VentureBeat

Salesforce.com’s Marc Benioff: ‘Many CEOs are afraid to get too personal’

Marc Benioff has been the reliably outspoken chief executive of Salesforce.com for 10 years. Salesforce was one of the pioneers of the software-as-a-service business model, where traditional software is replaced by a web-based application that customers pay for via subscription, and he trumpeted the model with… Continue Reading

Data integration company SnapLogic raises another $2.3M

SnapLogic, a startup that helps companies pull in business data, has raised $2.3 million in its first round of institutional funding. It also announced that Gaurav Dhillon, the San Mateo company’s co-founder and chairman, is SnapLogic’s new chief executive.

The company charges subscription fees for its… Continue Reading

Google confirms music search, includes Pandora, imeem, and Rhapsody

Google just officially announced the music search service that was first reported last week, where it’s teaming up with a number of music services to help you find the songs you’re looking for straight from Google search.

Basically, when you enter any music-related queries into Google,… Continue Reading

Motorola’s Droid phone will arrive on Nov. 6

Motorola and Verizon just released the official details of their upcoming Droid phone, the first to use Google’s Android 2.0 operating system. Most of the features were already known, but the announcement gives us a concrete launch date and price — the Droid will be… Continue Reading

Google announces turn-by-turn GPS navigation — for free

There’s a good chance you’ve driven with someone who’s bought a fancy GPS navigation system for their car that gives them voice directions for each turn as they drive. You may have purchased one of those systems yourself, or maybe you went for the $100… Continue Reading

Aruba’s AirWave OnDemand offers network management in the cloud

Wireless networking company Aruba Networks is the latest business to adopt a software-as-a-service model. Today, it’s announcing AirWave OnDemand, an online service for monitoring your company’s network.

Bryan Wargo, general manager of Aruba’s AirWave division (Aruba acquired AirWave last year), said the demand for network management… Continue Reading

Mobile email app reMail gets a key addition: Multiple accounts

reMail, a startup incubated by Y Combinator, has already convinced many email junkies that it offers a better way to store and search their messages than Apple’s built-in iPhone app. The latest version, which just went live in the App Store, helps reMail stand heads… Continue Reading

Amazon expands its database products with the Relational Database Service

Amazon continues to expand the services and infrastructure it provides online. Early this morning, it announced that you can run a powerful database in Amazon’s cloud with its Relational Database Service (RDS).

The RDS should serve as an online alternative to buying and maintaining a database server such… Continue Reading

DeepDyve launches rental service for scientific research

A company called DeepDyve has already unveiled a search engine that it says beats Google’s for finding research information. But its plans go beyond search — chief executive Bill Park says the company also wants to reach a new audience for academic research, today launching… Continue Reading

Now you can use Google Voice without switching phone numbers

Google Voice is one of the coolest new technologies to emerge in the last year or so, but it has one big drawback — you need to switch to a new phone number, which always involves annoyance and confusion. Except now you can skip all… Continue Reading

Aviary raises $7M to help you create digital goods

Aviary, a company that offers easy-to-use applications for creating pictures and other media, has raised $7 million in a second round of funding. The Long Island company says its technology allows anyone with a creative bent to create and sell virtual goods.

Aviary pitches itself as… Continue Reading

Adobe and Salesforce.com combine their tools for business apps

Adobe and Salesforce.com announced a partnership today that brings together Flash and Force.com, their platforms for building and launching web applications.

Adobe Marketing Dave Gruber and Salesforce Product Marketing Director Eric Stahl say it makes sense to combine the media-rich, interactive features of Adobe’s Flash with… Continue Reading

Week in review: Droid’s iPhone-killing launch, Google’s social search

Here’s our rundown of the week’s tech and business news. First, the most popular stories VentureBeat published in the last seven days:

Droid, the phone that finally lets me cancel my iPhone — “A new phone called Droid is about to hit the market at the… Continue Reading

Smartsheet launches a spreadsheet-like way to manage sales

Smartsheet has already expanded its work management application with cool features like a way to crowdsource tasks. Now it’s adding a customer relationship management (CRM) service on top of that.

The goal of the Smartsheet Sales Pipeline Management app is to give small companies an easier… Continue Reading

Icahn haz Yahoo board resignation

Carl Icahn, the Yahoo investor who attempted a hostile takeover of the company last year, has resigned from the board of directors.

Icahn’s move against Yahoo’s board, especially then-chief executive Jerry Yang, was prompted by the failure of the struggling company to reach an acquisition deal… Continue Reading

Twilight of the venture gods: Is Sequoia spreading itself thin?

Along with Kleiner Perkins Caufield and Byers, Sequoia Capital is probably the most famous venture capital firm around, but it may have overreached in the last couple years, writes Adam Lashinsky in Fortune.

Lashinsky writes that Sequoia attempted to branch out from venture capital into a broader… Continue Reading

Box.net wants to work with enterprise app companies, starting with Salesforce

Document collaboration company Box.net announced new integration with Salesforce.com today, which will allow users to access Box’s shared documents directly from Salesforce’s customer relationship management (CRM) service.

This has been a big demand among Box customers, said chief executive Aaron Levie, many of whom are salespeople,… Continue Reading

Web 2.0: Teens love Facebook and Apple, confused by Twitter

The old fogies at the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco today tried to figure out what those crazy kids are doing with technology by interviewing a group of five Bay Area teenagers. The session, moderated by former Piper Jaffray analyst Safa Rashtchy, rambled and… Continue Reading

Web 2.0: Google’s Sergey Brin admits Chrome for Mac delays are disappointing

Google co-founder Sergey Brin made a surprise appearance at the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco today, where he was booster-ish on almost everything (Google, Bing, hardware, web advertising, more), but did admit to one disappointment: The delays in releasing a version of Google’s Chrome… Continue Reading

Microsoft: Windows 7 makes us cool again

Microsoft’s launch of its new Windows 7 operating system today caps a comeback year for the software giant, where it started to beat back the perception that it’s becoming stodgy and out-of-date. So said Microsoft’s Brian Hall when I interviewed him about the launch yesterday.

To… Continue Reading