Israel Innovation 2.0

The week of March 29, 2009 was one of the busiest weeks of the year for Israel’s Web industry, with conferences and events happening everyday. Three bigg events were TheMarker’s COM.Vention on Sunday and Jeff Pulver’s Tel Aviv breakfast and Techonomy on Tuesday. While these events showcased Israel’s most promising Web startups, there was buzz about Israeli companies starting to bypass the US market and target the market in China. For more on these stories and the rest of this week’s 13 Israel-related headlines, see below.

Cleantech
Israel’s Aora Solar To Begin Clean Energy Production

Leviathan looks to wind energy device sales

Global VC Funding of Clean Tech Plunges

Investments and M&A
Building A Bridge Between Israel & China

Israeli Entrepreneurs: Know What Game You Are Playing

The tycoons’ companies don’t create jobs

Information Technology
AICC member Unisfair Launches Channel Program to Capitalize on Growth of Virtual Events 

Savvy entrepreneurs tapping risk (CTERA)

XMPie and NowDocs Introduce XMPie-enabled NowPrint 7.0

SaaS’ Testuff Nabs 2,000th Customer

The curious case of face.com

Miscellaneous
Techonomy 2009: Great Startups And Amazing Event

MyHeritage: Avoiding the MetaCafe Curse

Impressions of TheMarker’s COM.vention from a new immigrant (Israel Innovation 2.0 coverage from guest blogger Jessica Korman)

The most read posts on Israel Innovation 2.0 in 2008 reflect the overall hot areas of technology in 2008 which included cleantech, CRM, data storage and casual gaming. They also provide a glimpse into what can be expected in these areas in 2009. 

On the enterprise level, acquistions of Israeli companies by IBM in 2008 were part of growing trends in cloud computing and data storage that show little sign of slowing in 2009. Contributing to the need for cloud computing and better data storage solutions, will be the CRM and marketing automation solutions offered by companies, such as XMPie, which, resulting from everything from the economy to technological advances to the rise in listening to customers, are leading the way for easier cross-media dynamic publishing  in an increasingly digital world in 2009. 

In cleantech, along with the electric car and wind power continuing to gain momentum will be water technology in 2009. While Oberon Media, among other casual gaming companies, was forced to cut jobs in 2008 despite growth, given the poor economy and the history of success for inexpensive entertainment when the economy is down, the casual gaming market is expected to still thrive in 2009.

Without further ado, the top 10 Israel Innovation 2.0 blogposts of 2008 are:

1. XMPie unveils new products

2. Coming Soon: ooVoo.com video conference chatrooms

3. First online TV-PC network: RayV?

4. Coming soon: Your next game console innovated by Israeli sensor technology

5. Rumors of IBM being in talks to purchase Diligent Technologies Corp.

6. Company in Focus: Walla Communications Ltd.

7. Company in Focus: XIV

8. Company in Focus: Oberon Media

9. Company in Focus: Precise

10. Water Technology and Israel: Invest now

During the week of October 19, 2008, startups in Israel and abroad continued to be warned to cut costs and be careful. Better Place (formerly known as Project Better Place) inked a deal with Australia and Israel’s Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni was rumored to abandon her efforts to build a new coalition government that would lead to her become Israel’s next prime minister. For links to these stories in full and the rest of the 16 Israel-related technology headlines from the week of October 19, 2008, check below.

Cleantech
1. Better Place to charge up Australia

2. Sunday Solar to power Israeli kibbutzim

3. While we wait for plug-in hybrids, electric cars bridge the gap

4. Funding becoming harder to get for green startups

Economy
5. Harris: Start-ups adapting to lean times

6. Not a merry Christmas ahead

7. Venture Capital Financing Slows Amid Economic Downturn

Information Technology
8. Tufin Technologies Adds Support for Fortinet With Release of SecureTrack 4.4

9. Contrust cleans up the social media mess

10. XMPie Releases One-to-One Print Marketing Solution

11. GlobalLogic Enters Israeli Software Product Development Market With Acquisition of InterObject

12. Oracle’s new acquisition includes Israeli R&D center

Miscellaneous
13. Minnesota eyes Israel markets

14. Explaining Israel’s high-tech success: Another view

15. Israeli Party Leader to Move for Elections

16. “Within ten years, everything will be cellular”

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.

According to a news release, XMPie, Inc., a dynamic publishing software provider, will unveil its new look and latest products at the On Demand Conference and Exposition in Boston, MA this week.

XMPie is a dynamic publishing software solutions provider of software that

enables enterprises and their marketing service providers to efficiently develop and execute highly customized, information driven, cross-media campaigns.

Participants in the On Demand conference can expect to see demos of the XMPie Marketplace, which provides “an online resource designed to support users in
the creation of personalized marketing materials,” and the latest version of the uProduce™
Marketing Console, “designed to enable users to offer tracking and
analysis of campaign results to their marketing customers in real-time.”

uProduce can be added to XMPie’s PersonalEffect™ — an all-in-one software suite for the enterprise “that unites customer databases and creative content right on the desktop for personalized one-to-one marketing.”

Marketing and IT professionals looking for CRM software that provides the resources for creating and managing personalized marketing campaigns from start-to-finish should add XMPie’s PersonalEffect to their list of possible solutions.

Company Facts

Software unit of Xerox Corporation since 2006.

Jacob Aizikowitz, President.

Reuven J. Sherwin, Co-founder and Vice President of R&D in Israel.

Products: uDirect, PersonalEffect, uStore.

Website: www.xmpie.com

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.