Friday, September 19, 2008


Interview with Jan Zands, Phonesheet.com
Jan Zands is the founder of Los Angeles-based phonesheet.com (www.phonesheet.com), a startup which is developing web-based software for tracking phone messages and action items. We ran into Jan and thought it would be interesting to talk to him about the story behind the firm and its software. What is Phonesheet.com? Jan Zands: It's a web based phone message manager. Essentially, business have assistance--secretaries, receptionists--who answer the phone. Traditionally, they hand-write those (More info...)
posted on Friday, September 19, 2008(Full story)

Jazz Technologies Merger Completes
Newport Beach-based Jazz Technologies and Tower Semiconductor said Friday that the two companies have completed their merger. According to the firms, Jazz Semiconductor has become a wholly owned subsidiary of Tower Semiconductor, named Jazz Semiconductor Inc. a Tower Group Company. The firms said that Gilbert Amelio, chairman and CEO of Jazz, has retired both as an officer and director effective with the merger. The merger, which was worth approximately $169M, was originally announced in May. A (More info...)
posted on Friday, September 19, 2008(Full story)

Sofinnova Ventures Hires EIR In San Diego
Venture capital firm Sofinnova Ventures has hired on an Executive-in-Residence based in San Diego, the firm said Thursday. Sofinnova, which invests in early stage life sciences and IT firms, said it has appointed Lars Ekman, M.D., Ph.D. to its team. Ekman is te former EVP and President of Global Research and Development at Elan Corporation. According to Sofinnova, Ekman will work to identify and build early stage companies, and will be based in San Diego. Sofinnova is an investor in a number of (More info...)
posted on Friday, September 19, 2008(Full story)

Quest Gets OEM Win At Adobe
Aliso Viejo-based Quest Software has scored an OEM win at Adobe Systems, the firm said yesterday, for a software product for single sign-on. According to Quest, Adobe is using the firm's software to provide single sign-on to Adobe LiveCycle products in Java environments with Active Directory. Active Directory is Microsoft's central user logon and authentication system. Financial impact of the OEM win was not diclosed. Quest's software is being used by Adobe so users only have to login once to en (More info...)
posted on Friday, September 19, 2008(Full story)

Apriso Gets Win With IT Services Firm
Long Beach-based Apriso, a developer of software for monitoring manufacturing processes, has scored a win with IT technology services firm Atos Origin, the firms said yesterday. According to the firms, the two have partnered on a solution for managing manufacturing operations. Financial impact of the deal were not disclosed. Atos Origin is a $8.3 billion provider of IT technology services, with over 50,000 employees. Apriso is a venture-backed provider of software used for real-time control of m (More info...)
posted on Friday, September 19, 2008(Full story)

Pringo Upgrades Social Networking Software
Los Angeles-based Pringo, which develops white label social networking software for enterprises, said earlier this week that it has launched a beta of its latest version. According to Pringo, the new software adds a new intranet solution, as well as features to allows integration of blogs, bulletin boards, shopping carts, and other third party software into its platform. Pringo's software is used by companies to develop their own online communities.
posted on Friday, September 19, 2008(Full story)