No “suits” at hBase

The goal of hBase Con2012 was to bring the community together while downplaying the “suit factor,” which is typically found at conferences with the aim of the conference being “by developers, for developers.”  In an interview with John Furrier to discuss hBase in general as well as some of the highlights of the conference particularly focusing on many aspects of both hBase and Cloudera.

Zedlewski also pointed out that hBase is operating in a very real time mind-set.  hBase offers a higher level of extraction on top of Hadoop and the next higher level of extraction on top of hBase will open it up to more applications with a focus on recommendations being popular.  Zedlewski is basically saying, why not give a semi-built mechanism for recommendations in real time, instead of having to analyze the data and then go from there?edlewski, in speaking about Cloudera, said that he always believed that they are a platform company and one that should be open sourced and to remain that way because “it’s just smart business.”  He pointed out that Dell recently announced that they’re going to be releasing a “developer-driven Linux” laptop which will be open sourced, allowing programmers the ability to do with it as they please.  Cloudera, like other developers, has their own ideas on how to save on space, power and cooling and being able to collaborate with others to make such goals attainable.

Who uses hBase?

Speaking about the people involved in the development of such programming, Zedlewski said that there are three classes of people who get involved in such a program: people who were already a part of the Hadoop community; the people who have been toying around with SQL databases and utilize hBase because they believe it’s the best option available; and the guys like him [Zedlewski],  looking at the future of data management and the enterprise.  Yet, you need apps for that to be possible – hBase represents the platform that the most commercial apps will be produced on.  He pointed out that more ISVs certify hBase, 40-50 compared to the six or so ISVs that certify against the map/reduce API.

Zedlewski also talked about their strategy of development – learning as they go in terms of data.  He said, “the more management of data that you foist onto the application developer, the smarter your app developer has to be, the higher the bar is, the more brains that person has to have and the narrower range of applications that are feasibly easier to do.”  There are only a handful of applications that a person can realistically overlay the needs of a file system, and a larger set that seems to work on hBase, but an even larger one, such as adding another layer over hBase would open it even bigger leaving the bar for skill lowered.  This would open the door for more developers who are able to build more interesting and  useful applications.  By following the more “on the fly,” or “learning on the go,” means of educating and expanding Zedlewski is clearly thinking outside the box and inviting innovation into Cloudera.

No Suits Allowed at hBase Con2012 is a post from: SiliconANGLE We're now available on the Kindle! Subscribe today.

In the same vein:

• Apple, StumbleUpon and Riot Games Hiring HBase and Hadoop Pros
• Datastax Integrates Solr and More in Latest Release
• HA Name Node Project for Hadoop is No Laughing Matter
• Oracle Releases Big Data Appliance with Cloudera Distribution for Hadoop
• Who Keeps the ZooKeeper? Netflix Open Sources Apache ZooKeeper Tools
• Apache BigTop: The Next Big Thing in Hadoop

Turner believes too many CrowdFunding platforms encourage participants to be ambitious in their fundraising goals, but not in their strategies.  Combining a mentorship component that allows participants to gain feedback from experts across the world and more interactive involvement of donors, START.ac is not just a site to upload a project; it’s an incubator to refine, test and add key players to a growing business.  For Turner, (known for his role in building Ashton Tate, Symantec, Ask Jeeves and ArtSlant), START.ac sets a new precedent in the evolution of the CrowdFunding model.

START.ac aims to expand the VC industry’s focus beyond California and pair great ideas with seasoned expertise.  Turner suggests: “The current VC model is outdated…Investments are highly concentrated in Silicon Valley at the expense of 90% of the start-up opportunity across the US and around the world. In addition, current CrowdFunding platforms are too narrowly focused in scope or geography.  START.ac will democratize the VC industry in a way that is not yet being addressed.”  Both the individuals who launch projects on START.ac (called Project Drivers) and venture capitalists who lead, educate and advise Project Drivers from launch to fund fulfillment, come from all over the world.

START.ac’s supportive and interactive model works through it’s core components:

The InsideTrack - Allows supporters to give critical feedback on projects they fund

CrowdAudition - Flips the current model by involving the START.ac community in selecting projects for fundraising

Mentor Program – Provides guidance to Project Drivers, by assembling and engaging a panel of experienced executives and entrepreneurs

CrowdAccelerator Program - Encourages extensive involvement of mentors for funded businesses or projects in return for equity

STARTBusinessRewards - Rewards supporters of funded projects on major company milestones

NOWReward Program – Offers a new type of CrowdFunding reward that expires after a certain time and date; this creates a sense of urgency before a project reaches the funding end date

NOWAlert - Alert the START.ac community of upcoming events

PromptPayProgram - Pays a Project Driver the second it reaches its funding goal

CrowdAltruism -  Pools optional contributions into a PayItForward Fund™ that support community selected altruistic causes

To learn if START.ac is the best platform for your brainchild, view Rob Turner’s webcast and Start.ac’s social media outlets.

Here’s a New Formula for CrowdFunding Success is a post from: SiliconANGLE We're now available on the Kindle! Subscribe today.

In the same vein:

• Uplifting Optimism and Excitement in the Venture Community — A “Perfect Storm” of Opportunity
• Internet Bubble Again? Yes and No.
• 8 Tips for Evaluating Alternatives to Outside Funding
• How To Deal with Your Elephant in the Room
• Taking the Next Hill
• Is The VC Model Broken? Mark Suster and Jason Calacanis Discuss.

After getting $100 million in investment funds from Japanese e-commerce giant Rakuten, the new kid on the social media block got a valuation 50 percent bigger than that of Instagram when Facebook brought it for $1 billion.

So what does the future hold for Pinterest that would justify a $1 billion valuation for the cloud-based vision board?  Pinterest still has a ways to go before it becomes a true platform player for social commerce, marketing and user recommendations.  Here are some areas in which Pinterest will need to develop its business:

Advertising in pictures

Pinterest is the third most popular social media site behind Facebook and Twitter, letting you organize and share all the beautiful things you find on the Web. The site also includes built-in ways to incorporate mutual respect, authenticity and properly crediting your sources.

The social sharing site shows tremendous growth in its user base. Over 80 percent of pins are actually re-pins of other people’s stuff, according to findings from RJMetrics.

“Pinterest demonstrates some of the strongest user engagement, retention and virality metrics I have ever seen in an online business,” wrote Robert Moore of RJMetrics. “The company has found tremendous success among its core demographic, and the potential reach of its appeal will be tested in the coming months as attention from broader audiences continues to increase.”

Pinterest can use the existing social platform as an advertising marketing tool for businesses selling easily photographed products and services. The company can look at developing their own tools to render itself a relevant business model with its current platform and projected growth.

To do this, Pinterest can build up an e-commerce platform overlapping e-commerce and social networks where both retailers and consumers can communicate, discover, and curate to make the experience more entertaining.

Charging Advertisers

Several brands are beginning to make Pinterest pages, pinning their own products to the site. Pinterest could potentially sponsored pins in the stream that are paid for by advertisers, similar to the model Twitter’s used to build out advertising on its microblog. Pinterest can also work with advertisers to create customized Pinterest-connected campaigns and pages.

Mobile App

Pinterest has yet to explore the mobile space, lacking a mobile app on any major platform and limited mobile-specific options for the mobile web (like pinning). Pinterest could potentially create a mobile marketplace by developing mobile apps where users/advertisers, instead of pinning products on the site, could upload product photos, price, description, and price etc. on their mobile devices itself.

The mobile marketplace could be modified further into a monetization platform where users can buy the pins and seller would be obligated to ship the product.

The biggest benefit of mobile integration is the added context of location to uploaded pins.  Pinterest is likely going to develop some recommendation tools around its site activity, and as retailers and marketers become more interested in user-generated pins, promotions for local venues can leverage Pinterest as a mobile outlet as well.

Pinterest API

Pinterest has the potential to become a notable marketing tool, but for that, the company needs an interface to interact with social and content feeds – an API could accomplish that requirement.

The API could create an environment where retailers can better integrate their offerings for two-way collaboration and sharing with their customers.

Pinterest CEO Ben Silbermann hinted in recent past that the company will acknowledge an API in the near future (although the page was listed for only a short time on Pinterest’s site).  In the post Silbermann said the Pinterest profiles will be very different to those of Facebook and other social networks, and will show a snapshot of what you’re really about. Through an API, Pintrest-related app development would further spur the rapid growth of the site, which already reached 11.7 million unique users in January.

Can Pinterest Build a Business Model to Justify $1 Billion Valuation? is a post from: SiliconANGLE We're now available on the Kindle! Subscribe today.

In the same vein:

• Pinterest Joins the List of $1 Billion Dollar Enterprises
• Pinterest’s Opportunity in Spammers? An API
• Survey Scammers Hit Pinterest Grounds, How To Avoid Phishing According to Symantec
• Pinterest + Facebook: Lowes Benefits from Virtue’s Latest Platform Perk
• SXSW 2012 Weekend Highlights: Instagram on Android, Angry Birds in Space, Live Hacks and More
• Banjo’s iPhone App Reveals its Social Superpowers

Rakuten said that this investment helps the site grow in the U.S. and its 17 overseas markets, including entry into Japanese market.

“While some may see e-commerce as a straightforward vending machine-like experience, we believe it is a living process where both retailers and consumers can communicate, discover, and curate to make the experience more entertaining,” said Rakuten CEO Hiroshi Mikitani. “We see tremendous synergies between Pinterest’s vision and Rakuten’s model for e-commerce. Rakuten looks forward to introducing Pinterest to the Japanese market as well as other markets around the world.”

Pinterest has become the sensation of recent social media history, and has positioned itself as the third largest social network in the US.  Pinterest, where users can share their photos, has grown rapidly in recent months–the website has become the sixteenth most visited site in the US, according to Alexa.  In April alone their user base has reached more than 20 million, up from 1 million in July 2011.

“Our goal is to help people discover things they love, by connecting people through their shared interests. Bringing Rakuten on board gives us an amazing opportunity to move a step closer to this goal,” said Pinterest CEO Ben Silberman.

A partnership with Rakuten could open many doors for Pinterest to expand its presence in Asia. The company sees great potential in markets like France, Germany, Japan, Portugal and Spain.

Pinterest Weekly – New Platform to Keep Users Engaged

Pinterest remains undefined in its business model, at least publicly, and the company has yet to disclose its revenue.  But faced with such high expectations and an outstanding valuation, it’s time for Pinterest to start developing its user engagement and monetization strategies.

One step in that direction is the introduction of Pinterest Weekly, a weekly email board. The company has started sending users a weekly e-mail featuring basic account stats, like their top pins, and other popular boards in an attempt to keep them engaged between pinning sessions. This week’s feature is user George Takei’s “Cats and Dogs” as he shares “Pins You Might Like” from users’ friends.

Pinterest as a social network is more popular amongst the ladies, and has been nicknamed the “Tumblr for girls” as women trust product recommendations reviews from this social networking site. Amazon recently integrated Pinterest to their service in an attempt to drive more consumers to their retail outlet, particularly including women, and power more recommendations.

Pinterest Joins the List of $1 Billion Dollar Enterprises is a post from: SiliconANGLE We're now available on the Kindle! Subscribe today.

In the same vein:

• Can Microsoft’s New So.cl Network Revive Bing Search?
• Pinterest Goes to Amazon, BBM Friends Facebook and Twitter
• Android’s Google Play Faces Rising Competition from Amazon, Facebook and China
• The Best of Mark Zuckerberg
• Can Pinterest Build a Business Model to Justify $1 Billion Valuation?
• Facebook Waited Too Long to Go Public: Initial IPO Reactions

Andreessen Horowitz business model is the “gold standard” in technology investing.  Andreessen in a short time has become the dominate venture capital firm on the west coast.  Their playbook is very simple.  Hire successful partners that are all ex-entrepreneurs and successful operators and invest in the best deals both early stage and growth stage.

The Andreessen Horowitz model is coming to Boston in the form of Atlas Ventures and Chris Lynch.

Today, I have learned that Atlas Ventures has hired a new venture partner Chris Lynch, east coast entrepreneur and ex CEO of big data startup Vertica (acquired by HP). Chris will be a full partner.

Lynch recently stepped down as CEO of  HP Vertica this year with a goal of accelerating Boston-based Big Data companies. He’s reportedly invested in ten east coast startups. He’s also Chairman of the Board of Hadapt, a Yale spawned Big Data startup that recently moved its HQ to Boston from Connecticut.

This move by Atlas is a signal that the Boston venture scene is moving fast and in line with the west coast.  In addition this move by Altlas highlights what I see happening in the changing venture landscape. Historically the big guys controlled everything. We then saw the emergence of super angels who started to effectively compete with VCs at the early stage level with a “spray and pray” tactic. We saw a huge number of deals that were supposedly independent when in reality the super angels have become aligned and formally affiliated with VC firms as scouts, etc. Firms are being outed as not really independent but instead “stalking horses” for the big guys. The smart firms are coming clean on this disclosure very fast – Sequoia and Andreessen Horowitz.

To make things more complicated we’re seeing an evolution as a wave of angels started hanging out their own shingles and competing with super angels and VCs based on collaboration, openness, speed and access to entrepreneurs. Lynch and Atlas are making a smart move that in my view is a sign of the winning model/trend in venture, bringing entrepreneurial angel mojo and successful tactical community-based investing to a traditional VC. This has been clearly validated by Andreesen Horowitz, started by executives that have been there and built companies and have trust with entrepreneurs. Lynch and Atlas can quickly rise up and be the east coast Andreessen Horowitz (if they play their cards right).

The New VC Model

The new model of the successful institutional (big) venture firms is the ability to invest in large amount of early stage deals while doing those massive B or C round deals – aka Andreessen Horowitz model.  This new model is a hard task, but it’s doable by having the partners who can earn the trust of the angel networks and entrepreneurs.

Lynch is a unique individual with deep operational experience, winning record and a story that resonates with early stage CEOs. As angels begin encroaching on the traditional domain of VC, Lynch, by aligning with Atlas creates a large and established platform that can bridge the gap between old school VC and emerging angel investment vehicles that are often more attractive to early stage entrepreneurs.

I’ve talked Lynch about collaboration with other VC’s. While he’s focused on Boston I don’t think it’s totally exclusive and he’s shown interest in working with the west coast ecosystem. From what I can tell he’s “all in” on the collaboration front. Meaning he wants to partner with the leading Big Data brains, alpha geeks and investors.

Chris Lynch gets the attention of entrepreneurs because he adds value and has the track record. His first big hit came when he was running sales and marketing for Arrowpoint Communications which sold to Cisco for nearly $6B over a decade ago. He was also CEO of Acopia, a storage virtualization company that sold to F5 for more than $200M; and most recently he was CEO of Vertica, which HP acquired for more than $300M.

Last week I spent some time with Dave Vellante in Cambridge, MA, meeting with the hottest Big Data startups in the region. Throughout our survey of Boston we kept running into early stage CEO’s that were working with Lynch, preferring early on to work with angels rather than old school VC’s. More than half of the CEOs we talked to said they knew Lynch and he had either invested in them, or was a mentor.  He clearly has his hand in the region.

Regarding this move to Atlas, I talked to Lynch through email and asked him why Venture and why now?  Here’s what he said:

“In the past month, I have seen 20-30 interesting deals per week, and I have made a handful of angel investments. However, the fact of the matter is, I don’t have the resources alone to handle all the opportunity Boston Big Data represents -I needed a platform. I now have that and it is my sincere hope to work with everyone to put Boston back on the map.”

In addition to being a VC, Lynch has his fingerprints on several Big Data initiatives beyond his seed investments. For example, he’s also helped launch Hack Reduce, a Boston-based Big Data accelerator that provides free resources for developers and startups; a capability which the region sorely lacks. Atlas now gets this package and if it makes the right moves could emerge as a serious player.

Here’s a video of Chris Lynch talking about east coast/west coast schism with Dave Vellante of Wikibon:

Changes in the East Coast VC Scene – Atlas Ventures Adopting Andreessen Horowitz Playbook With Chris Lynch Hire is a post from: SiliconANGLE We're now available on the Kindle! Subscribe today.

In the same vein:

• Trend Watch: Vertical Funds for HTML5, Big Data and More
• Funding Keeps Flowing to Hadoop Start-ups
• Fear and Opportunity Drive Big Data in Business, Says Tom Roloff
• Precog’s Raises $2M for Drag ‘N Drop Analytics Interface
• EMC CTO Discusses the Current State of Big Data
• EMC CIO Talks Transformation of People, Business and IT

When they launched, Kickstarter was spelled without an “e” as in KickStartr, and it even featured a MySpace widget aside from the present all-or-nothing goal, the deadline, the project video, the tiered rewards, “back this project,” “backers,” and page architecture.

But before they officially kicked off in 2009, they decided to go with Kickstarter and their very first project was Grace Jones Does Not Give a F$#% T-Shirt (Limited Edition).  On May 3, 2009,  Drawing for Dollars, became their first successfully funded project, which raised $35.  But their very first project funded by the crowd was New York Makes a Book, which raised $3,329 with 110 backers.

After three years

Since 2009, almost 50,000 projects sought refuge on Kickstarter.  Startups who were turned down by venture capital firms turned to Kickstarter in hope of finding enough people funding their dreams.  And as of April 2012, over $200 million has been pledged to Kickstarter projects.

Based on this recent infographic (see below), 60% of funders are more interested in backing projects related to film and video.

In 2011, there were 27,086 launched projects on Kickstarter, with 11,836 of them successful, or 46% of them reached their funding goal.

Milestones

The first Kickstarter project to exceed $1 million pledges was the Elevation Dock, an aluminum iPhone dock, with a funding goal of $75,000.  They received $1,464,706 in pledges.

But the most funded project on Kickstarter is the Pebble – the e-paper watch compatible with iOS and Android smartphones – that displays text messages, caller ID, social media updates and reminders.  Pebble has 67,693 backers with $10,181,483 pledged funding.  Those numbers are still expected to rise with four more days to go until it gets funded on May 18th.

Trouble in crowd-funding paradise

On April 24th, in time for their 3rd anniversary, Kickstarter launched an API in conjunction with their new homepage.  Unfortunately, the API introduction came with a bug that “made accessible the project description, goal, duration, rewards, video, image, location, category, and user names for unlaunched projects,” but Kickstarter claimed that no account or financial data was made accessible.

“Obviously our users’ data is incredibly important to us,” said the Kickstarter blog.  “Even though limited information was made accessible through this bug, it is completely unacceptable. We want to underline once again that zero account or financial information was at any time made accessible by this bug.”

Kickstarter stated that the bug had been fixed.

Three Years of Kickstarter: A Rewarding History is a post from: SiliconANGLE We're now available on the Kindle! Subscribe today.

In the same vein:

• Pebble’s Crowdfunding Just Won’t Stop. Take That VCs!
• Breathing and Succeeding in the Startup Life
• Rackspace Open-Sources A Node.js Library for Creating and Parsing XML Documents
• Adaptly Raises $10.5M as Facebook Ecosystem Faces Rival in Pinterest
• Oracle v. Google Case Impacted by EU Ruling: APIs Not Copyrightable
• IBM Quietly Launches a Web API Management Service and Makes a Big Push to Attract Developers

Facebook for startups

Facebook was once a startup company looking for investors.  Now, they’re a social networking giant that helps startups get on their feet and possibly go public in a matter of months or years.

A perfect example of this is Wildfire Interactive – a 3-year-old startup that helps the likes of Sony, Virgin Atlantic Airways and Unilever engage with their customers via Facebook.

“It’s like catching a big wave,” said Wildfire CEO Victoria Ransom, a New Zealander and the former head of a global adventure travel company who founded Wildfire in 2009 with Alain Chuard, a former professional snow boarder. “There is definitely a wave here, which is social media, that is changing the way businesses do everything.”

Facebook used to be dominated by social gaming companies but it has now transformed into a platform where startups can reach people to offer jobs, merchandise or services.  As of 2011, Facebook has more than 3,000 employees across their offices in California, Ireland, Texas and India.  But that number is comparably small to the jobs generated by the startups on Facebook.

Wildfire alone has more than 330 employees with roughly 20 new hires each month. Another startup worth mentioning is BranchOut – the job networking service on Facebook.  They currently have about 50 people on their team and in a matter of months, that number could double and possibly triple, especially if the company continues to grow.  BranchOut reports adding three new users every second, or about two million new users per week.

“We are one of the companies that could, on the back of Facebook, be on track for becoming a public company in the next three to four years,” said Rick Marini, the founder and CEO of BranchOut.

Facebook not only opens opportunities for startups but for the people who sign up for these startups as well.  BranchOut helps people find jobs easily while another Facebok startup, Payvment, helps people sell and buy stuff online.  Payvment currently has about 25 employees that help people all over the globe purchase and sell goods on the social networking site.

“You’re essentially building a business on a train that’s going 150 mph,” said Christian Taylor, the co-founder and CEO of Payvment.

Aside from being the go-to-guy on the web, Facebook is already extending their efforts in the mobile sector.  Last February, they partnered up with U.K. mobile billing and analytics provider Bango, to provide payment services to Facebook mobile users.  This move will also open new opportunities as this service can be utilized by mobile app makers thus more mobile app developers would be encouraged to develop for Facebook mobile.

Facebook Ecosystem – from infrastructure to implementation

The latest addition to the Facebook ecosystem is the App Center – a platform that gives developers an additional way to grow their apps and creates opportunities for more types of apps to be successful.  Facebook hopes that the App Center will be the unifying app store for all mobile devices.  The App Center will start rolling out in the coming weeks and Facebookers can access this via the iOS or Android Facebook apps.

Especially when it comes to the mobile sector, it’s clear Facebook wants to grow its infrastructure to encompass a business-driven ecosystem for connecting brands and consumers.  Finding the best way to do this has always been a primary goal for Facebook, and its upcoming IPO highlights Facebook’s structure as a revenue-generating system for ads and content marketing.

We’ve seen Facebook’s contribution to social advertising at a large scale, with companies like thismoment incorporating Facebook as a necessary portal for marketing their own clients.  And Facebook’s influence is only likely to continue to grow, despite rising competition from independent mobile apps and integrated services like Google+.  From infrastructure to business tools, it seems there’s no slowing Facebook down.

Facebook’s Ecosystem Provides Jobs, Business Tools is a post from: SiliconANGLE We're now available on the Kindle! Subscribe today.

In the same vein:

• Android’s Google Play Faces Rising Competition from Amazon, Facebook and China
• Everyone’s Copying Apple’s Game Center
• Where Is Facebook’s Mobile Strategy Going?
• The Best of Mark Zuckerberg
• Can Microsoft’s New So.cl Network Revive Bing Search?
• Another Mobile Acquisition for Facebook. This One Comes with Good Karma

Today the dashboard’s capacity has been dramatically extended with the addition of new features and two new supplementing apps; a number that the company plans to grow in the future.

Bottlenose is rolling out 30 extra features in response to the most popular demands from its 50,000 beta testers. First and foremost is the capacity to add multiple Facebook and Twitter accounts – and now LinkedIn profiles – to the centralized stream for free. In addition, Sonar has been redesigned and received some additional options, while organizing folders has been made less clunky.

The second update from the startup is that it launched two new apps on the underlining platform (dubbed StreamOS) that powers Sonar. They’re called Reader and Newspaper -  tools with a strong resemblance to Google Reader and FlipBoard respectively.

There are also plans to share the fun with third party developers sometime in the future:

“The truth is, there is an underlying OS (yes, an OS, built around stream management technologies) upon which many apps can live. Right now they’re just our own apps, and we will add more over time. But we’ll also open up to developers once our user base is large enough to be really interesting form a distribution perspective.”

The beta is currently free –use the code “getsonar” to sign up to Bottlenose.

Less than a week ago ManageEngine had a notable social networking development of its own: it launched an enterprise network just for IT personnel.

Bottlenose’s Massive Platform Update: Beta Codes! is a post from: SiliconANGLE We're now available on the Kindle! Subscribe today.

In the same vein:

• 4 Photo Apps Optimized for New iPad’s Retina Display
• Social APIs, Romance and Lessons for the CIO Trying to Manage all Those Data Silos
• From Blogs to Social Objects – How SXSW Has Changed Since 2006
• Forecast 2.0 Brings Future Check-Ins to Facebook
• Facebook IPO Reveals Network Numbers, Zuckerberg Sends a Letter to Investors
• Are You Guilty of These Facebook Follies? [Infographic]

Uplifting Optimism and Excitement in the Venture Community — A “Perfect Storm” of Opportunity is a post from: SiliconANGLE We're now available on the Kindle! Subscribe today.

In the same vein:

• Here’s a New Formula for CrowdFunding Success
• Internet Bubble Again? Yes and No.
• 8 Tips for Evaluating Alternatives to Outside Funding
• How To Deal with Your Elephant in the Room
• Taking the Next Hill
• Is The VC Model Broken? Mark Suster and Jason Calacanis Discuss.

New partner for Greylock

Greylock Partners, one of the oldest VC firms in the US, named Dev Ittycheria, former CEO of BladeLogic and former president at BMC, as the firm’s latest venture partner.  Ittycheria will be focusing on enterprise and cloud-related investments.

“The enterprise is back,”  Ittycheria said.  “For the last few years, all the noise has been on the consumer side. I believe that a lot of new disruptive technologies are innovating how large organizations procure and manage their IT infrastructure.”

The new partner has a background in the cloud since he used to run a cloud services company called Applica, even before the “cloud” became the buzz word it is today.  Ittycheria is also a board member at Bazaarvoice, AthenaHealthy and AppDynamics, all early investments for Greylock.

Greylock is known their investments in Facebook, and Instagram – which we all know are both successful.  They just participated in a $64 million round for Just-Eat, one of the world’s largest online takeaway ordering services, which was led by Vitruvian Partners, a European private equity firm.  Last week, Greylock also participated in a $5.1 million Series A funding round with GGV Capital for Citrus Lane, a subscription e-commerce site focused on getting useful, developmentally-appropriate and delightful products to young families.

LightSquared loses director to save 4G plan

Philip Falcone, founder of VC firm Harbinger Capital Management LLC, launched LightSquared to develop a wholesale 4G LTE wireless broadband communications network integrated with satellite coverage across the United States using a block of frequencies located near the band used by the Global Positioning System(GPS).  Unfortunately, the Federal Communications Commission stated that tests showed LightSquared’s offering were proven to interfere with existing GPS devices.

Now LightSquared is faced with the expiration of a debt-terms violations waiver today.  In order to get a one week extension from lenders, Falcone decided to step down.  If this is approved, Falcone and LightSquared’s lenders plan to continue negotiations for a longer extension of somewhere between 18 months and two years, which will keep the company from filing for bankruptcy.

“I’ve only been on the board for two months and it was always supposed to be temporary,” Falcone wrote in an email. “I am not an officer nor did I ever plan to be one.
“The board and the company need telecom and industry veterans, not hedge-funds managers.”

However, some sources stated that a deal might not happen as Falcone may still choose to file for bankruptcy in order to keep control of the company and to keep creditors from taking control.

A report from the Wall Street Journal states that there are two possibilities for LightSquared: 1) “agree to make LightSquared a “bankruptcy-remote” company through provisions that would make it difficult for the wireless communications firm to seek Chapter 11 protection, the people said. Lenders have proposed Mr. Falcone be personally liable if it can be demonstrated that he supported, encouraged or caused a LightSquared bankruptcy at a later date, the people said. That liability—known in restructuring circles as a “bad boy” clause—could result in Mr. Falcone repaying the lenders’ $1.6 billion in debt from his own pocket;” 2) the golden chair option which “would install a director, or directors, on LightSquared’s board who could block any vote authorizing a bankruptcy filing.”

Right now, LightSquared’s lenders have more power over Falcone as they hold enough debt to block any reorganization they are not happy with.

VC Firms’ Latest Shakeups is a post from: SiliconANGLE We're now available on the Kindle! Subscribe today.

In the same vein:

• Which Should Come First? LTE Tech or Devices?
• Sprint’s Team Up with LightSquared Sends Shares Drooping as 4G Battle Ignites
• This Week in the Cloud: New Services, Home Organization and Virtual Gaming
• Day Three Recap: SAP Sapphire 2012
• Citrix Synergy 2012 Stars: Mobility, Virtualization and Cloud
• Citrix Synergy 2012 Data Center & Cloud Highlights