Israel Innovation 2.0

Inside Israeli Technology

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During the week of February 28, 2010, it was confirmed that Kampyle, a user feedback analytics platform maker, closed a round of funding in 2009 in addition to it increasing its customer base by 25,000 to 35,000. Check Point introduced a new USB stick with VPN and SolarEdge signed a partnership agreement with Flextronics. For these stories and more, see this week’s headlines below.

Cleantech
1. Tech lessons from Israel on how it conserves and manages its water

2. SolarEdge Signs Manufacturing Partnership Agreement with Flextronics

Information Technology
3. Microsoft OneAlbum: Fusing Facial Recognition and Social Networks – The Future of Windows Live Photos?

4. Security key to unlocking cloud potential

5. Kampyle Confirms Funding, Kicks Off Beta Test For Application Feedback Product

6. Check Point puts VPN in USB stick

Miscellaneous
7. Hello My Name is…The Case for a Jewish Meetup.com

8. Israel and France to hold conference for young scientists in Jerusalem

9. ‘Start-Up Nation’ Author: Mentor Networks Key to Luring Israeli Startups

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During the week of February 21, 2010, news broke that Al Gore’s investment firm invested in Israeli road-safety tech company, GreenRoad. Currensee raised $8 million and innovate!2010 in Tel Aviv was announced. For these stories and the rest of this week’s headlines, see below.

Cleantech
1. GreenRoad raises $10M from Al Gore’s Generation Investment Management

2. Terra Venture Partners Billed Israel’s Most Active Venture Capital Investor in 2009

Investments and M&A
3. $8 Million Series B For FOREX Social Network Currensee

4. Critical mass at core of Israel’s tech prowess

Information Technology
5. Moving HQ overseas: Rony Ross, Panorama Software (Interview)

6. Actimize, a NICE Company, Positioned in Leaders Quadrant of Magic Quadrant for Web Fraud Detection

Miscellaneous
7. startup contest innovate!2010 coming back to tel aviv

8. Why aren’t there more women in startups? Some new data.

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

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.

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(Catch Media interview from 2007)

During the week of February 14, 2010, the Eilat-Eilot International Renewable Energy 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.

Cleantech
1. Israel’s Solar Industry Aims to Regain its Edge

2. Israel, Egypt Considering Joint Solar Energy Project in Sinai

Investment and M&A
3. Google Wants To Buy Catch Media To Make Android Better

4. JVP’s Erel Margalit Tells Startups: “We Do Early Stage Now!”

Information Technology
5. Augmented Reality Gets a Major Face.com Lift

6. Tawkon enables mobile users to avoid mobile phone radiation without affecting phone usage

7. Comverse enables visual voicemail services on Sony Ericsson handsets for Norway’s NetCom

Miscellaneous
8. Unleavened Media: 10 Israeli mobile companies to watch in 2010

9. IPad Launch Has Halo Effect On Apple Products, Laptops

10. Aniboom and Sesame Street Partner on Animation Contest

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The week of February 7, 2010, was big for investments and M&A. Social music player TuneWiki raised $7 million and among Israeli companies to be acquired were Convergin, which was picked up by Oracle, and Exanet, bought by Dell. IBM continues to grow its XIV channel and 3DV and PrimeSense continue to be big players in providing sensor technologies for consumer electronics. See below for these stories and more from the week of February 7, 2010.

Cleantech
1. Better Place Sees Electric Cars on Israeli Roads by End of 2011

2. Arava Power: Agreements for 15 Initial Solar Fields

Investments and M&A
3. Oracle Acquires Israeli Startup Convergin

4. Dell Acquires Storage Vendor Exanet

5. Social Music Player TuneWiki Raises $7M From Motorola Ventures, Others

Information Technology
6. Interview with Frederic Aknin, Sparkeo: Innovators in E-Learning Series

7. Point, click: a review of gesture control technologies

8. IBM Expands Channel Program Around XIV Storage Line

9. Opera and Perfecto Mobile Partner To Offer Remote Testing on Real Mobile Devices

Miscellaneous
10. Case Study: Students teach the CEOs

11. Emblaze Brings Patent Infringement Suit against Microsoft, Apple

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During the week of January 31, 2010, the possibility of Israel joining the European Union was analyzed in depth. Research by Israeli information security company Trusteer found that two thirds of online banking customers reuse their login information and Continuity Software released its latest version of RecoverGuard. For these stories and more, here’s this weeks Israel-related headlines:

Cleantech
1. Israel’s top ten water technology companies that help keep the world liquid

2. Israel’s Eilat Region Could Be Middle East’s Clean Tech Beta Site

Investments and Economy
3. Is it possible that Israel will join the European Union?

4. Treasury chief: Boosting Arab and Haredi employment would make Israel rich

Information Technology
5. Too many people re-use logins, study finds

6. Close-up with Laura Howard, CMO, ECI Telecom

7. Continuity Software RecoverGuard Version 5.0 Enables Customers to Fully Ensure Business Continuity

Miscellaneous
8. ‘Ajami’ nominated for Oscar

9. Israel’s Time To Know Aims To Revolutionize The Classroom

10. Israeli Economic Engine Now Seen Humming Along

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During the week of January 24, 2010, electric car venture Better Place raised $350 million. Vringo, a video ringtone company, filed for an IPO and data storage company Continuity Software announced that it added service management software to its offerings. For these stories and the rest of this week’s 8 headlines, see below.

Cleantech
1. Israeli wastewater firms to benefit from new regulations

2. Better Place wins $350 m. investment

Investments
3. Analyst: Israel to benefit from new MSCI standing

4. Video Ringtone Company Vringo Files For $13.8 Million IPO

Information Technology
5. San Mateo’s Clarizen manages growth against major software competition

6. Continuity Software adds SLA management to DR software

Miscellaneous
7. Secrets of the box-office smash

8. Design Museum by Ron Arad Opening in Israel

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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.

Cleantech
1. Sunday Solar to Build Large Solar Array on “Damaged” Negev Land

Investment and Economy
2. Mobixell buys Web firm 724 Solutions

3. Israel’s PowerSines seeks IPO abroad in H1

4. Most high-tech companies plan to hire people this year

Information Technology
5. Google vs. China: The Tip of the Cyberwar

6. Never Mind the Valley: Here’s Israel

7. Women in Technology: Rony Ross, Panorama Software (Interview)

Miscellaneous
8. Want an MBA from an entrepreneurial hot spot? Look to Israel.

9. ‘Ajami’ on short list for Oscar nomination

10. Tuition-Free University Gains a Following

Rony Ross

There is an ongoing discussion in Israel about women in the sciences and technology and the conditions women find themselves in in the field. The discussion was renewed by the Jerusalem Post in October 2009 after Israel’s Ada Yonath won the Nobel Prize in chemistry when it published a piece on the difficulties of receiving research grants and getting a fair salary in Israel. Shortly thereafter I continued my series on women in tech with a post about some of the unique challenges that women face in Israel.

I recently had the opportunity to interview Rony Ross, the founder and current chairwoman of Panorama Software, a business intelligence software company. Ross was born and raised in Israel and overcame challenges as a female entrepreneur to grow Panorama into the successful company that it is today.

Around what age did you become interested in technology?
I excelled in mathematics as a teenager, and shortly thereafter got interested in computer software. I studied Mathematics and Computer Science for my B. Sc and M.S degrees. While working on my Masters dissertation at the Weizmann Institute of Science, my professor, Amir Pnueli (winner of the Turing Award), offered me to join the software development department of one of the first hi-tech companies in Israel – SciTex. I went to visit the SciTex facility, and what I saw was so amazing and compelling that I could not believe someone was going to pay me in order to work in something that looked to be so much fun.

How did you get into the field?
I worked in Software Development, got my MBA degree in parallel, and moved to senior IT management positions. It was only after 40 that I became an entrepreneur and started my own business. A couple of years later, while working on other projects, we hit upon the idea of developing a product in the Business Intelligence field. This product developed into Panorama – a very compelling offering in the online analytical processing (OLAP) side of the Business Intelligence domain. We sold the product successfully to over 50 of the Israeli Fortune 100 companies in under 2 years. Then we met with Microsoft and they loved the product so much they offered to buy the company after the first 3 hours of the meeting. This became the first classic “exit” of an Israeli software company selling to a US software giant.

What obstacles have you faced as a female founder of a company?
When I was developing my first product I tried to raise capital from venture capitalists and failed. I had a very competitive product in a growing field, with established, paying customers who could testify to the value proposition, with a good business plan,  etc. I tried practically all the VCs who were in business at the time – and failed with all of them. I believe that this failure is largely due to the fact that I am a woman entrepreneur. A guy with the same credential would have succeeded. (Of course, this impediment became a blessing when I sold the technology to Microsoft and had no VC to share the income with…)

In recent years, have you seen more or less women going into technology?
When I studied Mathematics, almost half the students were women. There were a lot of women in IT in the period that preceded the PC’s. However, with the outbreak of the early home PC’s , there was a distinct advantage to youngsters with affinity to technical skills (even manual technical skills), and I find that young girls are less interested in disassembling and assembling technical kits. So for many years girls felt “excluded” from the Computer Science field, and opted for other careers. Still, many found their way eventually into hi tech in various positions – but very few made it to the top. However, in recent years I’ve seen a surge of young female entrepreneurs, especially in the Internet arena, which is a very promising sign.

What do you think can be done to get more women in Israel in technology?
Education, education, education. The key is to raise the awareness of girls from an early age about the advantages of making a career in technology fields. These are top paying jobs, and women should target them.

Last week Google threatened to pull out of China after Google internal systems were infiltrated by hackers. In the aftermath of the news, there has been extensive media coverage of the challenges of doing business in China and Microsoft’s Internet Explorer has received most of the blame for the security lapse.

Google Founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin

Google Founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin

Amichai Shulman of the data security company Imperva in Israel has been paying close attention to the security breach and after first suggesting last week that the likely attack methods “were sending mail containing malware to Google employees” or “through a vulnerability in Google’s web servers” strongly questions a claim by McAfee that Internet Explorer had a major role in the attack.

Shulman’s skepticism is based on three main points. The first is that it is unlikely that Google employees would be using IE and not Chrome which is Google’s browser. The second is that the sophistication of the attack requires network and not browser vulnerabilities:

“To execute an attack this sophisticated, it likely occurred as a result of spear phishing Google employees to gain access to Google users credentials. A hacker would have to jump through many hoops inside an internal network. This requires network—not browser—vulnerabilities so that the attacker can communicate with malware inside Google’s internal network.”

Shulman’s third point is that despite the likeliness of the problem being network weaknesses, countries, including France and Germany, are now recommending that citizens use other browsers instead of Internet Explorer.

Considering these three points, Shulman asks the interesting question, “Could this be a clever way to boost Google Chrome downloads?”