TechFlash: Seattle's Technology News

LiquidPlanner, the Bellevue online project management startup, has named Eileen McCormack to the position of vice president of finance. McCormack most recently served as acting CFO of SnapIn Software, and before that she held finance positions at companies such as Western Wireless, T-Mobile and Norcom Networks.

Hipcricket said that it will provide its mobile marketing tools to Journal Broadcast Group, which operates 33 radio stations and 13 TV stations. Milwaukee's WTMJ-AM and WTMJ-TV have already been using the Hipcricket service to run a school closure email and text message alert program. That program already has 18,000 members.

Barnes & Noble says that its Nook electronic book reading device will be in stores by midweek at the majority of its stores. FierceMobileContent says the release of the $259 device follows weeks of delays.

Glengarry Glen Ross showcases the sales industry at its absolute worst, one of the reasons we love it. David Mamet's award-winning play of foul-mouthed real estate agents looking to close deals is on stage this month at the Seattle Repertory Theater, and Thursday marks "Sales Rep Industry Night."

What does that mean? Well, it means you have a chance to win some cool prizes and have a little fun in the process. We're looking for TechFlash readers to share their horror stories from the sales world. In 500 words or less, tell us your worst sales experience, toughest pitch or the most unusual thing you've encountered in trying to close a deal. Please post your mini essays in the comment thread below, and we'll choose our favorite tomorrow morning sometime before noon. (Make sure you're registered in Disqus with a valid email so we can contact you).

The winner of the contest will receive season tickets to the Seattle Rep's 2010-11 season, as well as two tickets to Thursday night's performance. Heck, we might even toss in a set of steak knives for second place. Third place? Well, lovers of the play and movie know all too well that you don't really want to go there. (Check out the video trailer below to see what I mean).

I realize that Glengarry Glen Ross is filled with profanity, but please try to keep your stories somewhat clean. Also, if possible, please remove references to individuals or companies where appropriate. Enjoy.

Less than six months after rolling out the Twitter application TweepML, Seattle entrepreneur and developer Marcelo Calbucci has put the service up for sale on the public auction site Flippa. Calbucci set a "Buy it Now" price of $79,000, which he told us is "somewhat arbitrary" but does value the service at what he called the bargain price of less than $1 per unique visitor per month. He said he'd be happy with an offer over $10,000.

Started as a side project by the Seattle 2.0 and Sampa founder, TweepML was unveiled just a few months before Twitter itself introduced its list functionality. While the two services often drew comparisons, Calbucci said he was surprised that TweepML continued to attract users despite the new competition.

John Arnold

In a decision that U.S. Magistrate Judge Brian Tsuchida called "very difficult," Intelius co-founder John Arnold is set to be released from federal detention on bond tomorrow after being held for allegedly contacting a witness in the investigation into the activities of Seattle strip-club owner Frank Colacurcio Sr.

"I stupidly reached out to a witness, and I know that to be a colossal mistake at this point," said Arnold, addressing the court. Noting that the last four days in detention have been tough on friends, family, colleagues, and himself, Arnold added, "This has been a phenomenal lesson for me, and I have no intention ... to compromise this situation further."

Sujal Patel

Isilon Systems, the Seattle-based digital storage company that turned its first quarterly profit last week, today announced plans to boost the salary of CEO Sujal Patel by 30 percent, to $325,000, effective April 5. The company said in a regulatory filing that its compensation committee also raised the base salary of Isilon's chief financial officer, Bill Richter, from $185,000 to $225,000.

The company has turned itself around under the leadership of Patel, its founder, who stepped back in as CEO after a series of accounting problem under the previous executive team. The company is also boosting Patel's approved performance-based incentive compensation targets from $200,000 to $250,000 for the 2010 fiscal year.

Venture capitalists are hoping that 2010 proves to be a more lucrative year than 2009. And because of that, it appears that the funding spigot is back on to some degree. We've been tracking the SEC filings over the past few weeks to see who is raising money. Here's a quick look at the raw data, with links to the filings. You'll notice that two Washington companies with large appetites for capital make appearances.

Infinia photo

Infinia, which is developing technologies to convert the sun's rays into electricity, said it raised $11.5 million of a $75 million round. The Kennewick company has certainly been no stranger to the capital markets in the past, having raised $9 million in debt and equity financing last November and $50 million in February 2008. Investors include Vulcan, venture capitalist Vinod Khosla, and others.

Telecom Transport Management said it has raised $40 million of a $58 million round. The Seattle company -- which provides back-haul networks for wireless carriers -- announced in 2007 that it had raised $55 million with an option for $65 million more. TTM brought in $20 million of that last May, and the $40 million that just appeared in the SEC filings could be part of that previously announced round too. The 7-year-old company -- backed by Rally Capital, Ignition Partners and others -- could not immediately comment on the financing.

IP Street of Seattle said it has attracted $1.5 million. The company lists Richard White, Lewis Lee and Arthur Coffey as executives.

Eden Rock Communications said it has raised $500,000 in equity financing. The 3-year-old Bothell company -- led by former engineers on AT&T's "Project Angel" -- provides consulting and design services to operators of 4G wireless networks. It is also working on Eden-Net, a "self organizing network" technology that's designed to reduce the costs of WiMax and LTE deployments.

Etelos -- a Maple Valley company which helps businesses move their applications into the cloud -- raised $250,000 of a $375,000 round, according to a recent filing. Directors of the company include Andy Liu, Ronald Rudy, Daniel Kolke and Robert Thordarson. More details on the deal here.

Limeade said in a filing that it has raised $2.9 million of a $3.4 million round. The Bellevue company -- led by former Bocada executive Henry Albrecht -- is developing online programs for workplaces to encourage employees to lose weight, quit smoking, reduce stress or stop drinking. Last summer, the company announced $2.4 million.

Incline Therapeutics said it has attracted $440,000 in debt financing. The Seattle company lists Alan Levy and David Socks as executives. Levy, a medical device pioneer who previously served as CEO of Northstar Neuroscience and Heartstream, is a venture partner at Frazier Healthcare Ventures in Seattle. James Topper, a general partner at Frazier Healthcare, and Jim Glasheen, a general partner at Technology Partners, are listed as directors.

Avalara, an 11-year-old maker of sales tax software, said in a filing that it has raised $5 million in equity financing. The Bainbridge Island company -- which helps business more cost effectively handle sales tax processing, return preparation and other tasks -- was founded by Jared Vogt, Rory Rawlings and Scott McFarlane. It says that more than 10,000 businesses have outsourced sales tax calculations to Avalara, the equivalent of about $10 billion in annual filings.

Hemaquest Pharmaceuticals said that it has raised $6 million of a $12 million equity financing round. The Seattle company -- founded in 2007 and backed by De Novo Ventures, Forward Ventures and Lilly Ventures -- is working on treatments for sickle cell disease and viral-related cancers. Hemaquest was co-founded by Ron Berenson -- the former CEO of Xcyte Therapies and a founder of CellPro-- and Susan Perrine -- the former president of Gene Regulation Laboratories and a professor at Boston University School of Medicine.

Blueview Technologies of Seattle raised $215,000 of a $500,000 round. The company -- founded in 2003 -- has developed multibeam imaging sonar which is used to provide detailed views into what is occurring underwater. The technology has been deployed by port security agencies, the military, academic research groups and offshore oil and gas exploration firms.

Outcome Concept Systems -- a provider of business intelligence services to healthcare companies and government agencies-- said it has pulled in $1.1 million in funding. The Seattle company -- founded in 1997 -- was started by Amanda Twiss and Lance Pilichowski

Nancy Xiao

Nancy Xiao is a 16-year-old high school student. She's also a budding entrepreneur who wants to study international business and marketing in college, and perhaps, one day start her own business. Thanks to a new program introduced last fall by the Seattle chapter of The Indus Entrepreneurs (TiE), the Inglemoor High School student may be well on her way to creating that first venture.

Xiao is one of 18 high school students from around the region participating in TiE's new entrepreneurial training program, an effort that's designed to get high school students supercharged about starting new businesses.

Urbanspoon has released its restaurant location service for the Android, which follows the introduction of its BlackBerry app last November. Urbanspoon said the "slot machine" style restaurant finder is "blazingly fast" and includes many of the features found in the popular iPhone app.

Xconomy's Greg Huang does some sleuthing in the SEC filings and finds out that Seattle's Ontela in fact purchased PhotoBucket. The companies originally touted the deal as a merger, and Ontela was the smaller player in terms of employees and traffic. It is still unclear how much Ontela paid, but Huang notes that News Corp. (the owner of Photobucket) took a $29 million loss on the deal. As we reported earlier this week, Ontela co-founder Dan Shapiro plans to leave the company to start a new venture.

Algard

In a blog post titled "A Cheer and Gentle Kick in the Rear for Seattle VCs," WhitePages founder Alex Algard writes that the "local VC community needs to step up." He goes on to note that many of the Seattle VCs don't rate very well when it comes to three factors: personal passion, expertise and communication and networking skills.

Shares of Isilon Systems are up again today after the Seattle digital storage company surprised Wall Street with its first quarterly profit on Thursday. After gaining more than five percent on Thursday, the stock was up slightly today. Meanwhile, McAdams Wright Ragen stock analyst Sid Parakh raised his rating on the company, boosting his price target for the stock to $9 per share.

Liu

BuddyTV founder and Seattle angel investor Andy Liu writes in a blog post titled "Embracing Adversity" that his company and others where he's an investor "struggled in 2009." But Liu's not giving up hope, laying out a helpful list of five reasons on how entrepreneurs should adapt to the tough times. "To sum it up, being an entrepreneur is not easy, adversity sucks, but embracing adversity instead of allowing it to break us will make us successful people," he writes.

Headline of the day comes via Gizmodo: "The $9.99 Ebook is Dead: Third Major Publisher Hachette Dumps on Amazon"

John Surdi has been in the carpet cleaning business for 19 years. And during that period the owner of Bellevue's Crystal Carpet Cleaning has avoided promoting his services on Craigslist, partly because it doesn't mesh with the high-end services he provides.

So, you can imagine Surdi's surprise on Thursday after he was told that an advertisement for his carpet cleaning business was circulating on Craigslist under the title "Want Cleaner Looking Carpets?" Surdi didn't post the ad, which used his company's name and included a misspelling. So who did?

Turns out, it was written and posted by HelpHive, a Seattle online directory whose tactics have raised the ire of small businesses before. The hyperlinked text in the ad didn't direct potential customers to the Crystal Carpet Cleaning Web site, but instead to a profile page on HelpHive.

That didn't sit well with Surdi. He had previously signed up to be included in the HelpHive directory and referral service, agreeing to pay for any qualified leads that were driven his way through the Web site. But Surdi said he did not agree to have HelpHive post ads on Craigslist on his behalf. And he's not alone.

Arnold speaking at the DEMO conference last fall.

Intelius co-founder John Arnold, who federal authorities said lied to a grand jury about having sex with dancers at a strip club, was taken into custody Thursday after he allegedly contacted a witness in the case.

Gene Johnson of The Associated Press reports that Arnold attempted to have someone deliver a letter to an employee at the club and proposed meeting her in Las Vegas.

Photo via Isilon Systems

Isilon Systems -- which posted its first quarterly profit this morning after nearly a decade in business -- rang the closing bell on Nasdaq this afternoon in New York City. As seen in the photo above, featuring CEO Sujal Patel front and center, it was a jubilant affair. And no wonder. Isilon's stock was up five percent on a negative day for the Dow and Nasdaq. Related story: "Under Sujal Patel's leadership, Isilon makes a comeback"

Rumors have circulated for months over the future direction of T-Mobile USA. Just last December, there was some chatter that Sprint Nextel could merge with the Bellevue wireless carrier. Now, The Wall Street Journal is reporting that the company's parent -- Deutsche Telekom -- may consider spinning off T-Mobile USA through an initial public offering that could value the company at $20 billion.

That could help supercharge Seattle's moribund IPO market, which produced just one technology IPO last year. (Omeros). The Journal notes that Deutsche Telekom is a "risk averse," and therefore it is not certain that they will go through with the IPO. Deutsche Telekom also is weighing a possible sale of T-Mobile, though the Journal said that option is "less likely."

Intel Capital, one of the biggest corporate venture capital firms and investors in Seattle companies such as Clearwire, Likewise Software and others, reduced its number of investments by 37 percent in 2009, according to Scott Austin at Venture Capital Dipatch. The firm's $325 million in investments was the lowest amount since 2005, and were off 45 percent compared to 2008. (Excluding the firm's $1 billion investment in Clearwire in 2008).

That didn't take along. A week after Apple introduced the new iPad, a group of investors in New York have created a seed fund called the AppFund which will bankroll iPad applications with anywhere from $5,000 to $500,000, reports TechCrunch.

NanoString Technologies, which helps researchers detect and count large sets of target molecules in biological samples, has appointed William Young as executive chairman of the board. Young -- the current chair of Biogen Idec -- is the former CEO of Monogram Biosciences and former COO at Genentech. Seattle-based Nanostring raised a $30 million venture round last summer.

Speaking of apps, VentureBeat reports on a cool chart showing the most popular apps on the iPhone, Android and BlackBerry. What, no Windows Mobile.

Only eight percent of U.S. teens are on Twitter, according to report out this week from the Pew Research Center.

Zillow.com COO Spencer Rascoff says in a Tweet that the online real estate company had its biggest traffic month on record last month with nine million unique visitors.

Headline of the day comes via MG Siegler at TechCrunch: "Man Resigns on Twitter in Haiku. Happens to be Sun CEO Jonathan Schwartz"

Patel

It took nearly a decade. But Isilon Systems has finally turned its first quarterly profit. The Seattle maker of digital storage products expects that trend to continue in 2010, with CEO Sujal Patel telling TechFlash that Isilon should be profitable this year.

But this isn't an earnings story, as much as it is a turnaround story. It's been a long, long road for Isilon, which struggled to recover its bearings following a series of accounting oversights after its spectacular debut on Nasdaq in December 2006. Those oversights -- coupled with a lack of customer focus -- led to a management shakeup just 10 months after the IPO in which co-founder Patel was reinserted into the CEO post.

Expecting twin boys at the time, the young tech executive thrust himself into saving a company that had lost its way. After all, this just wasn't his company. It was his baby.

Don't tell this to the folks at Clearwire, but we're pretty sure they already know it. An executive at telecommunications equipment maker Alcatel Lucent essentially says that it is time to stick a fork in the mobile broadband wireless technology known as WiMax.

ZDNet reports that Alcatel Lucent Chief Operating Officer for Wireless Patrick Plas said this week that the company is "not putting a lot of effort into this technology [WiMax] any longer" and that the industry has made a clear choice "towards LTE." That's a reference to long term evolution, a competing mobile communications technology supported by Verizon and others.