Tioga Venture Blog

Tioga on Cloud

Frederic Halley, one of our managing partner, was interviewed by 'Regards sur le Numerique', a french web magazine on cloud computing. You can read his interview (in French) here. This piece is part of a broader discussion with many French experts on Cloud computing. Among  contributors, Patrick Bertand (president of AFDEL), Marc Jalabert of Microsoft. You can read the full lists of interviews here.

Tioga in the News ~ JDNet on the Etats Généraux de l’ASP 2007

After his participation in the Etats Généraux de l’ASP 2007, Tioga Consultant Thierry Aubert wrote an article for JDNet on his insights from the event.

ASP/SaaS : Une Maturité Croissante, Des Défis Qui Persistent

Le modèle économique de l’ASP/SaaS semble atteindre le niveau de maturité nécessaire pour se développer à grande échelle. Mais un certain nombre de défis restent à surmonter pour les acteurs de ce domaine.

Les États Généraux de l'ASP 2007, un événement majeur organisé par l'ASP Forum, furent une nouvelle occasion pour constater la maturité croissance du modèle économique ASP/SaaS. Au-delà des débats sémantiques sur le nom à privilégier pour ce modèle, force est de constater qu'un certain nombre de défis restent à surmonter pour les acteurs (éditeurs de logiciels, fournisseurs de services, hébergeurs...) souhaitant le mettre en oeuvre...

Cliquez ici pour lire l'histoire entier en français.

NOTE: This letter was also published on La letter de l’ASP. Click here to download.

~ Thierry Aubert

GMSV: Valley's New Leaders Coming from Overseas

Valley's New Leaders Coming from Overseas
Study Shows Immigrants Help Create More than Half of Area's Start-ups
By John Boudreau, Mercury News

Jan 4 2007 - Sudhakar Muddu left everything familiar in his homeland of India in 1990 to attend Yale University on a post-graduate scholarship. He later worked for IBM and Silicon Graphics. But he didn't leave family and home just to have his name in a company directory. He staked everything on the Silicon Valley Dream -- starting a tech company.

Leaving family is such a hardship,'' said Muddu, now on his second start-up, Kazeon, a 3-year-old Mountain View maker of search technology for businesses. ``So the dream is to make a mark, to prove something to your family and to the world.'' Muddu's story is replayed over and over in the valley, where, according to a study being published today, more than half of local start-ups established in the past decade were founded by people born overseas.

Click here to read entire story....

~ Laura Pauli

WSJ: Is Microsoft Driving Innovation Or Playing Catch-Up With Rivals?

Is Microsoft Driving Innovation or Playing Catch-Up With Rivals?

Dec 1, 2006 - Microsoft Corp. has put a mountain of money behind its Xbox 360 videogame system and is making another big bet on its Zune digital music player. And after years of research, the company Thursday set in motion one of its most important product launches with the release of its Windows Vista operating system to corporate customers.

But despite the company's marketing muscle, army of engineers and $7.5 billion annual budget for research and development, the software titan finds itself facing real competition on more fronts than ever before. Some threats, like Google Inc.'s ad-based Internet services, are new. Others, like the resurgence of Apple Computer Inc., are not.

As the computing landscape continues to evolve, is the world's largest technology company driving innovation or racing to catch up? The Wall Street Journal Online invited two tech bloggers, longtime Microsoft critic Dave Winer and former Microsoft "technical evangelist" Robert Scoble, to debate the topic. Their conversation, carried out via email, is below.

Click here to read the entire story...

~ Laura Pauli

Red Herring: Private Equity Eyes Dell, EMC, Yahoo

Private Equity Eyes Dell, EMC, Yahoo
Huge technology buyouts of the past few years may be just the start.
By Scott Morrison

November 27, 2006 — Private equity investors have been kicking the tires of some big companies in the technology sector lately, including Dell, EMC, and perhaps even Yahoo, according to a source familiar with the situation. Private equity’s appetite for some of the industry’s most well-known names suggests that few—if any—deals seem too large amid the buying spree that has seen Carlyle Group and Kohlberg Kravis Roberts spearhead $45 billion in technology buyouts in the past two years.
 
“Size is not an issue. If the public markets are not going to value these companies, then private equity will,” said the source, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. Private equity investors are increasingly attracted to maturing tech companies because they have stable earnings, strong cash flow, and little or no debt—meaning they can afford to take on debt in a buyout.

Click here to read the entire article...

~ Thierry Aubert

New York Times: For Start-Ups, Web Success on the Cheap

For Start-Ups, Web Success on the Cheap
by Miguel Helft
November 8, 2006

SAN FRANCISCO, Nov. 8 — When Seth J. Sternberg and two colleagues started Meebo, a Web-based instant-messaging service, they didn’t go looking for venture capitalists. Using their credit cards, they financed the company themselves to the tune of $2,000 apiece. It was enough to cover their biggest expense — leasing a few computer servers at $120 a month each.

Within a month of its introduction in September 2005, Meebo was getting as many as 50,000 log-ins a day, and it needed more servers. It decided to take a modest $100,000 from three angel investors, wealthy individuals who typically contribute small amounts but do not get involved in management decisions.

Click here to read the entire article...

~ Laura Pauli

The Internet ~ 1993 or 2006?

~ Julien Mazerolle