cloud.IQ raises £250,000 through government innovation competition

Tech City start-up, cloudIQ, has received £250,000 from the Technology Strategy Board (TSB) after winning an SME innovation competition.

The one-year-old firm, which provides cloud based marketing applications, secured the money through the TSB’s Smart Programme for its idea of creating a web-based tool that allows non-technical people to build, publish and monetise web apps that can integrate email, voice, web, social and mobile technologies into innovative services.

The funding will be used for research and development of the tool, known as AppEditor.

James Critchley, CEO and co-founder of cloud.IQ said: “In just 12 months, we have launched a suite of apps for SMEs which have already delivered significant results in helping businesses convert more customers.

“The investment from the Technology Strategy Board provides us with a platform to bring to market a new solution which we believe will have an ever wider reach and impact on the businesses community.”

The government innovation agency launched the award with the aim of finding an innovative idea that that offers significant potential to help stimulate economic growth in the UK.

James Heydari, TSB programme manager, said: “Smart awards support SMEs with high growth ambition and potential. Successful applicants need to show that they have a really innovative idea, addressing a real market need and have the ability to deliver their idea to drive economic growth.”

In 2012, the start-up, which also has offices in Sydney, received £2m in funding from Bridges Ventures.

Over the past 12 months, cloud.IQ has launched a suite of conversion focused apps including callMe, cartRecovery and SmartSMS. The start-up says that its integrated applications help companies of all sizes acquire more customers and build brand loyalty.

IBM says profit, revenue fell but raises expectations for year

A rebound for IBM failed to materialize in the second quarter, as profit and sales declined along with a slump in revenue from hardware and services.

However, in its quarterly financial report Thursday, the company raised its forecast for earnings per share, excluding restructuring charges, for the year.

Kathleen KeoughIBM's Q2 2013 results included losses in revenue and profit (click to enlarge). Second-quarter net income declined 17 percent from the year-earlier period to $3.2 billion, while revenue declined by 3 percent to $24.9 billion. Adjusting for currency fluctuations, revenue was down 1 percent.
Revenue was under the forecast of $25.37 billion from analysts polled by Thomson Reuters. However, operating earnings per share, excluding restructuring charges, was $3.91, above the analyst forecast of $3.77.

IBM raised its full-year earnings forecast to $16.90 a share, up from $16.70 previously. The numbers exclude restructuring and other charges.

The decline in both profit and revenue was worse than last quarter, when IBM reported a 5 percent decline in revenue to $23.4 billion and a 1 percent drop on net income to $3 billion.

But traders, apparently pleased by IBM earnings-per-share numbers, boosted company shares in after-hours trading to $194.55, up by $0.70 from the day’s closing number.

IBM is generally considered a bellwether for the tech industry due to its global reach and broad portfolio of software, hardware and services. What’s more, in a sign of the company’s importance as an indicator for markets in general, it is the most heavily weighted stock on the Dow Jones Industrial Average index.
Though services and overall hardware sales dropped during the second quarter, company officials stressed strength in software and big systems.

“In the second quarter, we delivered strong performance in our higher-value software and mainframe businesses,” said Ginni Rometty, IBM chairman, president and chief executive officer. Rometty said she expects improvement in the last half of the year, partly as a result of restructuring efforts that include acquisitions, sales of nonstrategic businesses and “skills rebalancing.”

Software sales totaled $6.4 billion, an increase of 4 percent year over year. Middleware, including WebSphere, information management, Tivoli and Social Workforce Solutions (formerly Lotus), generated $4.3 billion in revenue, up 9 percent.

The company’s key Global Technology Services segment, however, suffered a 5 percent decline in revenue to $9.5 billion.

Revenue for the Systems and Technology unit, which includes hardware products, was $3.8 billion, down 12 percent.

Revenue for major geographic segments of the company’s business were flat or in decline during the quarter. Revenue for the Americas was $10.7 billion, a decrease of 3 percent; revenue from the Europe/Middle East/Africa area was flat at $7.8 billion; and Asia-Pacific revenue decreased 8 percent to $5.8 billion.  

Carl Icahn raises bid for Dell

US billionaire Carl Icahn is expected to sweeten his offer for PC maker Dell in another attempt to defeat a $24.4bn buyout offer by company founder Michael Dell and private equity group Silver Lake.

For several months, he has been fighting Michael Dell’s efforts to get back control of the company and take it private. Icahn has come out in support of other big investors who think the company is worth more.

Michael Dell is believed to be planning to retool the struggling company as a maker of datacentre equipment and software for corporations.

Icahn told Bloomberg that he plans to augment his $14 offer with a warrant that shareholders could use to acquire additional stock, should Dell shares climb, in a bid to defeat the offer of just $13.65 a share from the group led by Michael Dell.

Earlier this week, Icahn wrote a letter to shareholders, urging them to get a court appraisal of what the company is really worth.

Shareholders are scheduled to vote on the offer led by Michael Dell on 18 July 2013.

Bits Blog: Coursera, an Online Education Company, Raises Another $43 Million

Ramin Rahimian for The New York Times Daphne Koller, a co-founder of Coursera, at the company’s offices in Mountain View, Calif. Over the next few months, Coursera plans to double its employees to about 100.
Coursera, a year-old company offering free online courses, has raised another $43 million in venture capital from investors active in both domestic and international education.

The new investors include the International Finance Corporation, the investment arm of the World Bank, and Laureate Education, an international higher education company with dozens of profit-making universities around the world, as well as GSV Capital, Learn Capital and Yuri Milner, an individual entrepreneur.

“We hope it’s enough money to get us to profitability,’’ said Daphne Koller, a co-founder of Coursera. “We haven’t really focused yet on when that might be.’’

Coursera, based in Mountain View, Calif., previously raised $22 million from Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers; New Enterprise Associates; and the University of Pennsylvania and California Institute of Technology, two of its university partners.

Over the next few months, Coursera plans to double its employees to about 100, and expand in several areas, including mobile apps and its Signature Track offerings, which charge a fee to students who want an identity-verified certificate upon successful completion of Coursera’s free courses. Since January, when the Signature Track option was first offered in five courses, Signature Track fees have produced more than $800,000, Ms. Koller said — and in the long run, she said, such revenue may be enough to make the company sustainable.

The company also plans to invest in international expansion, through localization, translation and distribution partnerships, and techniques for blended learning, in which Coursera’s online materials are used alongside classroom sessions with a professor.

“We see great potential for using some of the Coursera materials in our universities, so there is a strategic element to this investment,’’ said Douglas L. Becker, chairman and chief executive officer of Laureate. “The I.F.C. made the largest education investment they ever made in Laureate, and they’re joining us in this investment. Coursera allows us to invest in something we see as a rising technology impacting higher education, and gives us access to their content and curriculum.”

Coursera has grown with stunning speed since it began in April 2012, with four university partners. Now, the company works with 83 educational institutions on four continents, offering about 400 free college-level courses to more than four million students from every country in the world.

But after the initial burst of enthusiasm last year about massive open online courses, or MOOCs, and their potential for democratizing higher education worldwide, this year has brought some pushback. Faculty members at several institutions have expressed concern about how the courses may change higher education, how quickly university administrators signed on to work with MOOC providers, and whether the aim is more to save money than improve the quality of education.

So far, most of the students who have completed Coursera MOOCs have been college graduates, and it is still unclear how well the format will work to help students without degrees earn college credit for their online work. Coursera has recently started to market its materials for use by public universities in blended on-campus classes. Universities that use the materials will pay licensing fees, which Coursera will share with the universities that produce the courses.

'The Butler' Battle Escalates: Weinstein Co. Hints Lawsuit, Raises Antitrust Warning

An image from Lee Daniels' 'The Butler'
The battle over whether Harvey Weinstein can call Lee Daniels' upcoming White House movie The Butler escalated Wednesday as the Weinstein Company's superstar attorney David Boies fired off letters to Warner Bros and the MPAA threatening litigation.

In an arbitration, the MPAA's Title Registry Bureau ruled Tuesday that TWC could not use the title, because it's also the name of a preexisting 1916 short film that now resides in the Warner Bros. library.

As a signatory to the MPAA's Title Registration Bureau, Weinstein is bound by the arbitrator's ruling. The movie mogul might not like the fact that an arbitrator gave Warners the rights to The Butler, but judges are loath to do anything but confirm arbitration awards.

RELATED: Harvey Weinstein Loses to Warner Bros., Enlists David Boies in 'The Butler' Title Fight

With the success of an appeal looking unlikely, and with TWC facing $25,000 worth of daily fines if it continues to advertise the film as The Butler, Boies is now speaking about a lawsuit. Possible claims could include extortion, misrepresentation and antitrust violations.

The letter to Warner Bros' general counsel hints at some of the discussions that preceded the title dispute.

"I am informed that Warner Bros. represented to, and agreed with, TWC that TWC would be permitted without objection by Warner Bros. to use the title “The Butler” in return for certain contributions that TWC agreed to make," writes Boies.

According to TWC COO David Glasser, "We had the title of The Butler and we had spoken with Warners along the way. Our head of distribution and their head of distribution had an agreement. But then we became involved with another piece of business with Warners, and suddenly we were told there was a conflict, and so we went to arbitration." He would not comment on what other business dealings had been taking place.

Other sources paint a different picture, claiming that TWC began using the title in September, 2012 and attempted to register it with the MPAA in November, but the request was declined. Annoyed that TWC was moving forward with the title without the necessary clearances, Warners told TWC it couldn't use the title in March and then sent a cease-and-desist letter in June, all of which led to the arbitration. As for the suggestion that an earlier agreement had been reached, one sources familiar with the dispute says, "There was no deal. That is false."

PHOTOS: Movies That Narrowly Avoided an NC-17

In his letter, Boies continues, "I am further informed that after TWC had relied on these representations and agreement, Warner Bros. repudiated those representations and agreement and sought, in concert with the MPAA, to prevent TWC from using its title."

Asked whether in order to resolve the matter quickly, TWC would consider renaming the film, which stars Forest Whitaker and is based on the true story of Eugene Allen, who spent 34 years working at the White House, Glasser said, "I have Lee Daniels' The Butler registered. I have The White House Butler registered. But what is so insane is that we've been told we can not use any version of the worlds 'the butler.' That part blows our minds."

Boies' second letter to the MPAA is even more direct about the potential antitrust claims.

"To the extent that the MPAA in concert with its members seeks to 'permanently protect' titles where there is no plausible claim of possible confusion, and no claim of actual damages, such an attempt would be a naked restraint on trade in violation of the anti-trust laws," writes Boies.

The MPAA did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Of course, the MPAA's arbitration system doesn't use the same standards set up in trademark law to measure the likelihood of consumer confusion about the source of a mark. If it did, the outcome might have ended up differently. Now the question is whether The Weinstein Co. can allege with specificity enough funny business before the initiation of the arbitration claim.

In the meantime, the two companies are locked into a public relations stand-off. Warner Bros. risks looking as if its playing the spoiler, while Weinstein runs the risk of looking like the same man who has repeatedly cried foul over movie ratings.

Clinkle raises $25 million to kill Square

FORTUNE -- Lucas Duplan demurs when I ask if his mobile payment startup, Clinkle, is intended to be a Square-killer.

"I don't view this as a zero-sum game, and am appreciative of all the people trying to innovate here, including Square," he says. "We're just looking to build the best possible product to delight our users... but obviously there will be impact felt throughout the industry if we succeed."

Apparently Stanford University's computer science program has a few electives in political science. So I'll say it for him: Duplan wants to destroy companies like Square  by leap-frogging their reliance on proprietary merchant-side hardware -- transforming the entire payment space into one that requires nothing more than phones or tablets. No more credit card machines or mobile device plug-ins. Just the same free app downloaded by both the buyer and seller.

It's a big vision, which is why Clinkle today is announcing $25 million in seed funding from some very big names.

Accel Partners led the round, with Accel partner Jim Breyer also making a personal investment. Other participants include Andreessen Horowitz, Peter Thiel, Intuit (INTU), VMWare co-founders Diane Greene and Mendel Rosenblum, Marc Benioff, Regis McKenna, Andrew Viterbi, Owen Van Natta and a whole bunch of Duplan's former Stanford professors.

Accel is a particularly interesting lead, given that it was the first institutional money into Facebook Inc. (FB) -- the company whose early rollout strategy Clinkle hopes to mimic. Duplan's plan is to make the app ubiquitous in college communities -- among both students and merchants -- and then expand from there.

"If your mission is to convince hundreds of thousands of different merchants to take this, it will take too long," he explains. "You have to short-circuit the adoption. When you study how networks get formed, it almost always comes down to closed tight-knit communities, replicating the process and eventually connecting them."

Accel's Breyer was originally a bit skeptical when introduced to the company by Diane Greene -- particularly about what happens when students go home for break or graduate -- but got more comfortable after meeting with student groups at both Stanford and Harvard (where he sits the Harvard Corp. board). What he learned was that the general idea of a seamless payment system was appealing to the students, and that many of their hometowns either were, or were close to, other college communities. It also helped that Clinkle plans to offer incentives that are more relevant to their target audience, than traditional credit card perks like frequent flier miles. Also worth noting that Breyer was not only a longtime Facebook board member, but also was a director with Wal-Mart Stores (WMT).

The $25 million is expected to take Clinkle past initial roll-out this fall, and help it build out all of the relevant security and compliance features. Duplan is not yet providing too many specifics of how the app actually works, but the high-profile investors clearly saw something unique.

"Our goal is to provide an experience that can let people replace their physical cash and physical credit cards, not to just to enable merchants to take cards," Duplan says. "Right now if I challenged you to download every payment app and leave your wallet at home, you'd be hard-pressed to compete with cash and credit cards," Duplan says. "We want to help people do that, not just make it easier for merchants to take cards."

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An Inside Look at How Toshiba’s KIRAbook Raises the Bar for Ultrabook Systems

Toshiba Kirabook i7 Touchscreen $2,000.00(Lowest Price) The Kirabook looks the part of a luxury laptop, and it’s the first Ultrabook to compete with Apple’s Retina lineup. But Toshiba made some disappointing decisions on the way to a $2000 price tag.

 



All Intel inspired Ultrabook™ systems offer slim designs, lightweight builds, productivity-boosting battery life, and so on. But with so much in common, some models end up getting lost in the crowd.  Toshiba engineered its KIRAbook to stand out. It’s slim and lightweight, yes, but goes beyond the Ultrabook basics by integrating state-of-the-art features in exciting new ways.

 

“KIRAbook is not about being first-to-market with new technologies,” says Carl Pinto, vice president of marketing, Toshiba America Information Systems, Inc., Digital Products Division. “Instead, it focuses on implementing these advanced technologies into the form factor in the best way possible.”



The KIRAbook features an Intel Core processor powering a damage-resistant Corning Concore Glass display with a 10-point multi-touch surface. Unlike many 13.3-inch Ultrabook systems, which keep screen resolution low and limit gesture capabilities to the touchpad, the KIRAbook employs a PixelPure touchscreen with a native 2,560 x 1,440-pixel resolution. With a pixel density of 221 pixels per inch, the razor-sharp screen excels at games, movies, photos, and other image-oriented activities. Indeed, for photo editing in particular, PixelPure allows for the kind of fine-detail work that would normally require a high-end desktop monitor.

 

“We color-calibrated each unit’s screen at the factory for optimal picture quality and a broad range of true-to-life colors, something no one else in the industry does,” notes Pinto. To help highlight the KIRAbook’s photo and video acumen, Toshiba bundles full versions of Adobe Photoshop Elements 11 and Premiere Elements 11.



The KIRAbook incorporates several industry-leading design elements, including a magnesium-alloy lid and chassis, DTS Studio Sound-enhanced Harman Kardon speakers, and a roomy touchpad that supports all Windows 8 gestures, just like the screen.

 

The entire system weighs only 2.6 pounds, with a profile that’s a mere 0.7 inches. Despite these svelte specs, the KIRAbook packs a full-size HDMI output, three USB 3.0 ports (most Ultrabook systems have just two), and a backlit keyboard for easier typing in low-light environments. Intel® Wireless Display is on hand to allow wireless screen sharing with compatible TVs and projectors, and a 256GB solid-state drive allows for lightning-fast booting, shutdown, and overall performance.

 

Pinto sums it up thusly: “KIRAbook was designed to be the perfect union of elegant design, meticulous craftsmanship, and unparalleled performance—it is ultimately equipped with all the features and capabilities a user could ever need.”

Twitter: @sajilpl