Israel Innovation 2.0

Inside Israeli Technology

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-logo-small 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.

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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

Congratulations to Ada Yonath who won the Nobel Prize in chemistry today for her research on ribosomes, which has allowed her to identify how bacteria become resistant to antibiotics.

She is one of only four women to ever win the Nobel Prize in chemistry and the first to since 1964. She is one of nine Israelis to have won a Nobel Prize and the first Israeli woman to do so.

The win is a bit unexpected (by me) as in recent days most of the media’s attention was on Yakir Aharonov, the Israeli physicist who was seen as the likely choice for the Nobel Prize in physics.

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During the week of September 20, 2009, Nefos announced that it will use Magic Software’s business and process integration suite, iBolt. Waze continued to garner attention for its user-generated mobile road map application and analysts expect the online community software market to reach $1.6 billion by 2013. For these stories and more, check this week’s 10 headlines below.

Cleantech
1. Color matters: GreenSun Energy colored solar technology

2. New boost for clean energy launched

Investment
3. The Great VC Ice Age is Thawing (for now) – Part 1 of 3

Industry Trends
4. Cloud computing gathers steam with mobile devices

5. IDC forecasts $1.6 billion online community software market by 2013

Information Technology
6. African broadband growth could lead to higher spam rates (PineApp)

7. Nefos Selects Magic Software’s Business, Process Integration Suite

8. DEMOfall: Crowdsourcing Brings New Life To Mapmaking (Waze)

9. Growing businesses urged to start dialogue through email marketing

Miscellaneous
10. China marks 17 years with Israel

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During the week of September 13, 2009, Better Place and Renault announced that the first electric vehicles will arrive in Israel in 2011. Perfecto Mobile, now known as Nexperience, raised $7 million and Commtouch released a report about a sharp increase in the amount of new viruses. For these stories and more, check out this week’s 10 Israel-related headlines below.

Cleantech
1. Cleantech: Selfishness Sells

2. Renault electric vehicle to roll into Israel in 2011

Investment and Economy
3. Israel teaches the world a lesson in economics

4. Exclusive: Startup Perfecto Mobile Raises $7M for Device-testing Service

Information Technology
5. How Intel turned failure into success

6. Chi-X Chooses IBM for High-Speed Messaging

7. Yodlee Fights Online Payment Fraud Using Actimize, a NICE Company, Real-Time Analytics Technology

8. All is not well with virus protection

Miscellaneous
9. Is Your Cell Phone Melting Your Brain? Not Yet.

10. U2, Coldplay coming to Israel

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During the week of September 6, 2009, IQWind was named a top 100 cleantech company and Tufin Technologies, among other security companies, found that phishing scams are increasing again with the end of summer. IBM Israel played a major role in developing SAPIR, a video and photo search technology that the company claims is better than the methods used by Google and Yahoo. For more on these stories and the rest of this week’s 11 technology headlines, see below.

Cleantech
1. Bechtel to Build Solar Plant in California

2. Israel-based SolarEdge looking for PV system partners in Taiwan

3. IQwind Ltd. Named a Global Cleantech 100Clean Technology Company

Information Technology
4. IBM, European Researchers Develop Multimedia Search Tool

5. As summer ends, phishing season is on the horizon

6. Behavioral Targeting Cozies Up To Video Ads

7. Xeround pushes database virtualisation as integration tool

8. Visual WebGui: Reaching for the top cloud

Miscellaneous
9. Did Israel’s Mossad snatch a Russian arms shipment to Iran?

10. Feeling the pinch

11. Diagnosing lung cancer through a simple exhale

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During the week of August 30, 2009, bids from multiple companies for Israeli solar company, Solel were made. Nice Systems announced that it bought Fortent and N-Trig continues to be the leader in touchscreen technology in various devices. For these stories and more, check out this week’s 9 Israel-related headlines below.

Cleantech
1. Israel’s BPT Raises $12M For Clean Water Technology

2. Siemens, Areva, Alstom Said to Bid for Israeli Solar Firm Solel

Investments and Economy
3. Nice Systems buys Fortent, plans more purchases

4. Signs of recovery showing up at Israeli companies on Wall Street

Information Technology
5. Touchscreen popularity fuels lots of startups

6. SiSense’s PrismCubed Brings Enterprise-Class Business Intelligence To SMBs At A Fraction Of The Cost

7. NDS Announces Granular Audience Measurement

Miscellaneous
8. EMC founder Richard Egan dead at 73

9. FlyScreen Makes The Lock Screen Of Your Android Phone Useful

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During the week of August 23, 2009, Chevron and BrightSource announced the groundbreaking for a solar-steam project that will power one of Chevron’s oil fields in California. News continued to spread about Web application delivery provider, Crescendo Networks’ planned move to California while Israel’s IT market is expected to reach about $6.3 billion in 2013. For these stories and the rest of this week’s headlines, check below.

Cleantech
1. Chevron taps solar-powered steam to get more oil

2. Mazzetti Nash Lipsey Burch and Elysium partner to offer climate change consulting services

Investment
3. Siemens buys 40% stake in Arava Power

4. Stellar Start-Ups: The network’s the thing for hi-tech deals

5. Israel Information Technology Market Is Projected To Grow At A Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) Of 6% Over The Forecast Period To Reach Around US$6.3bn In 2013

Information Technology
6. Mass SQL injection attacks still scaling up

7. Research: 80% of Web users running unpatched versions of Flash/Acrobat

8. Web app delivery vendor Crescendo comes to US

Miscellaneous
9. Israel Moves Toward Energy Independence

10. Incredimail Cracks the $10 Barrier: Where to from Here?

DroidSecurity_logoDroidSecurity 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

brightsourcelogoAccording to The New York Times environment blog,

BrightSource Energy has broken ground on a 29-megawatt solar steam plant at a Chevron oil field in Coalinga, Calif.”

The move is a great for both companies. For Chevron, which, along with competitors BP and StatoilHydro, is an investor,

“a solar power plant builder based in Oakland, Calif., and solar-powered oil extraction offers the oil giant an opportunity to reduce its carbon footprint while gaining a hedge against volatile natural gas prices.”

While, BrightSource, which has signed other significant contracts in California this year, will have the chance “to scale up its technology” and “explore new applications for its technology.”

It’s important to note that the field won’t be powered by solar steam exclusively. As it only works when the sun is out, the field will still use rely on previous sources for  power at other times.