Israel Innovation 2.0

During the week of April 18, 2010, Wibiya announced that it raised $2 million for its customizable web-based toolbars. Forbes magazine named Israel’s Shari Arison, founder of Miya, one of the world’s greenest billionaires and Testuff released a Mac version of its test management software. For these stories and more, see this week’s 11 Israel-related headlines below.

Cleantech
1. 10 reasons Israel is a cleantech leader

2. Israeli researchers develop small, lightweight hydrogen storage tech

3. Israel’s greenest billionaire

4. Israel’s TaKaDu Goes After the Other Grid: Water

Investment and Economy
5. ‘The idea was to use the crisis to strengthen the economy’

6. Trade pact with Israel to give foothold in West Asia

7. Wibiya Raises $2 Million For Customizable Web-Based Toolbars

Information Technology
8. Testuff Launches a Mac Version of its On-Demand Test Management Service

9. Trusteer detects new Zeus (Zbot) password stealing Trojan

Miscellaneous
10. TAU professor tips off US over security flaw in e-passports

11. Israel Reverses iPad Ban

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.

Cleantech
1. Charged Environment

2. Arava Power Will Invest $535 Million in 15 Israeli Solar Fields

Investment
3. Bitesize Friday – Israeli Funding Recap

4. Israel’s Infinity expanding China investment fund

5. Israeli start-ups face funding crunch at home, turn to US and European investors

Information Technology
6. Total security for online data

7. Clarizen Growing SaaS Work, Project Management Channel

8. WeFi for Android Gets Enhanced Maps and Location Support

Miscellaneous
9. Israeli Team Snags Top Robotics Award for Second Consecutive Year

10. Where hi-tech startups meet the economy

Rony Ross

Last month I posted an interview with Rony Ross about being a successful woman in technology. Aside from this, we also discussed in depth the business intelligence software company that she founded, Panorama Software, including its growth over the years, business intelligence (BI) trends and what we can expect from Panorama this year. Here is that part of our discussion.

Panorama Software was founded in 1993 and moved its headquarters to North America in 2003, what factors went into the decision to move the headquarters?
In 2002, Panorama realized that the marketplace for its products is growing and decided to become a global company. We decided we needed a North American presence, including sales, marketing, support, finance and product management and that moving the headquarters to North America was a logical step.

We evaluated various locations, and were determined to concentrate on locations that had daily direct flights to Israel. One of Panorama’s directors suggested Toronto, Canada. It was deemed a great choice, both for the favorable (at the time) value of the Canadian Dollar vs. the US dollar, as well as having daily direct flights to Israel.

What steps did the move entail?
A few people relocated to Toronto, including myself and Eynav Azarya who has since become Panorama’s CEO. We recruited quite a lot of people in Toronto, as well as in various locations in the US. We moved our finance operations, as well as our Marketing, Product Management and parts of our Worldwide support.

Panorama Pivot Table for Google Docs

What are some of the BI trends that we can expect to see in 2010?
I believe that in 2010 we shall see Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) BI picking up and becoming an option of choice for many organizations as a way to extend their BI deployment within and outside the firewall. Many organizations will adopt a hybrid strategy, where they will be running applications on the cloud while maintaining full control and ownership of data on-premise.

What can we expect to see from Panorama Software in 2010?
Panorama will deliver great BI solutions that are based on Microsoft Office, SQL and SharePoint platforms. Our goal for 2010 is to extend the use of these great products, while providing an even better end user experience and enabling enterprise companies to deploy an end-to-end BI solution for the organization. We will also release a new version of our SaaS BI module.

Last month 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 2009 based on percentage revenue growth over a five-year period. Fifteen software companies ranging from security to finance to storage made the list. Below is the top 10 software companies on the list and a little more about them. Will you be using any of these companies’s technologies in 2010?

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.

Imperva

Imperva is an application data security company that was founded in 2002 by Amichai Shulman and Check Point Software co-founder Shlomo Kramer. The company was named to Red Herring’s Top 100 in 2007 (link to video) and grew by more than 80% in 2008.  Its success during the recession has been attributed to its software helping customers cut costs. Imperva’s products include the SecureSphere Data Security Suite, SecureSphere Web Application Firewall and Database Activity Monitoring.

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.

Safend

Israeli data protection company, Safend offers products for data encryption and port and device control. Founded in 2003, Safend in 2009 was also named to Gartner’s Magic Quadrant for Mobile Data Protection. The company also rounded out its suite adding Safend Inspector and Discoverer to Safend Reporter, Safend Encryptor and Safend Protector.

PineApp

PineApp is an e-mail and content systems security provider. Founded in 2002 by Gabriel Mizrahi and headquartered in Israel, PineApp’s products enhances email security by protecting against email-based spam and virus attacks. Its products include Mail-SeCure, Surf-SeCure and Secure SoHo. Earlier this month the company introduced two new products to its line, Mail-Encryption and Archive-SeCure.

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.

Zend

Zend offers products and services for developing, deploying, and managing business-critical PHP applications. The company was founded by Andi Gutmans and Zeev Surask and its customers include McAfee, UPI and IBM. In September 2009, Zend along with its partners, IBM and Microsoft, announced a new initiative for PHP developers who are working on cloud-focused apps. Its products include Zend Server, Zend Platform and Zend Core.

IDIT I.D.I. Technologies

IDIT Technologies was founded in 1998 and offers SOA-based software solutions for the insurance industry. In July 2009 Forrester Research named the company among the hot insurance tech companies to watch in 2009, mainly for its multi-language and currency support innovations. The IDIT software suite addresses the specific end-to-end needs of general insurance for the insurance and financial markets including Business Intelligence, Workflow Management and Customer Relationship Management (CRM). IDIT’s R&D center is headed by Lilia Waserman and its customers include Alfa Insurance and RAC Insurance.

PNMSoft

PNMSoft is a Business Process Management (BPM) and workflow software provider. Founded in 1996, PNMSoft provides customers, such as Amdocs, Microsoft and Philips, with solutions to better manage content and businesses from start to finish. PNMSoft’s poducts include SEQUENCE BPM workflow software based on Microsoft’s Windows Workflow Foundation platform. The company currently has an R&D center currently in Israel and was a Microsoft 2009 SOA and Business Process Partner of the Year Finalist.

VIZrt

VIZrt offers content production tools for the digital media industry. It was founded in 2000 and some of its clients include Fox, CBS and The Globe and Mail. Along with its products Viz Content Pilot and Viz Artist, VIZrt also offers mobile solutions. In 2008, Vizrt acquired Escenic.

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.

Cleantech
1. Israel plunges into water technology

2. Israeli Renewable Energy – Why Israel, Why Now?

Investment and M&A
3. My Virtual Head Would Look Great On Your Virtual Body! Gizmoz Merges With Daz 3D

4. Clarizen raises $8M in 3rd round

Information Technology
5. CloudShare Comes Out of Stealth Mode: A Talk with Kevin Epstein

6. Kenshoo Branches Out with New Local Search Management Platform

Miscellaneous
7. Vringo Ringtones Startup From Israel Vies With News Corp. Unit

8. Spymaster sees Israel as world cyberwar leader

9. Morgan Stanley: Mobile web to overtake desktop in five years

During the week of November 8, 2009, Motorola made its first Israeli acquisition by buying Bitband. Jerusalem Venture Partners (JVP) invested in XtremIO and Navajo Systems and Face.com went live with its facial-recognition tagger on Facebook. For these stories and the rest of this week’s 11 headlines, check below.

Cleantech
1. Jewish Israelis and Jewish Americans Look to US-Israel Cooperation To Break Oil Dependence

2. Deep sea aquaculture startup prepares for harvest

Investments and Economy
3. High-tech drives huge leap in exports

4. JVP and Giza Announce A-Round Investment in Early-Stage Startup XtremIO

5. Motorola in first Israeli acquisition: Bitband

Information Technology and Web 2.0
6. Facebook Facial-Recognition Tagger Goes Live

7. Windows 7 could hasten touch-screen computers (N-trig)

8. JVP Media Studio Invests Seed Round in Navajo Systems

Miscellaneous
9. Your cell phone can save you from a Dead Sea flash flood

10. The Twenty-Five Most Valuable Blogs In America

11. Israel’s lively start-up culture keeps economy thriving

During the week of November 1, 2009, financial software company, Finjan was acquired by M86. The Cleantech Group ranked Israel number 5 in its list of top10 cleantech countries of 2009 and Start-up Nation, Saul Singer and Dan Senor’s analysis of Israel’s economic success, was released (headlines below video).

Cleantech
1. The top 10 cleantech countries of 2009

2. The 2010 Eilat Eilot Renewable Energy Conference Looks To Carbon-Free Energy

3. Israeli firms aim to plug world’s water leaks

Investment
4. M86 Security Buys Finjan

5. We Are The Startup Nation

6. Local VCs cut investment in start-ups

Information Technology
7. How Cloud Computing Has Transformed Small Business Software (SAManage)

8. Global from Day One: MoodBase knows what the web is feeling

Miscellaneous
9. Israeli film ‘Ajami’ wins at Montpellier festival

10. JNF aims to turn Israel diamonds from rough to ready

Israeli companies Kaltura and Clarizen have been included in IDC’s top 10 innovative applications companies under $100M to watch.

According to IDC chosen companies were identified based on whether they exemplified one or more of three key trends in applications today, which the company cited in January 2009 to be:

• Acceleration of software as a service (SaaS), business process outsourcing (BPO), and open source over traditional on-premise software
• New business models for software use by service providers (software-within-a-service)
• Web 2.0-like functionality moves into the enterprise (e2.0).

Clarizen is a project management software company that allows contributors to edit at the same time and for the changes to be visible immediately to anyone involved on the project. Last week it reported that it gained over 100 new customers in Q3. Clarizen is headquartered in Israel with its US headquarters in Menlo Park, California.

Kaltura, according to its site, is “the first open source video platform for online video management, creation, interaction & collaboration.”  Earlier today it was listed as one of 49 hot new open source applications on Earthweb.com as a video tool.  The company has an R&D center in Israel.

During the week of October 18, 2009, 70 countries gathered to standardize electric car chargers. The decline in venture capital investments in Israel during the third quarter was analyzed as was the mark Israel is leaving on Information Technology software, specifically as relates to security. For these stories and more, check out the headlines from the week of October 18, 2009 below.

Cleantech
70 countries gather in TA to standardize electric car chargers

Innowattech Proves It Can Collect Energy From Highways and Byways

Investment
Can VC succeed in cleantech?

IVC Report: VC Investments in Israeli Companies Decline 50% in Q3

Information Technology
Israel carves a niche in IT security

Tools for Semantic Targeting (Peer39)

WordPress.com automates PicApp images for bloggers

Miscellaneous
Facing Tomorrow tech exhibition focuses on Israeli brain power

Israelis working to save endangered species through cloning

When Big Blue was a start-up

DroidSecurity launched last week its DroidSecurity Internet Security Suite, the first antivirus security suite for devices using Google’s Android operating system.

The antivirus application features:

- VirusFree & VirusFree Pro: Inspects and cleans Android smartphones from malware, viruses, SMS spam and suspect applications to secure device integrity.

- FindR: Tracks and locates lost/stolen phones, enables remote memory clearing to protect data privacy.

- CheckMate: Manages the security rating of Android and issues warnings on suspect security profiles.

Though there is only one known threat to Android devices, the company is expecting  (as is the head of Google Android’s security team) that as the Android platform becomes more popular and widely-used, it will become more of a target for attacks and threats.

It also expects that though Android isn’t ready for the enterprise yet, eventually the enterprise will push using Android and is currently working on an enterprise version to be released in 2010 that will include “the ability to centrally manage and update company smartphones and devices.”

The suite, which was downloaded over 100,000 times during its beta trial and takes advantage of Java Virtual Machine (JVM) technology,  is available for download on the company’s site for $4.99 a year.

Company Facts

Founded in 2009

Located in Tel Aviv, Israel

Eran Pfeffer, CEO, co-founder

Dror Shalev, CTO, co-founder and former Check Point security researcher

Omri Sigelman, VP of Marketing, co-founder

Applications: VirusFree Pro, VirusFree, FindR, CheckMate

DroidSecurity is currently looking for funding