According to the Foreign Ministry, the app (which is in English and free) can be used to,
“Get up-to-date information directly from Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs right to your iPhone. Access the Information Department of the Israeli Foreign Ministry’s app in order to receive the latest official news from the website, newsroom, featured videos, and photos of current events going on in Israel and the Middle East.”
It was developed by the Israel Ministry of Finance and is compatible with iPhone, iPod touch and iPad, and provides up-to-date information directly from Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs to your iPhone, Pod or Pad.
The announcement had been expected for quite a few months, especially when it failed to meet its Q2 goal of partnering with a wireless carrier. The phone, which debuted in London last November, was hailed for its user-interface which made it easy to access all of the phones functions and features with just the scroll of the thumb. The quality of the device, from the phone to the camera and everything else, wowed those who got to play with it. In fact, it was named the First Else, because it wasn’t just a smartphone, it was something else.
Perhaps the most disappointing thing about its failure is that it was a completely Israeli device. All the hardware and software was developed in Israel. Had it taken off, it had the potential to create lots of jobs in different sectors and to revive Israel’s long-lost manufacturing industry. There’s so many things it could have done for Israel’s tech sector and the Israeli economy overall. On a personal level, I was looking forward to the day when I could sport the First Else and show it off to friends and acquaintances here and abroad.
Instead, it’s failure is a reminder of the poor condition Israel’s tech industry is in. When I first read Emblaze’s announcement yesterday, I, of course, went on to Twitter and shared the article. I noticed afterward that a few friends had already shared the news with me, and one’s response was “add it to the list of magic tricks coming from Eli Reifman’s sleeves. Now you see it, now you don’t.”
Eli Reifman, the current President of Emblaze, co-founded the company in 1994, and is the one mainly responsible for growing it into a publicly traded company. At its height, the company came close to breaking into the FTSE 100. The company’s glory days didn’t last long though due to many factors.
One reason for its most recent failure with the Else is the approach the company took with developing it. In 2009, Emblaze shareholders tried to take control away from Reifman in protest of the Monolith project that he envisioned would “transform the world of mobile phones” when it launched in 2010. While a visionary with seemingly the right ideas, Reifman’s role in the management and execution of the project was less than stellar.
Unfortunately this isn’t the only such story and is connected to the performance of the rest of the industry. For all the success that Israel has had in innovation on the startup level and for multinationals (R&D for them), it is not sustainable. All of the conferences that I attended this past May and June reflected that in the discussions that took place. The solution is to try to grow big FTSE 100 companies but to do so requires good managers who can transform their startups into large companies and then lead these companies. Emblaze’s story reflects the current and past failures of the industry, and, if things stay the same, the future of the Israeli tech industry.
Since Modu was founded in 2007, it has been interesting to watch it rise, as it attracted media attention and raised $85 million, and fall, with postponed and cancelled cell carrier launch plans and massive layoffs.
A victim of the poor economy and the rise in popularity of smartphones, led by Apple’s iPhone, Modu seemed to be breathing its last breaths last November when it announced its largest round of layoffs (110 employees).
Though it seemed that the end was near for Modu, which was founded by serial entrepreneur Dov Moran, in the past week the company has resurfaced, not as a deadpool topic, but as a partner of netbook developer, Asus.
Rumors abound that Asus is working on a new netbook that will enable interconnectivity between smartphones and its netbooks. The benefit will be that netbook users can access the Internet anywhere using the 3G network of their smartphones instead of relying on WiFi.
If Asus, which has its own line of phones, really is working with Modu on this, this could be huge for Modu. Either way, considering its recent partnerships and launches, there still might be a bright future for Modu after all.
Israeli business newspaper, Globes has reported that Google acquired Israeli app publisher LabPixies. The purchase, which is estimated to be at $25 million, is Google’s first in Israel. LabPixies will be integrated into Google’s R&D office in Tel Aviv which focuses on web and mobile development, such as YouTube Annotations and Google Trends, and will focus on iGoogle efforts in the Europe, Africa and the Middle East. The acquisition is expected to also help Android app efforts.
Below is a timeline with some of the major events showing Google’s road to Israel and its acquiring LabPixies.
During the week of April 11, 2010, Arava Power announced a major investment plan for 15 Israeli solar fields. Israeli start-ups are still facing a hard time raising funds in Israel and Israeli researchers have developed a way to secure online data using laser technology. For these stories and more, check below for this week’s headlines.
During the week of February 14, 2010, the Eilat-EilotInternational RenewableEnergy Conference took place and included the announcement of potential plans for joint solar energy projects between Israel, Egypt and Jordan. News broke that Google is in early talks to acquire Israel’s Catch Media to better compete with iTunes and Tawkon announced its solution for avoiding radiation from mobile phones. For these stories and more, check out this week’s Israel-related technology headlines below.
During the week of January 17, 2010, Israeli mobile ad tech company Mobixell announced that it bought Internet firm 724 Solutions. A new report indicated that most Israeli hi-tech companies are planning to hire this year and the Google breach from mainland China was further analyzed. For these stories and the rest of this week’s 10 headlines, see below.
During the week of January 10, 2010, CA acquired Israel-based Service Level Management (SLM) software company Oblicore and mobile TV chip maker Siano announced that it raised $24M. Israeli researchers announced that they cracked the encryption of 3G GSM networks. Find out more about these headlines and the rest of this week’s 11 headlines below.
Nine months ago there was talk and speculation that Israel’s Web sector was done and not likely to recover. Mainly expressed by TechCrunch editor-at-large Sarah Lacy after her visit to Israel in March, at the time she wrote about her disappointment with Israeli Web startups except for MyHeritage and a few others. Her piece caused an uproar among Israelis on Twitter and in the blogosphere, including on Israel Innovation 2.0.
At the time Lacy wasn’t completely off. It had been a while since an Israeli Web startup had a big exit or received a large investment or a lot of media attention. Combining this with the poor economy and the rise of Israel’s cleantech sector (which continues to grow), it seemed that Israeli innovation in the Web space had peaked when Shopping.com was purchased by eBay in 2005.
By September of this year though it became clear that 2009 was actually the resurrection of Israel’s Web industry and that Israeli entrepreneurs did not lose their mojo as Lacy had suggested they did. At TechCrunch50 in San Francisco Israeli startups Trollim, Red Beacon and AnyClip received the three top prizes for their promising technologies. A few weeks later in October, it was revealed that Answers.com, perhaps the most memorable Israeli site to have survived the dot.com bust and to thrive, was the 13th most visited Website in September.
In addition to these sites, the second half of 2009 saw the rise of another part of Israel’s Web industry, Facebook and mobile applications. In November the Facebook facial-recognition application Face.com went live and in December the community-generated traffic tracking mobile application Waze started to make headway in the U.S. market, among other regions.
While most of these companies still need to prove themselves (with growth, revenue and exits…) it is clear that there is a new drive among Israeli Web entrepreneurs and Israel’s Web industry is reemerging. 2010 will be an interesting year to see what happens to these startups and if the newfound mojo will reverse the investment decline of recent years in the sector.
Editor’s note: This was originally posted on TechAviv.com.
During the week of December 13, 2009, Clarizen raised $8 million while virtual head generator Gizmoz merged with Daz 3D. Cloudshare came out of stealth and Morgan Stanley came out with a report that the mobile web will overtake the desktop in five years which is promising for Israeli companies in the mobile space. Check below for these stories and the rest of this week’s 9 headlines.
Since 
Israeli business newspaper, 
