Port Townsend-based Mobilisa, which we wrote about earlier this week, just announced that they won a $1M contract from the US Navy to supply wireless networks for floating battle groups. The company already does the Washington state ferries; they appear to be on a floating roll.

-posted by Paul

Seattle-based AttachmateWRQ today announced the $495M acquisition of San Jose-based NetIQ. The company is taking NetIQ private, and it will make the newly merged AttachmateWRQ, already our largest privately-held software company, considerably bigger.

-posted by Paul

Congratulations are in order two times around for Speakeasy founder Mike Apgar who reports that, in addition to formally launching his new venture Ookla, he and his wife Gretchen had their second child earlier this month. And if you haven't tried out Ookla's nifty little product, Speed Test, it's definitely fun and useful for learning just how zippy your Internet connection actually is. I first heard about Speed Test over at Pure Networks, and CEO Tim Dowling has written about it in his blog.

-posted by Rachel

Kirkland-based SchemaLogic today announced a new "semantics standards workspace" called Aurora: "The collaboration tool was launched to support the recent trend by organizations and industries to facilitate collaboration among hundreds or even thousands of knowledge workers to leverage social networking and online collaboration tools such as wikis and folksonomies with application to business semantics." Interesting...

-posted by Paul

Infospace today announced record revenues of $90.3M and net income of $3.0M. "InfoSpace had an exciting quarter, delivering strong results and record revenues fueled by strength in media downloads and online search."

-posted by Paul

Mobliss execs off and running

Recently, I checked in to see how Mobliss was faring -- and, while the company seems to be doing well, I was shocked to see that the entire roster of executives we used to know there have left! A quick Google search showed that Brent Bookler, one of the Mobliss founders, is now the founder and CEO of a new Seattle-area venture: HyperBoy. One of our favorite bloggers, Om Malik, mentioned the company in a post last month where he wondered whether or not there was room for another social networking site in the market. Brent was quick to respond - and it's interesting to read his take on HyperBoy's potential market.

And if you're wondering why I was suddenly interested in Mobliss again -- the company's product was the first platform to enable text message voting for American Idol. 'Nuff said.

-posted by Rachel

Look out Portland - your city is home to the newest trade association fighting for interoperability standards and platforms in the communications industry.

Adtron, Artesyn, Continuous Computing, Diversified Technology, Inc., ESO Technologies, Fujitsu Siemens Computers, HP, Intel, Kontron, MontaVista Software, Motorola, Nortel Networks, Pentair-EP, Pigeon Point Systems and Wind River (try saying that in one breath) today announced the formation of the Communications Platforms Trade Association (CP-TA). CP-TA is an association of communications platform and building block providers dedicated to accelerating the adoption of SIG-governed, open specification-based communications platforms through interoperability testing and certification.

Okay, I'll admit, there's a need for interoperability and open standards in this industry, but CP-TA. With all the marketing brainpower fueling these member companies, CP-TA was the best they could do -- how about Lazy Association of Marketing Executives (that's LAME, get it?). Blah.

-posted by Justin

Portland-based iovation is claiming it has leapfroged the 100 million transactions per year mark for device recognition and reputation transactions. Interested in authentication and Internet fraud management? Check out the release.

-posted by Justin

Connexion by Boeing, known for delivering broadband in-flight internet service to airlines such as Lufthansa and JAL, has strongly entered the maritime market with this week's announcement of a second contract for cruise ships -- this time aboard Oceania Cruises' Insignia. Meanwhile, Port Townsend-based Mobilisa is continuing to forge ahead in a somewhat related field. It just opened an East Coast office outside of Washington, DC to service its growing business – Mobilisa has the contract to deliver wireless access it calls WOW (Wireless Across Water) aboard several of Washington's ferries.

-posted by Rachel

"It’s like a three- or four-minute-long concentrated, faster-cut, and more sarcastic version of The Daily Show." I'm making it my personal mission to drive traffic for this guy. Be sure to check out the archives. (Thanks to Daring Fireball for the link.)

-posted by Paul

Kryptiq Corporation, the leading provider of interoperability and workflow connectivity solutions for healthcare, is hosting the third annual Healthcare Connectivity Summit, April 26th-27th in Portland, Oregon. This conference brings together thought leaders from across the nation to discuss public and private sector initiatives for achieving meaningful health information exchange.  Key topics will include practical approaches to regional health information organizations (RHIOs), redesigning electronic health record (EHR) usage for quality improvement and pay for performance and achieving interoperability with EHRs.

-posted by Justin

Our friends over at Bellevue-based Saflink are now talking about the new Fast Lane Option (FLO) Alliance that brings together a stellar roster of companies to work toward delivering a product that will zip frequent fliers through security lines at airports. Saflink's vision of a card that delivers not only stronger security but user convenience and rewards is unique and well-matched to the needs of the estimated 38 million Americans traveling more than seven times annually. The Alliance even has a website where you can learn more. Since the security screening time was incredibly long when I was at Sea-Tac earlier this year, this card can't come soon enough for those of us who hate to wait in line.

-posted by Rachel

We first ran into serial entrepreneur David Xue when he was with Lockdown Networks. He's now the head of PixPulse, a company developing a mobile media application that enables users to share photos and videos directly from mobile devices. There are obviously a fair share of companies targeting this type of opportunity, but membership at PixPulse has now topped 10,000 -- not bad for a startup that just launched last October.

-posted by Rachel

Want to buy a Mercedes C320 Sedan online or perhaps a six piece drum set? Well, you might want to head to SoldItLive.com. That's right -- eBay has a new competitor (as of April 3). And believe it or not, they're located right in Portland. To follow up their website launch earlier this month, SoldItLive.com, "the webs's hottest Online Auction and Virtual Marketplace site," just announced a new alliance with DropShipDesign.com. What does it all mean? They now have drop shipping services, which gives customers access to wholesale products, order fulfillment, order tracking, customer service, auction ad wizard, a customizable website solution.

This is a possible outgrowth of the tentative revolt of many eBay "power sellers" who are frustrated with rising fees, policy changes, added complexity, etc. Will it have an impact on the auction giant? Too soon to tell, but check out the news from SolditLive.com.

-posted by Justin

We had to cover this one: Portland-based Imbibe Media just launched the premiere issue of Imbibe, "the first-of-its-kind, national consumer magazine dedicated to the entire spectrum of drinks... deserving in-depth exploration of the people, places, flavors and trends surrounding the fascinating world of beverages." Sign me up!

-posted by Paul

Microsoft is building an online storage service, code named Live Drive, says Ray Ozzie in an interview with Fortune. Live Drive, and the similarly named Google Drive, are both designed to basically deliver huge amounts of personal online storage, available from anywhere on the net. Google's service is slated for 2007 delivery, and Microsoft's schedule is unknown. Of course, this technology isn't new. There are a number of companies already ahead of this curve, including Apple with its .Mac/iDisk solution and Amazon with S3. Much closer to home: Seattle-based Punch Networks launched similar services in conjunction with Excite way back in 1999 (Yahoo also launched a similar service back then called Briefcase). The Punch service is still available via the Punch Networks website. Of course, once these companies made their announcements, the VCs came rushing in to finance (xDrive 10/99, iDrive 10/99, SwapDrive 11/99 and the list goes on). More recently Seattle-based Deep9 acquired Punch Networks, and is planning to announce new services based upon Punch's proven code-base later this year. With major players and startups both readying announcements for the next 12 months, it looks like this might be a segment that is poised to take off again. Can the VC announcements be far behind?

-posted by Paul

Portland-based Tripwire has introduced a new professional consulting service for enterprise change management, building on their existing change auditing software offering.

-posted by Paul

There's a handful of Northwest ad agencies (or the NW offices of global firms) up for the prestigious One Show award in NY, including Seattle-based Big Bang, Creature, DDB Seattle, Publicis West, remerinc and Sedgwick Rd.; Portland-based Borders Perrin Norrander, Leopold Ketel & Partners and Wieden+Kennedy; and Vancouver-based DDB Canada and Rethink. There were 17,000 entries from 56 countries, so we think the solid Northwest showing bodes well for the strength of the local ad scene. Good luck to all.

-posted by Paul

Snoqualmie-based Light Sciences Oncology filed Friday for an initial offering of up to $86M, and plans to trade under the symbol LSON. The company, which is using light to destroy cancer cells, expects to enter late-stage trials later this year. The P-I's John Cook has a nice write up.

-posted by Paul

Our friends over at Marqui have posted another great white paper, this one entitled "Invisible Marketing: What Every Organization Needs to Know in the Era of Blogs, Social Networks and Web 2.0." According to Marqui, "this new approach to marketing, call it 'Marketing 2.0,' is as much an attitude as it is a set of tools and techniques." We'll post more once we've digested the fact that we're on version 2.0 now.

-posted by Paul

Ipsos, a market research firm with an office in Bellevue, released its report earlier this week on mobile handheld device usage. It shows the heavy user base is expanding beyond teenagers and young adults to those 35 and older. Usage of mobile devices to check email and browse the web is also outpacing laptops in some markets, particularly in France. I suppose it's purely coincidental that Ipsos is also based in France.

-posted by Rachel

There's a discussion going on about different types of bloggers. Some characterize it as reporters versus editors, others as referential versus experiential. You'll see both on this blog, as we generally help identify someone else's NW news, but occasionally provide commentary of our own. I think both aspects are useful, but blogs certainly do tend to trend toward one or the other. Perhaps you'll find the perspective interesting as you think about the types of blogs you personally prefer...

-posted by Paul

Here's an interesting breakdown of the world's top city skylines based on subjective analysis of esthetics, height, density, etc. Why do I post this here? Seattle is #15.

-posted by Paul

The P-I's John Cook has a very interesting analysis in his blog on the similar road Seattle high-tech bubble survivors Qpass and Widevine traveled on their way to their respective acquisition and funding.

-posted by Paul

IronPoint, a Vancouver, BC based content management company recently named as one of the top 25 B.C. tech companies by Rocketbuilders, was just acquired by San Diego-based application services company The Active Network. Inc. magazine named The Active Network one of the fastest growing private companies in the U.S. in the magazine's Inc. 500. For more information go to: http://www.ironpoint.com/Corporate/News.htm

-posted by Anne

Well, maybe this is part II of the great Microsoft vs. all others debate Paul and I have with each other. Now the debate switches over to Opensource vs. Office. For many years, including while I was working for Microsoft, it seemed as though there were many people who thought Microsoft's demise would come in the form of StarOffice or OpenOffice. I saw the demos and, while I was slightly impressed, the functionality seemed greatly lacking and with Opensource, it seemed much too difficult for an enterprise to embrace. Seems I might be right, or at least Capital Engineering agrees. They recently made the switch from OpenOffice to Microsoft Office. OpenSource isn't quite as "free" as everyone thinks, there are costs associated with it in the form of file conversions and application compatibility. Once Capital Engineering grew, they realized that OpenOffice just couldn't support their enterprise. Click for more information on this story.

-posted by Anne

The InnoTech Oregon Conference wraps up today and I was lucky enough to have some time yesterday to listen to some session tracks and talk with some interesting companies. One of those companies is called futureRobotics. Still in its infancy, the company has designed software for autonomous navigation. The obvious application for this is of course robots, but during my conversation with the founder, Jonathan Fant, he explained how the software (and a bit of hardware) can be fitted to any number of objects for navigation. Imagine wheelchairs in an airport taking the elderly or handicapped from gate to gate, or forklifts in a warehouse loading and unloading without human drivers....sound crazy? Mr. Fant doesn't think so! As a matter of fact, Fant had Solo 1.3 at the show. Solo is a robot that can do a ton of tasks. He cleans, vacuums, serves as a security officer, can take people to items in stores, can restock shelves...you name it, he can pretty much accomplish it with a little programming tweak. Solo has a 10 inch touch screen where people can go through guided menus or simply tell the robot what they need. While I'll admit, the application of robots into customer service seems a bit hookie right now, autonomous navigation is no joke. The US Military is spending a bundle to get this technology in assault vehicles and planes.

So, interested in investing in Fant...simply send him check for 50, 100, 150 thousand dollars and he'd be happy to put you on the board.

-posted by Justin

Our friends over at Marqui have spent a fair amount of time blogging about podcasts and how they are changing the way companies choose to communicate with their audiences. Which reminded me of the change we've noted at Seattle-based Melodeo. The company started out delivering tunes to cell phones, but recently took an interesting turn toward mobile podcasting and was one of the sponsors of Seattle's Podcast Hotel last February.

Although Melodeo lost two of its key execs earlier this month, the company's vision for its future is extremely interesting...and one worth keeping an eye on.

-posted by Rachel

Seattle-based digital rights management company Widevine not only landed $16M in funding, but managed to score investments from strategic partners Cisco Systems and Canadian telco Telus. Quite the lead into next week's big broadcast show, NAB.

-posted by Paul

Users in more than 20 cities throughout Oregon will be able to wirelessly download at DSL speeds by end of year.

-posted by Paul

Watchguard was a key participant in protecting the network for the XX winter olympic games. Sort of makes up for Bode Miller.

-posted by Paul

Bothell-based nanotechnology company Lumera added two "biotech industry luminaries" to its advisory board.

-posted by Paul

Customer-management software maker Amdocs Ltd. said Tuesday it agreed to buy Seattle-based Qpass, a provider of digital commerce software, for about $275 million in cash.

-posted by Paul

If you thought the slogan "the power of the penguin" referred to the Linux operating system, think again. Seattle-based White Tie uses the frosty bird to symbolize exclusivity (i.e., penguin=tuxedo) and to communicate its mission of of delivering top-notch, preferential treatment to its card-carrying members. Think of White Tie as a web-based concierge that's able to deliver the best concert tickets, waterside restaurant tables and and admission to sold-out events. It's an interesting concept, albeit pricey -- memberships aren't cheap. But if you can pay to avoid being left out in the cold, the penguin might be the pal for you.

-posted by Rachel

The P-I's John Cook notes that money is already flowing into some NW venture funds, while another half dozen are on the hunt to raise ones. Good news for the local tech scene.

-posted by Paul

Kim Peterson of the Seattle Times wrote in the Times' Tech Tracks blog that Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak was briefly in town last week at the University Village Apple Store. He apparently made a guest appearance there at the request of his goddaughter, a UW student and former store employee. I'm sure that my rabid Mac fan boss is sorely disappointed that he missed this hobnobbing opportunity.

-posted by Rachel

In response to the recent data loss on a U.S. Military base in Bagram, Afghanistan, Portland-based Centennial Software is offering the military 25,000 free licenses of its endpoint security software, DeviceWall. Check out the entire new release here.

-posted by Justin

It's been a hectic two months for Brad Hurte at Sarantel, who has been on the road almost non-stop. As head of North American operations for the U.K.-based provider of filtering anntenas for mobile and wireless devices, he's in a good position to watch OEM trends in consumer devices. His most recent trips to Asia and the CTIA conference have reinforced his opinion that GPS devices are following the same evolutionary path as cellphones -- external antennas are on the way out in favor of embedded components. Which is all good news for his company since it launched its GeoHelix-P2 antenna earlier this year.

-posted by Rachel

Earlier this month, John Cook, the P-I's venture reporter, blogged about the lengths companies are going to find job candidates. There are some signs that the tech industry is, well, accelerating on our side of the Puget Sound as well. eAcceleration, an anti-virus service provider based in Poulsbo, is using a particularly creative way to fill more than a dozen open requisitions for new hires at the 200 employee-strong company. Instead of resorting to the usual headhunter or an assortment of ads, eAcceleration has been staffing a recruiting table aboard the Bainbridge Island-Seattle ferry run. The idea is to convince tech workers who are commuting from the Peninsula to the Seattle/Redmond area that they can improve their quality of life by working closer to home. It adds a new dimention to the 35-minute trip...travelers can buy a newspaper, grab a cup of coffee or a beer and get a new job. Now that's multi-tasking.

-posted by Rachel

Okay, a little random Friday fun. Thanks to the guest bloggers at Kottke for the link...

-posted by Paul

Oops it happened again – DATA THEFT. This time a huge breach in Afghanistan at a U.S. Military base. The payload: information on U.S. secret informants. Why mention this in the VOXUS blog? Check out MSNBC to see our client Centennial Software talking about this latest instance of data theft. And the headline above? Check out their blog.

-posted by Justin

It looks as though Portland is on its way to rolling out a city-wide wireless network. The network will be powered by SkyPilot and MetroFi (two CA-based companies), providing citywide public Internet access as well as new enhanced services for the City of Portland's public safety, public works, property inspectors and other field-based employees who will be equipped to wirelessly download and upload reports and data from the field.

-posted by Justin

What's being billed as "the premier domain name conference" is being held in Bellevue next week. The Domain Roundtable Conference, sponsored by Bellevue-based Name Intelligence, is bringing some pretty high-powered individuals to town -- including head ICANN honcho Paul Twomey and Google evangelist/Internet god Vint Cerf. All in all, the conference has a pretty impressive list of participants and speakers, meaning that managing domain names, whether as an internal corporate responsibility or as a business, has arrived as a career choice.

-posted by Rachel

Lots of exciting stuff happening at Seattle's Pure Networks these days... director of product marketing Sherman Griffin reports that, not only is the company now giving away a baseline of its product, Network Magic, for free, it will soon announce that its home networking software will be available through a big box retailer. This is great news for Pure Networks and for tech-challenged consumers everywhere looking to simplify how they can install a home network without professional help, or who just want to make the process less painful. The company is also now offering what it is calling "your road-side guide to home networking" through Networkgarage.com, its new blog.

-posted by Rachel

Seattle-based thePlatform added another network (Ooh!, targeting Gen X/Gen Y) to the customer list for their media publishing system.

-posted by Paul

Congratulations to our old Redmond-based friends at ADIC (a client for many years), who just announced two awards from publications in China for their wildly popular tape libraries. Interesting strategy, announcing awards from publications and organizations in other countries, and one which we highly endorse as it shows international traction.

-posted by Paul

Caught up with Matthew Sutton, CEO of Seattle's HyBlue, to learn that the company successfully launched HyBlue Patch last month. This is a nifty little service that is especially useful for companies without strong internal IT support. After HyBlue Patch is installed on a computer, it monitors for patch compliance 24x7, as well as overall performance, security and configuration. It can monitor servers as well as desktop computers, helping to sound the alarm if hardware is malfunctioning or out of compliance. On second thought, this isn't just for companies without IT support – HyBlue Patch would be quite useful for stressed out IT managers in larger organizations as well, since it notifies them anytime a server goes silent for more than 10 minutes. How great would it be to know that your server is down BEFORE your employees start squawking?

-posted by Rachel

We've had an ongoing discussion here at VOXUS on the merits of various Northwest-focused tech news blogs and mainstream media sources. There are certainly some good ones out there, such as this and this and a few others. But interestingly, we haven't been able to find one that is exactly what we're looking for: a single source for general news on Northwest tech companies and events. We have some fantastic newspapers around the region, including the Post-Intelligencer and Times in Seattle, the Oregonian in Portland, the Sun in Vancouver BC, several great Business Journals and quite a few really good mid-market papers. But of course these focus on major regional, national or international news, not just technology. And we can speak from experience: it's hard to get good general tech news coverage in the MSM. And most of the blogs are focused on news about a particular industry, company or market.

So: we've decided to create our own source for general NW tech news. Look for a significant change in the content on this blog. And if you have some news you'd like covered... email us at the address in the sidebar.

-posted by Paul

How to drink the Kool-aid...and survive

Jim Lejeal has posted a particularly interesting blog entry that includes great tips for any emerging company interested in partnering with Microsoft...and in our business, that means a preponderance of our clients and prospects. Jim's a serial entrepreneur (his latest venture is Oxlo Systems) and speaks from personal experience gained in successfully working with Microsoft. For those with companies outside of the Seattle area, he points out the need to "get on a plane to Redmond" regularly, and he's not joking. It's all about relationships at Microsoft. For that matter, isn't it all about relationships in every endeavor?

-posted by Rachel

Tara over at Marqui posted an interesting blog entry about Marketing with Food. Seems she's been getting her fair share of high calorie items from vendors and other folks looking to make a splash with potential customers, partners, etc.

Purely coincidental that we happened to nuke the greater Northwest with fortune cookies at around the same time (if you haven't gotten yours yet, duck and cover because we're still launching. And feel free to drop us a line or throw in a comment with an order.).

Tara posits the question -- do these sorts of food-based promos work? Having participated in my fair share of marketing giveaways over the years, I believe that three characteristics are critical for any successful giveaway campaign: it has to be 1) uniquely related to your company, 2) high quality/expensive or 3) food related. Choose any two. We bet on numbers one and three. I'm not sure where Tara's unnamed pie comes in.

Since this fortune cookie campaign is still in process, we don't yet have meaningful tallies yet on the results, but I can say that we've received substantial positive feedback from a great number of companies. As the objective was to introduce VOXUS to the world, I would have to say that yes, the program is proving to be quite successful. The biggest challenge has been not diving into the huge bag of fortune cookies in our office. Ever try a fresh fortune cookie? I can now categorically state that chinese restaurants apparently do not carry them -- at least not the ones I've ever been to.

So yes, I think food works, as long as it's got something else going for it.

And Tara... you didn't get the popcorn giveaway from Market to the Max? Huh. I'm sure it was an oversight. (snicker)

-posted by Paul

In perusing our traffic logs for the past month, I was surprised to note the number of international visitors to our site. Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Japan, Denmark, the UK and the list goes on... turns out that the developer that created the basic theme for our site (develo