Wednesday, April 2, 2008


Nirvanix Taps Internap For CTO
San Diego-based Nirvanix, the online storage services provider which is going up against Amazon's S3 storage service, said Wednesday that it has hired on a new Chief Technology Officer and Vice President of Engineering. The firm said it has hired Patrick Ritto, formerly of Internap Network Services, to the position. Ritto has also previously served at VitalStream, where he was CTO, as well as Overland Storage and Oracle. Nirvanix provides an online storage service which connects to third party I (More info...)
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J.D. Power Acquires Umbria
Westlake Village-based J.D. Power and Associates -- the firm behind the ubiquitous automotive customer satisfaction surveys -- has acquired Umbria, a Colorado-based firm which uses blogs, social networking web sites, message boards, and other web information for market intelligence. Financial terms of the acquisition were not disclosed. J.D. Power said that the acquisition would further enhance its customer-based studies on quality and customer satisfaction. Umbria sorts through online posts, bl (More info...)
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Emergent Game Technologies Gets Win At NCsoft
Calabasas-based Emergent Game Technologies, which develops software for the video games industry, has scored a win with NCsoft, the firm said today. According to Emergent, it has signed a licensing agreement with NCsoft's North American business unit. Financial impact of the deal was not disclosed. NCsoft will use Emergent's Gamebyro video game development platform for its projects. Gamebyro is used to develop PLAYSTATION3, Xbox 360, PC, and Wii console games, with a specific focus on developmen (More info...)
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DivX Loses Sales and Marketing VP
San Diego-based DivX said today that its Senior Vice President of Sales and Marketing, Pamela Johnston, is leaving the firm. DivX said that Johnston is leaving the firm effective June 30th to pursue other opportunities. Johnston has only been at the firm since May. According to the company, Kevin Hell, the firm's CEO, will take over the firm's global sales and marketing activities while the company looks for a replacement for Johnston.
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Venture Backed Exits Drop
Dow Jones VentureSource is reporting this morning that liquidity generated by mergers and acquisition and initial public offerings of venture-backed companies in the U.S. has fallen to its lowest quarterly total, since the fourth quarter of 2005. According to Dow Jones, there was only $8.2B in exits for the first quarter of 2008. Dow Jones, which released its quarterly U.S. Liquidity Report today, said there were 80 M&A transactions worth $7.8B in liquidity, and only six IPOs in the quarter, whi (More info...)
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Kyocera Completes Sanyo Mobile Unit Buy
Kyocera said yesterday that it has completed its $375M acquisition of Sanyo's global mobile phone business, and created a new U.S. mobile phone unit headquartered in Chatsworth. Kyocera, which also owns San Diego-based Kyocera Wireless Corp., said that it has carved out Sanyo's U.S. mobile phone business into a new company, Kyocera Sanyo Telecom, Inc. (KSTI). The new company focuses on development, sales, marketing, and service of Sanyo mobile phones in North America. The Chatsworth-based firm's (More info...)
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Smith Micro Gets Patents, Revs Mobile Music Software
Aliso Viejo-based Smith Micro Software reported today that it has received a network management patent, and also upgraded its mobile music management software. Smith Micro said it received a patent from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office covering management of computer systems and network infrastructure from handheld mobile devices. The patent, number 7,349,957, was granted March 25th. According to the USPTO, inventors on the patent were Thomas Matthews and Alex J. Alexander, and the patent wa (More info...)
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Fonality Signs Reseller
Los Angeles-based Fonality, a provider of PBX systems based on the open source Asterisk project, has signed on a new reseller of its products. ISupportISP, a Columbus, Ohio-based distributor of voice and data services, has begun reselling Fonality's trixbox Pro business phone system. According to the firms, ISupportISP is replacing offerings from Fonality competitor Switchvox in the move. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. Fonality is venture backed by Azure Capital Partners and Int (More info...)
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