Summit Notebook

from MediaFile:

Tech Summit Q&A, day 3: “Unsexy” tech companies

The third day of the 2011 Reuters Global Technology Summit saw a lot of discussion about the valuation and  potential of "sexy" social networks and lesser known startups.

Saad Khan, Partner at CMEA Capital, talked about investing in LiveOps and Pixazza, two companies the former which he called "unsexy", and how they "stitch together the world's labor force."

One could say that Real Networks Chairman Rob Glaser, who saw his company's Real Player go from being the standard used in streaming media on the Web to a bit-player, is familiar with what is and isn't "sexy". Here he is talking about revamping his company around phenomena:

And Google Ventures Managing Partner Bill Maris questioned the value of social media startups:

"Are our smartest people working on our most difficult problems?"

Dell: stay tuned for “Streak”

It’s hard to tell how much anticipation there is out there for Dell’s upcoming “Streak” micro-tablet. The No. 3 PC maker’s latest foray into a consumer arena that Apple’s iPad has essentially helped create is set to hit stores this summer in the United States.

Consumer business unit chief Steve Felice told the Reuters Global Technology Summit that Dell isn’t interested in becoming the No. 1 player in the smartphone and tablet mobile devices categories, where Apple and Google are waging a very high-profile war. But the former leader in personal computers fully intends to be a “top-tier player”.

“We look at this whole thing as an experience between the computer and the remote device. We still view these as complementary devices,” he said.

Like a bunch of other tablet computers in the pipeline — courtesy of everyone from Hewlett Packard to Acer – Dell’s is getting a fair share of Web attention, but this one is a little different though. At just 5-inches, the gizmo isn’t quite a smartphone, yet can’t quite call itself a tablet a la Apple’s 11-inch product.

It remains to be seen where consumers will actually want a smartphone-tablet size-hybrid. Much of that may depend on price of course, but Felice isn’t talking — yet.

(Photo courtesy of tech blog Engadget)

from MediaFile:

SanDisk on bullets and phone wars

Watch out for that smartphone! The iPhone, Android phones and the like are the weapons of the latest technology war, in the view of  flash memory maker SanDisk, which supplies the memory chips that hold pictures, video and apps to the phone makers.

"We sell them ammunition. There is a war going on and we sell the bullets," Eli Harari told the Reuters Global Technology Summit.

And bullets are selling briskly, even in the developing world, where people without computers are buying $20 phones and then adding a gigabyte or two of memory to hold all their pictures, the CEO said.

Apple's iPhone is coming under more fire from Google's Android platform and world handset leader Nokia. "Android phones are exploding," he said.

"The Android operating system on various platforms is going to give the industry a fighting chance against Apple. It remains to be seen what Nokia is going to do. I would definitely not write them off, although they clearly have fallen behind," Harari said. (Picture by Reuters/Bob Galbraith)

VC’s Lament: the ones that got away

Whether it’s passing up on a ticket to Woodstock or not buying Apple stock at $80 a share in January 2009, everybody has regrets.

So what do VCs regret?

We asked the panel of three money-men gathered for the VC Panel at the Reuters Technology Summit for their biggest laments when it comes to the deals they let get away.

“For me the one that comes to mind is AdMob,” said Khosla Ventures partner David Weiden, referring to the mobile advertising firm that Google announced plans to acquire for $750 million in November.

“I talked to Omar (Hamoui, AdMob’s founder and CEO) when he was one employee and spent a bunch of time with him early on and then we didn’t end up doing the investment together and I absolutely regret that,” he said.

Of course, with the Google acquisition now being held up by regulators, AdMob could end up remaining independent after all.

Accel Partner’s Richard Wong did take a chance on AdMob, with Wong now sitting on the company’s board of directors. Wong’s biggest regret has to do with Siri, a maker of voice-activated smartphone software for handling personal tasks that was recently acquired by Apple for an undisclosed sum.

Google’s Green Energy Czar on investing in renewables

Bill Weihl, Google’s Green Energy Czar, sat down at Reuters’ Global Climate and Energy Summit in San Francisco and talked about Google’s solar thermal project, infrastructure costs and where he sees the energy mix heading in 20 years.

Here he chats about emerging clean tech hubs and what the United States should do about investing in renewables.

(Editing/video by Courtney Hoffman)

Draper’s Valley Girl

She’s interviewed tech luminaries from Eric Schmidt to Scott McNealy. She dresses in shocking pink. Her dad was one of the VCs behind Skype and Hotmail. Who is she? She’s, like, the Valley Girl.

Jesse Draper, formerly of the short-lived Nickelodeon series “Naked Brothers Band”, and Sharon Lee are the brains, and the feather boas, behind “Valley Girl”: a 60 minutes-meets-MTV online chat show that in just one season has hosted some of the biggest names in Silicon Valley on its pink satin sofa. Or, as Jesse herself puts it: “Where Silicon Valley’s Best meet Hollywood”. Totally.

So what does Jesse’s dad think about the show?

“It’s ‘I Love Lucy’ interviewing the president of Bank of America,” gushed Tim Draper — who’s known more for plugging high-tech start-ups than his daughter’s online guerrilla show — at the Reuters Global Technology Summit in New York.

Google CEO Eric Schmidt was among the highlights of the first season. Picked up in a white golf-cart festooned with lacy pink curtains, the Internet chieftain gamely played at charades, answered questions ranging from “Who was your childhood crush” (“I didn’t really have a crush”) to “Have you ever Googled Google?” (It throws up a ton of hits).

“I’m delighted to be in the most pink set I’ve ever been in,” Schmidt dead-panned.

(Photo from valleygirlonline.com)

Yahoo cedes search game to Google, for now

(Updated with more quotes)

If you’re losing the game, time to change the playing field. Yahoo is counting on exactly that.

Ari Balogh, Yahoo’s chief technology officer and product development czar, would be among the first to admit that Google reigns supreme in the search space.

“Search the way we know it, with 10 blue links, Google has clearly won that game. Saying anything other than that is just not stating the fact,” he told the Reuters Global Technology Summit.

But Balogh says that doesn’t mean Yahoo is giving up. Inviting comparisons to the automobile industry, now infamous for bankruptcy, ballooning debt and clunky design, Balogh says innovation in search is only just beginning, and it’s too early to declare a winner yet. Ford and its Model T was once the pre-eminent mass-consumer vehicle, but today the once mighty Detroit giant — the only one of the surviving Big Three that doesn’t appear to be flirting with corporate failure — has to fend off the likes of Toyota and Hyundai.

What’s important to understand though is this really is like the auto industry in 1910….At that time, in 1915 or 1920, it sure looked like it was going to be Ford.

Because of the rapid innovation that’s going on, because if you look at that search page, it is an anachronism. When has advertising ever been so ugly in the last 10, 15 years? When has the onus of sorting through a pile of stuff, that much of a pile of stuff, ever fallen on people to do themselves?

Q&A with WPP’s Sir Martin Sorrell

Sir Martin Sorrell, CEO of WPP Group Plc, was interviewed as part of the Reuters Global Technology, Media and Telecoms Summit held this week around the globe. He talked to Reuters reporter Kate Holton in London, with groups of reporters calling in from Paris and New York to ask questions. Here are extended excerpts from a longer interview:  

SOFTER 2009; REBOUND IN 2010 Reuters: How is the U.S. advertising market holding up in light of the credit crunch and housing crisis?

Sir Martin: I would just say that I think we continue to be surprised by the relative strength of the US in the first four months of the year, I guess.

Reuters: Previously said you see a stronger 2010 but concerns in 2009. Are you still happy with that characterization?

Sir Martin: Following the Beijing Olympics and the elections of the new US President, 2009 may see a little bit of slowdown in China but all of these things are relative because China is still growing at 20 percent plus and it can’t carry on forever. The GNP can’t continue to grow 10 percent per annum consistently so — forever. The laws of compound arithmetic just make it very difficult. So ’09 I think you have a little bit of relaxation and also I don’t think the world has decoupled. So if America’s weak, as we have said before, you may not catch a flu, but you may certainly catch a cold.

And then in 2010 a number of events –you have the (U.S.) mid-term congressionals. So any US President has to do something unpleasant in ’09 will do it early and hope that mid-term congressionals would not be affected. But you’ve got the Shanghai fair, the expo in 2010. You’ve got the Asian games. You’ve got the Winter Olympics in Vancouver and you’ve got – the biggest event is probably the World Cup in South Africa

Reuters: If we did experience a greater economic downturn would you expect to see increased competition amongst agencies for business? How does that impact on you?

Mozilla’s big back button

Say what you will, but Mozilla got back. In Firefox 3, the latest version of its Web browser, the foundation has made more than 15,000 changes from the last version. According to Chief Executive John Lilly, they range from big to small, including making the back button bigger.

“We did user studies that say people click the back button more than they click the forward,” he told reporters and editors at the Reuters Technology, Media and Telecoms Summit in New York.

Apparently none of us ever learned the old Bob Dylan line about not looking back.

Mozilla also is making some other interesting decisions for Firefox 3, including releasing it in 50 languages.

More from Lilly: “That’s not a commercial decision. That’s a health of the World Wide Web mission-based decision… We think there are important non-commercial considerations that need to be made by people who are innovating with the product. So there’s a difference between policy groups and product groups. We’re innovating with product; we’re competing with product, but with a mission.”

Maybe Firefox 4 will have a one-click solution for forgiving third-world debt.

(Photo: Mozilla Corp)