and FilesX Ltd. last week).
• Diligent Technologies is a spinoff from EMC Israel, which still owns a 20% share in Diligent.
• Diligent was co-founded in 2002 by current CEO, Doron Kempel and data storage legend, Moshe Yanai (currently the XIV chairman and an IBM employee).

For more details, check out the Globes article and my entry on the rumor from a few weeks ago.

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.