Israel Innovation 2.0

The main headlines coming from Israel’s hi-tech scene during the week of June 15, 2008 were primarily related to water technology and future investments in Israel. It was announced that Los Angeles joined Israel on water research and Germany-based RWE made a bid for Israel’s Negev solar plant. The MSCI index announced that it will be upgrading Israel from an emerging market to a developed one, joining the ranks of the United States and the UK among others. While being considered “developed” sounds nice, Israel will now be vying against these more established economies for funds. Although this was covered extensively in the media around the world (and is covered in it’s own section on this list), there were plenty of other Israel technology-related headlines from the past week. Check out the full list of this week’s 21 Israel-related technology headlines below:

Cleantech
BP seeks more Israeli cleantech investment

Arison’s water venture gets name, launch date

Environmentalists unite against Red-Dead canal

Los Angeles and Israel to cooperate on water research

RWE reportedly makes bid for Negev

Investments (VC)
Neocleus Raises Over $11M in Series B Financing

Get with the consumer program, say Israeli VCs

Tax breaks urged for venture lending cos

Redpoint Gets Some Answers

Investments (Israeli Market)
A worrying look at the future of Israeli hi-tech

Markets slide on financial, oil fears

High-tech industry sees slowdown loom

Tel Aviv Bourse to Stay Independent, Forgo Alliances, CEO Says

Israel, S. Korea Have Emerged

Information Technology
Amdocs and IBM Introduce Unified Data Management Solution

Magic Software Nominated for SYS-CON’s “SOA World Magazine Readers’ Choice Awards”

ICQ – Ten Years After

Miscellaneous
Israeli telecom start-ups find success in Asian road show

TI in Israel says it “believes in fabs”

Walla! gains on Google

Partner launches video-on-demand service

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.

A few weeks ago, I mentioned that the popularity and excitement surrounding the iPhone and Google-lead Open Handset Alliance would be indirectly beneficial to Israel’s Infogin, a company whose Internet Mobile Platform provides users with a better mobile web experience without their buying a new phone or upgrading any firmware on a phone. A service that might work well with it is mobile “seamless messaging” service, Tjat.

Mobile Marketing Magazine reports (via Startup Israel) that Tjat’s service has launched on Vodafone Live! and will be providing Vodafone in the Czech Republic its full range of services. According to the Tjat website, its services include:

tCHAT:

“The TJAT mobile IM solution, mobile operators can offer their subscribers quick and affordable access to the world’s most popular IM services from ICQ®, MSN®, Yahoo®, AIM®, Chikka®, and Google Talk®.”

tMAIL:

“The TJAT mobile email solution allows customers direct, efficient, connectivity to any portal/ISP email service, including popular ones like Google®, AOL®, Hotmail® and Yahoo® or any other POP3 subscriber mailbox.”

tSPACE:

“A full remote media and file library that can guarantee availability and management from any device with access to TJAT services (mobile handsets, landline phones, desktops, set top boxes). Available handset memory is no longer a constraint when on the go.”

Of course, the Israel R&D-based all-inclusive mobile messaging service is also working on adding more social networking sharing abilities to its mix. Until then, stay tuned and here is a link to diagram from the site that maps the services visually: http://www.tjat.com/innerData/images/dia01.jpg