Salesforce hits back at Microsoft with patent violation suit

Salesforce.com, the major provider of customer relationship management software, is suing Microsoft for patent infringement — its aggressive response to the suit Microsoft filed against the company for around nine intellectual property violations last month.

Salesforce’s lawsuit claims that several Microsoft cloud products infringe on its patents, including the .NET framework providing tools and support for third-party developers, and its SharePoint collaboration and document management software for businesses.

In its corner, Salesforce has David Boies … Continue Reading

HiveFire unveils web content aggregation and distribution tool Curata

To help marketers supplement their blog and website content development, marketing technology company HiveFire has released a new web content aggregation and distribution tool called Curata.

Curata integrates with any company’s website or blog, and targets marketers looking to continuously provide relevant and timely content to drive web traffic, generate leads and engage potential customers. The tool can aggregate and deliver content — in about 20 minutes a day — around specific search terms users … Continue Reading

iPhone 4 launch stats: 77% upgrades, possibly 1.5M sold

We knew that the iPhone 4 was going to sell well, particularly since Apple sold out its initial 600,000 phones available for pre-order in a single day. Now, the morning after the launch, analysts are beginning to push out their findings from customer surveys, in addition to revised sales predictions.

Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster interviewed 608 iPhone 4 customers in San Francisco and came across some interesting numbers, according to Fortune. His key findings: … Continue Reading

Twittergate hacker gets five-month prison sentence

The 24-year-old French hacker responsible for leaking internal strategy documents to TechCrunch and breaking into celebrity Twitter accounts last summer received a five-month suspended prison sentence.

Given the steeper penalties Francois Cousteix was facing, including two years in prison and a 30,000 euro fine, his lawyer said they were pleased with the decision.

“The verdict is satisfying, given all the media pressure that built up,” his lawyer Jean-Francois Canis told the Associated Press.

Cousteix, who … Continue Reading

Visionaries of tech share their lessons on thinking big (videos)

Yesterday, the who’s who of Silicon Valley gathered at the 13th annual SDForum awards event at the chateau home of Kelly Porter of Woodside Capital. (See our photo gallery). Every year, SDForum, a nonprofit technology-industry association, hands out its Visionary Awards to the people who have helped make Silicon Valley one of best places on earth for tech innovation.

The speeches of the winners were instructive for entrepreneurs who want to leave a mark. This … Continue Reading

Coke boasts "phenomenal" engagement from Twitter ads

Coca-Cola’s digital marketing chief said the company was seeing “phenomenal” results from its advertising campaign on Twitter.

In a promising review of the microblogging network’s nascent advertising program, Carol Kruse, a top executive at the beverage company, said that its initial Promoted Tweet ad received 86 million impressions in its first 24 hours and drew an engagement rate of 6 percent, compared to the typical 0.02 percent clickthrough rate that mosts ads see.

Coke was … Continue Reading

How Skimlinks can write a publisher a monthly $300,000 check

Skimlinks, a U.K.-based startup that tries to make it dead-simple for publishers to earn a cut of every product sale they drive, launched a product that automatically turns all product references in stories into affiliate links.

Publishers and bloggers typically earn advertising revenue through one of two ways — from the number of times an ad is exposed or the number of times that a visitor clicks on an ad.

But there’s also a third … Continue Reading

MobileBeat 2010: Google's Omar Hamoui to speak on the next wave of mobile advertising innovation

We are delighted to announce that Omar Hamoui, Google’s new vice president of mobile ads, will be sharing his views on the future of mobile advertising in a fireside chat at VentureBeat’s MobileBeat 2010 conference next month. The theme: “The Year of the Superphones.”

Few in the industry are more qualified to sketch out their vision of the industry. As the founder of Admob, Hamoui has walked the walk.

We at VentureBeat followed him as … Continue Reading

Yahoo vets raise $5M for stealthy Foodily from Index

Foodily, a stealth startup run by a handful of Yahoo veterans, raised $5 million in a round led by Index Ventures, according to a SEC filing.

Its cofounders include chief executive Andrea Cutright, who held a variety of marketing positions at Yahoo from 1999 to 2007, and Venu Javarappa, who was an engineering manager of search there and served as vice president of engineering for Predictify, a prediction market that went under last year.

Mike … Continue Reading

Silicon Valley's elite come out for tech awards (photo gallery)

Once a year, it’s a sure bet that you can find Silicon Valley’s elite gathered all at one party. On Thursday night, top Valley entrepreneurs and investors gathered at the 13th annual SDForum awards event.

The SDForum, a technology-industry nonprofit, has been around for decades. Its awards are like the Oscars of tech, honoring people who it deems visionaries. This year’s event was held at the the chateau home of Kelly Porter of Woodside Capital. … Continue Reading

Playdom acquires Hive7.com as part of social game acquisition spree

A few days after announcing its latest financing, Playdom is making deals again. The social gaming company just announced that it has acquired Hive7.com for an undisclosed price.

Palo Alto, Calif.-based Hive7 makes social games. It was founded in 2005 and it focuses on making games for Facebook and other social networks. It is best known for Knighthood, a medieval-themed game of combat and diplomacy. Other titles include Youtopia, Kick-Off and Sindicate.

Mountain View, Calif.-based … Continue Reading

Roundup: TwitPic finds "Places," Google Street View captures "horse-boy," and more

Here’s the latest action:

TwitPic gets into Places — TwitPic, the photo service piggy-backing on the micro-blogging site, has introduced the “Places” service that tags photos with specific places they were taken, like restaurants or other venues.

Yahoo exec departs for greener pastures — Larry Cornett, Yahoo’s vice president of search consumer products, has left the search engine. It has been laying some people off lately, but it’s unclear whether he was one of the … Continue Reading

Wired's Steven Levy tells us what's to like about the iPhone 4 (video)

We caught up with Wired magazine writer Steven Levy today at the SDForum awards party. There were a lot of cool folks at the event in the hills of Los Altos, but Levy had the trump card. He picked up an iPhone 4 today and pulled it out for us to see.

Levy has been around the block a few times. He won one of the SDForum’s Visionary awards — which are like the Oscars … Continue Reading

Laser manufacturer Raydiance brings in $1.25M

Ultrafast laser maker Raydiance has raised $1.25 million of an expected $5 million, according to a filing with the SEC. Led by former AOL CEO Barry Schuler, the company manufactures computer controlled lasers that can be used in the healthcare, manufacturing and energy industries. Solar panel manufacturing, eye surgeries and cancer treatments are all examples of applications for the lasers.

In early June, the Petaluma, Calif. company announced a partnership with Rofin, a German laser … Continue Reading

Hulu's premium service may arrive next week, Playstation 3 rumors emerge

Two separate reports have emerged tonight that point to Hulu’s long-rumored premium service finally arriving soon. The service, dubbed Hulu Plus, may be available for some 10,000 testers next week, according to All Things Digital. In addition, there’s talk that Hulu will announce a partnership with Sony next week to get its content on the Playstation 3.

The news follows rumors from earlier this month that said Hulu would be headed to the Xbox 360 … Continue Reading

Steve Jobs on iPhone 4 reception issues: You're doing it wrong

Yesterday we reported that early iPhone 4 owners were seeing screen discoloration, as well as reception issues if they covered the antenna notch on the lower-left corner of the phone. Apple responded to the reception trouble today, and it turns out the company is well aware of it, according to Engadget. The company’s stance on the issue can be summed up by an email from Steve Jobs: “Just avoid holding it that way.”

The official … Continue Reading

iPhone 4: A roundup of new and improved apps

A number of companies have launched new or improved iPhone apps in the last day or so in the hope of benefiting from the hype around the launch of the iPhone 4, not to mention the new version of Apple’s iOS operating system released earlier this week.

We covered a few launches, like FarmVille on the iPhone, but for the most part we ignored the app releases. That doesn’t mean the new apps aren’t worth … Continue Reading

GE pumps $10B more into green technology R&D

General Electric announced today that it will be funneling $10 billion more into its cleantech research and development initiative, cleverly dubbed Ecomagination, over the next five years.

The company has seen great success with the program so far. Five years ago, it allocated $5 billion to it, and since then it’s reaped $70 million from the products and investments supported by Ecomagination ($18 million in revenues last year alone). This is a huge return on … Continue Reading