Israel Innovation 2.0

In early November, Deloitte Brightman Almagor Zohar, a professional services firm under the interational Deloitte brand in Israel, released its annual list of Israel’s top 50 fastest growing technology companies for 2008 based on percentage revenue growth over a five-year period. Sixteen software companies ranging from security to finance to storage made the list. Below is the top 10 software companies on the list (all in the top 30) and a little more about them. Will you be using any of these companies’s technologies in 2009? 

GigaSpaces Technologies

GigaSpaces Technologies was founded in 2000 and offers an alternative to traditional application-servers for Java and .Net environments. Its eXtreme Application Platform (XAP) allows businesses and developers to easily scale and improve performance at low cost while leveraging virtual environments such as clouds and grids. Its customers include DowJones, Virgin Mobile, Bank Leumi and Webster.

Commtouch Software

Founded in 1991, Commtouch develops software to protect e-mail by offering spam and Zero-Hour™ virus outbreak protection. Its anti-spam solutions feature its Recurrent Pattern Detection (RPD) technology and have been licensed by over 80 security and messaging vendors and providers including Aladdin, Check Point, Fujitsu and LG N-Sys

Red Bend software

Red Bend Software is considered to be a market leader in Mobile Software Management and Firmware Over-the-Air (FOTA) update solutions. Founded in 1999,  Red Bend Software offers solutions that give phone users more control over what software components they want on their phones while also increasing the data service revenues of phone carriers. The main solutions include firmware updates, software component updates and data management.

El Far Electronics Systems 2000

Founded in 1986, El Far is the longest-established software company on the list and the lone defense company. El Far provides defense security systems offering integrated software for site management and decision making support. Its Integer software can be used for  managing anything from access control systems to fire alarms to infra red sensors.

InfoGin

InfoGin was founded in 2000 by Eran Wyler after he foresaw the “need for surfing the real Internet on any mobile device.” Over the years, InfoGin has become a leader in “Web-to-mobile content adaptation, enabling mobile users to access any Web site they desire, optimized to their mobile device.” The company’s Internet Mobile Platform (IMP) technology is currently being implemented by several major companies, including Virgin Mobile (UK) and MapQuest.

Actimize

Around since 1999 and a NICE Systems Ltd. company since 2007, Actimize  is a transactional risk management software company offering solutions in anti-money laundering, fraud prevention, and brokerage compliance. Its technology includes the Risk Case Manager, Visual Modeler and Analytics Server.

Modelity Technologies Inc.

Established in 2000, Modelity Technologies offers a financial modeling and portfolio analytics platform for financial institutions, such as banks and insurance companies, to stay competitive and improve their performance.  Its products include Modelity/Advisor, Modelity/Funds and Modelity/Structures. 

FibroLAN

Since 1996, FibroLAN has developed integrated fiber-optic broadband access systems that allow organizations in the corporate and carrier markets that are dispersed over metropolitan areas access to the Internet and their Intranets at fast speeds. Its MA and MetroStar technologies both provide the benefit of low-cost remote management. MetroStar has been used by Telstra and the Los Angeles MTA.

Discretix Technologies

Discretix was founded in 2000 and is the largest single company in the world dedicated to embedded security. Focusing on consumer electronics products that are portable, such as mobile phones and mp3 players, Discretix offers additional security solutions for them that manufacturers can’t provide due to limited resources. Its main products, CryptoCell and CryptoFlash are deployed by major manufacturers such as SonyEricsson, Motorola, Samsung and SanDisk.

Exanet 

Founded in 2000, Exanet is a data storage solutions company offering enterprise companies the latest processing technology that is scalable in capacity and performance, with low cost of ownership. Its product, ExaStore 2008 holds the world record for storage performance and its customers include BBC, Stanford University, and the National Library of France.  

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.

Blogging is a phenomenon that isn’t just perceived as important in the United States, but in Israel, too. Back in October, I wrote a few posts about blogging in Israel and the different networks and platform technologies that I noticed being used. A lot of the attention I gave to blogging in Israel was in anticipation of attending the first annual WordPress Israel conference.

Recently, there was some discussion on the Digital-Eve Israel listserv (an email list for hi-tech professionals in Israel) about how to start a professional blog and which blog platform to use for it. In one of the posts, Miriam Schwab, CEO of Illuminea Marketing and Media and an organizer of the WordPress Israel conference, directed everyone to an entry on her blog about how a “really professional blog” is hosted on WordPress.

As there are several blog platforms aside from WordPress that are used by some highly-regarded professionals, including Blogger and MovableType, I decided to leave a comment disagreeing with the idea that “really professional blogs” are only on WordPress. I also included my belief that professionals just starting to blog should consider different platforms and that if the blog isn’t directly for their company, then it would probably be fine to start off on Blogger while learning the ins and outs of blogging.

Miriam’s response to my comment and Jacob Share’s short list of Digital Eve Israel members who blog (only 11!), piqued my curiosity as to how many Israeli companies (including VCs) that I have covered in my posts, have blogs. Surprisingly, and not so surprisingly, most of the companies I checked (especially the biggest companies, such as Teva Pharmaceuticals and Alvarion), don’t have corporate blogs. Many Israel-based venture capitalists on the other hand, do.

Here’s a list of a few of the Israeli companies that I have mentioned that do have blogs:
RedBend
eSnips
Metacafe
Gemini
Tvinci
Jajah
ooVoo
Aladdin
Commtouch

Here’s a list of some companies, including ones that I haven’t covered, that are noticeably missing:
Comverse
Commtouch
BluePhoenix
Magic Software
InfoGin
Alvarion
Vringo
Ness Technologies
Teva Pharmaceuticals
Voltaire

Update: August 8, 2008.

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

News
An article in the New York Times last week pointed out the failures of the mobile web in attracting more users over the years. Recently though, several companies and initiatives, including Israeli-based InfoGin Ltd., have been created to drive more people to use the mobile web and to improve the mobile web experience.

Background
InfoGin was founded in 2000 by Eran Wyler after he foresaw the “need for surfing the real Internet on any mobile device.” Over the years, InfoGin has become a leader in “Web-to-mobile content adaptation, enabling mobile users to access any Web site they desire, optimized to their mobile device.” According to a company description,

“InfoGin’s patented technology offers a range of solutions, from a fully automatic intelligent conversion engine to professional content-editing and marketing tools that enable full control over the delivered information.”

The company’s most recent technology is the Internet Mobile Platform (IMP) that is currently being implemented by several major companies, from Virgin Mobile (UK) to MapQuest.

Major Customers
Virgin Mobile (UK)
Cellcom & Pelephone (Israel)
AOL
MapQuest
InfoSpace

Analysis
Despite the increasing popularity of mobile phones with Internet access and various initiatives, the mobile web is a mess. Very few users pay for data services in their cell phone plans and those who do, are faced with difficult navigation tasks and limited data available to them.

The recent popularity of Apple’s iPhone and the Google-lead Open Handset Alliance (OHA) promise to increase mobile web access in the United States and to give more order and direction to mobile platforms by improving the mobile web access experience. However, while that might be the intention, the iPhone’s glitz and glamor only goes so far when people want to view rich media content on the Internet and it is unlikely that the OHA will be able to meaningfully impact mobile search navigation and the more complicated demands of web access in the near future.

InfoGin’s services, primarily its Internet Mobile Platform, offers anyone who has a web-accessible phone — with a participating carrier — a better Internet experience without the hassle of buying a newer phone or the obligation of upgrading a phone’s firmware. InfoGin’s service automatically changes any website that a user goes to on the phone.

Compared to a service such as Yahoo! Go, InfoGin is a lot easier and doesn’t require users to download anything. However, while InfoGin services provide a better user experience, it is not enough to overshadow the additional need for phones to be able to handle rich media requests and streaming — something that in the end, for InfoGin’s services and the future of mobile web, should be of great concern.

However, considering that 32 cell phones are sold every second and InfoGin’s current customer reports of its solutions “doubling web site traffic” and decreasing operational costs of “creating and handling web content” by 80%, InfoGin should be able to continue to expand its current reach of 20 million cell phones unhindered for the foreseeable future.

Additional Resources
InfoGin has record year
InfoGin takes on iPhone with Intellient Mobile Platform
Overview of industry’s future
Mobile Web University Trial
InfoGin Press Release