Startups And Communities @ Sun

Monday Nov 02, 2009

Sun Startup Essentials - Breakfast Briefing

...The CRASH you haven't seen yet...

This time we go behind the scenes of the worst financial calamity that flooded our TV screens last Christmas...

What lessons have we learned?

What do you do when your whole world has SUDDENLY collapsed, the rug has been pulled out from under you, the regulators are circling and the media spotlight is focused on you?

We are doing business in unpredictable times - impacted by the collapse of the financial systems. And experts are predicting another down surge...

How do you lead your team, your employees, shareholders and family who are all looking to you for inspiration?

As we get closer to the 1st anniversary of one of the darkest winters the finance markets had ever seen, we bring to you our next breakfast...[Read More]

Posted by: Stewart Townsend | Category: Events | Comments [0]

Friday Oct 16, 2009

Les apports de Sun Startup Essentials ? Témoignage de Squid Solutions

Bonjour Adrien, peux-tu te présenter ?
Je m'appelle Adrien Schmidt et j'ai cofondé Squid Solutions il y a 5 ans avec mes deux associés Grégoire Pauty et Serge Fantino. Nous travaillions au sein du même éditeur de logiciels et avions envie de continuer à faire un bout de chemin ensemble en suivant nos propres idées. Avant cela, j'étais product manager dans une startup internet aux Etats-Unis, ce qui m'a donné l'addiction au software et aux startups.

Squid Solutions, c'est quoi ?
C'est un groupe de gens qui n'hésitent pas à traiter avec les directions marketing et financières des plus grands groupes pour trouver dans leurs données des réponses sans complaisance à des questions clés sur la connaissance client et le développement du chiffre d'affaires. Nous utilisons pour cela notre technologie Nautilus et nos idées. C'est ambitieux et passionnant. Nous sommes confrontés à des problématiques métier pointues, des problèmes d'actualité pour un responsable marketing qui a besoin d'une réponse rapide en court-circuitant les processus standards dans les projets informatiques (spécifications, délais de développement, livraisons finales...). Nous opérons des projets agiles, interactifs, en générant autant d'analyses exploratoires qu'il faut pour répondre au besoin. Ceci grâce à Nautilus qui modélise les bases de données et les règles métier, et génère le SQL pour tout exécuter dans la base sans faire d'extractions longues et coûteuses. Au final, un projet de 8 mois en interne se fait en seulement 3 semaines pour des indicateurs de haute valeur ajoutée.

Pourquoi as-tu inscrit Squid Solutions au Sun Startup Essentials ?
Comme toutes les startups, nous avons besoin de matériel, de reconnaissance et de visibilité sur notre écosystème. Sun Startup Essentials nous apporte tout cela. C'est un grande chance pour une startup de bénéficier du soutien "bienveillant" d'une grande entreprise. Sun a pris les devants avec ce programme, j'espère qu'ils feront bientôt des émules au sein de groupes français.

Quels sont les problématiques auxquelles vous avez à faire face aujourd'hui ?
Nous sommes sur un marché très encombré et en pleine restructuration. C'est difficile dans ce cadre de faire passer un message, d'où l'intérêt de s'appuyer sur des partenaires comme Sun qui aident à positionner les innovations technologiques les unes par rapport aux autres, et à créer des synergies. Après, dans l'exercice de notre métier, nous faisons face à des problématiques techniques ardues pour s'adapter aux différentes bases de données clients. Nous avons construit un système de test en interne avec des machines Sun, capable de faire tourner différents types de bases de données et de supporter la charge de grosses volumétries car nous avons généralement à traiter des volumes de données de plusieurs To.

Quels ont été les apports concrets du programme par rapport à votre démarche ?
Concrètement, nous faisons tourner les bases de données que nous hébergeons sur un serveur Sun Fire X2250 qui est en utilisation permanente. On a vite utilisé le système au-delà de notre seuil de compétence, et Sun a répondu en nous envoyant un ingénieur pour nous aider à diagnostiquer le problème et monter en charge. Et ceci non seulement rapidement mais gratuitement - du jamais vu ! Du côté marketing, nous avons organisé avec Sun et Talend une matinée de présentation sur le thème "Accélérez vos projets de BI". Cet événement était une grande réussite, grâcieusement hébergé par Sun qui nous a fait bénéficier en plus de sa liste de contacts. Du pain béni pour les commerciaux qui ont généré plusieurs très bons leads. A refaire !

Quelles sont les prochaines étapes pour Squid Solutions ?
Squid Solutions a levé des fonds en début d'année 2009 pour consolider sa place sur le marché français, auprès des grands comptes en direct mais aussi au travers d'un réseau de partenaires. Il nous reste du travail sur notre marché national, mais nous avons d'ores et déjà les yeux tournés vers d'autres horizons, notamment les Etats-Unis où nous avons commencé à prendre pied.

Merci Adrien pour ce témoignage et bon courage pour la suite.

Pour plus d'informations, vous pouvez envoyer un email à adrien@squidsolutions.com

Posted by: Laurent Chiozzotto | Category: Français | Comments [0]

Wednesday Sep 09, 2009

Startup of the day: Teambox

Pablo, can you introduce yourself?

I am a 23-year old spanish entrepreneur, aerospace engineer and programmer. In the past I managed two start-ups for e-learning and helicopter drones. Today, I'm a passionate Ruby on Rails programmer working full-time for Teambox.

What is Teambox?

Teambox is an agile project manager. It's an open-source collaboration application for groups that takes a different approach at teamwork.

In Teambox, collaboration is project-centric, rather than document-centric (like Google Docs). Inside each project, members can share group messages, task lists and pages.

You can use it for free at http://www.teambox.com, and enjoy unlimited collaboration: Any number of projects, and unlimited uploads.

At what stage are you in your project?

Teambox has been self-funded and Business Angel funded. We are currently looking for a round B of capital to fund the growth and expansion of the startup.

Teambox 1.0 has been online and running for almost a year. Teambox 2.0 is already in the works, featuring a group-twitter collaboration approach and many mobile apps: Android, iPhone, light version and XML and JSON APIs.

The whole project is open-source, and available as a free hosted service at http://www.teambox.com. We have, to the moment, three quite active open-source contributors, five people in our staff and some freelancers. We are currently based in Barcelona, Spain.

Why did you join the Sun Startup Essentials program?

We joined, introduced by Manuel Jaffrin, to benefit from the support program. Every technology we use is open-source: Ruby on Rails, MySQL and servers for our background processes. We've been interested in scaling and new key-store database technologies, and we felt a partner like Sun could be interesting for the future of our app.

What are the next steps for you?

After some weeks, Teambox 2.0 will be released as a major breakthrough in collaboration software. It will then be time to market and start offering the first premium services: invoicing integration and installation support.

In the financial side, we're looking for our next round of funding and looking forward to offering live support to paying users.

Pablo, thanks for your testimonial and good luck for the future!

To get more detailed information, you can send an email to pablo@teambox.com

Posted by: Laurent Chiozzotto | Category: Generic | Comments [0]

Tuesday Sep 01, 2009

Sun Startup Essentials EMEA Newsletter

Sun Startup Essentials Insider - September 2009


	*Good morning Startup Essentials Members* I hope you are rested and well after your summer break, and I want to share with you all the exciting events and cool things that are happening across Europe over the coming month. As usual if you have any questions drop me an email and I'll get back to you as soon as I can -- or find me on Twitter. If you would like to promote your event out to the Startup Essentials members drop me a line and I'll put it on the Blog Calendar and in the next newsletter.


	News: Member-Only Webinars: Scalable Architectures An Introduction To Scalable Web Architectures, Part 1, 2, and 3 We hope you'll be able to join us for a new series of free webinars open only to program members. This will be your chance to ask live questions directly to our Web Scale Architects. More agenda details and to register

	Want to win a luxury weekend at a Marriot? Plus have lots of fun at FOWA London? Sun's fast and cheap Nehalem-powered Sun Fire X2270 and Sun Fire X4270 promise to put some sizzle into Oracle's hardware business Are VC's investing in Twitter focused business models? Chubbybrain partnering with Sun Startup Essentials - claim your startup now
	Back to top


	Promotions: Refer-A-Startup Promotion Recieve Firebox Vouchers You scratch our back and we'll scratch yours... x86 Dual core servers Enterprise class servers from £260/€300 More details and how to purchase go here now

	Web Application training/Java training at Startup Prices Remarkable savings on one year, company-wide site licenses to the Sun eLibrary. Giving you access to advanced training packages, including hundreds of web-based courses on key technologies. Improve flexibility of learning through an easy-to-use web-based interface Use courses all year instead of one-time classroom visit Use courses as a reference tool that can be revisited while preparing for certification. Exclusive course for Sun Startup Essential Members only... Back to top


	Events: Friends of #140conf: London with Jeff Keni Pulver The event offers a chance to catch up with #140conf creator & casting director Jeff Keni Pulver. Jeff will be giving a talk about "The State of NOW" and will moderate the discussion. 3rd September - from 6 PM - 9:30 PM Announcing a new Meetup for Startup Essentials UK! Sun's UK Campus Open Day for Startups September 3rd, 12:30 AM Meet Us At: Seedcamp week September 2009 - London Media 140 London 26th October Future of Web Apps Sept 30th - October 2nd London Open Coffee Every Thursday from 10.00 am -12.00 Drinktank Various dates (and states) Paypal 19-20th September - London TedxTuttle 17th September - London Our full calendar is posted on our blog (upper right hand corner) Back to top


	Startup Of The Month: GigLocator GigLocator, a live music aggregator, launches today in open beta. It promises to offer a large collection of gig listings worldwide, sourced from major ticket providers and a number of independents too.

	It enables users of keep track of their favourite artists and venues while offering a discovery mechanism to help you find more gigs you might like. It has a smart search engine which knows if you’re looking for artists, venues and so on. Enter multiple Last.fm, Pandora or iLike usernames and the site will keep you informed about your favourite artists’ upcoming tour dates. You can then share the dates with friends via your social network of choice. Giglocator is a partner of Sun Startup Essentials and James Proud our youngest SSE partner at 18 will be talking at FOWA about their technology and how they work with Sun. More details
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	What's Cool: How to reach a large Enterprise audience for startup money "System News for Sun Users" System News for Sun Users/ has been published since 1998. The current 45,000+ subscribers include:
	30,000+ end-users who work at 8,000+ Enterprise/SME accounts 9,000+ people who work for Sun -- including most of Sun's field sales organization 5,000+ people who work for Partners (System Integrators. Channel Partners, Service Partners) 1,000+ members of the press or analysts (low cost marketing) The news portal, sun.systemnews.com, serves about 1.5 million page views to about 600,000 visitors each year. Find out more and costs by emailing Stewart.Townsend@Sun.COM

	So do you want to get more traffic to your startup? Do you want to gain more attention for what you are doing? Are you a Sun Startup Essentials member? Answer YES to the above and now you can. Check out the details here: Startup Traffic See how quickly Tweetmeme is growing Back to top


	If you have any questions or feedback, please send a message to Stewart.Townsend@Sun.COM Thank you Sun Microsystems

* In order to qualify for the Sun Startup Essentials program, your company must meet the following criteria:
- In business six years or less
- A maximum of 150 employees, including any affiliates
- Based in a country in which the program is offered
- A verifiable company presence (company name, street address [no post office boxes allowed], etc.).
- Agree to accept the program's terms and conditions

Posted by: Stewart Townsend | Category: Generic | Comments [0]

Tuesday Jul 28, 2009

Free Startup Webinar: Architecting Your Website for Scale and Availability with the AMP Stack and GlassFish

Reserve your seat today for this free webinar where you'll learn about a high performance, reliable AMP stack to run your web applications.

Specifically, this webinar will focus on how the Sun GlassFish Web Stack can:

Provide a low cost enterprise-grade support for popular open source applications such as Apache Web Server, Apache Tomcat, PHP and lighttpd among others

Run web applications at a high volume and scale

Easily manage updates and security patches to your AMP deployments

Monitor and manage your AMP components

Webinar Title: Architecting Your Site for Scale and Availability with the AMP Stack & GlassFish

Date: 08/11/09

Time: 9:00 am PDT / 12:00 pm EDT / 5:00 pm UK / 6:00 pm CEST / 9:30 pm India (Delhi) (check my timezone)

Speakers: Murthy Chintalapati, Engineering Lead, Web Tier Product Line, and Jyri J. Virkki, Chief Architect, OpenSolaris Web Stack, and Sun GlassFish Web Stack

Register today!

Posted by: Laura | Category: Generic | Comments [0]

Saturday Jul 25, 2009

Get 50% Off Your Ticket for Summit at Stanford

We have a 50% discount for Summit at Stanford (July 28-30, Stanford University, Palo Alto, CA), presented by AlwaysOn and Stanford Technology Venture Program. Just click on this link and the discount is applied automatically.

If you plan to attend the AlwaysOn conference , we hope you'll stop by the Sun Startup Essentials & Visuvi table.

The keynotes and panels are really impressive: http://alwayson.goingon.com/permalink/post/32096

Don't miss the panel with Juan Carlos Soto, VP of Cloud Computing at Sun, and the keynote with Visuvi's CEO, Christopher Boone, both on Wednesday, July 29th. Visuvi will show off their impressive image-based search engine.

The Rainmakers in Cloud Computing

12:45: Ballroom 1

Will tech giants or startups leverage "the cloud" best? As big firms ramp up offerings and startups offer mgmt & delivery solutions, who's creating the most value for investors?

Moderator: Rafe Needleman, Editor, CNET

Ken Comee, CEO, Cast Iron Systems

Monica Lam, Co-founder & Chief Scientist, MokaFive

Juan Carlos Soto, VP, Sun Microsystems

Chip Hazard, General Partner, Flybridge Capital Partners

Michael Stein, CEO, Darkstrand

Michael Peachey, Chief Architect & Dir. Engineering-Cloud Computing, TIBCO

CEO Showcase session

2:35 Ballroom 1

Christopher M. Boone, CEO, Visuvi

Posted by: Laura | Category: Americas | Comments [0]

Thursday Jul 23, 2009

Tomorrows Web - A conference by Young People for the Young People of tomorrow

August 8th - London - More Details and Tickets HERE

The Tomorrow's Web Conference brings youth and technology together in London on August 8th. It's the first of it's kind to hit the UK and is already set to be a truly unique and exciting event, with over 9 hours worth of planned speakers, panels and startup pitches, you can see why.

Learn from the entrepreneurs and innovators of tomorrow, find out what they're thinking about current and future topics on the web. Sun Startup Essentials is the key sponsor of this event because we believe that the next wave of true technology shifts and changes is coming through the schools and universities as we speak, these young people will change our lifes, how we interact and solve problems in a different manner.

So take time to come and hear what has to be said, debate and interact and add your thoughts to this great conference.

Posted by: Stewart Townsend | Category: Events | Comments [0]

Thursday Jul 16, 2009

Sun Startup Essentials Insider - July 2009

What's Cool

Startup Essentials debuts live streaming video thru Justin.tv
Techcrunch's Real Time Stream Crunchup marked the beginning of a new page in SSE events. We streamed live on our justin.tv channel and so far have had 20,029 Views. If you want to get a sense of the events Startup Essentials is participating in, definitely check this out! Our next live feed will be from Twiistup on July 30 & 31.

Zooppa Contest ends next Tuesday!
Zooppa.com is running a contest to create the most inspiring ads for our Sun Startup Essentials program. We're looking for videos, posters, and banner ads that communicate the value of this program. Total prize money is USD$5,000, and people from around the world can participate.

Startups.Tweetmeme
Can't get enough of the little blue bird? Wanna get all the hottest tweet news about startups? Then check out the Sun Startup Essential's Tweetmeme Channel.

Offers & Resources

On-Demand Webinar: MySQL Performance Tuning Step-by-step
Learn the basic steps the MySQL Consulting pros follow to tune a MySQL database server. Each step will be covered at a high level with one or two of the most critical parameters covered in detail for each step. Register here.

Unified Storage White Paper
Learn how to utilize open, simple, and scalable storage at a fraction of the cost of traditional systems. Read about the architecture of systems that can bring you ten times faster installation than competing systems, and require no special training to configure and use. Download here.

Training: MySQL High Availability (3 Days)
This course is designed fro experienced database administrators and system architects who want to analyze and form a basis of understanding with different high availability options, including clustering and replication solutions within MySQL. Offered in Paris, Lyon, Hamburg, among others. Details here.

Events

Facebook Developer Garage July 22, 2009
This month we're looking at Facebook Pages. We've got talks from two of the most successful UK case studies of successful Facebook Page use; the agency VCCP will be coming in to speak about their Compare the Meerkat campaign and how they reached almost half a million fans for a fictional character promoting a financial comparison website; and ITV will come in to discuss how they've used Facebook pages to promote all of their major TV shows, and the lessons they've learnt about using social media effectively. Register.

Also check out:
Twiistup: July 30 & 31. Streamed live.
London Open Coffee: Every Thursday from 10-12.

Our full calendar is posted on our blog (upper right hand corner).

Startup Of The Month

SearchForce
SearchForce is a Web software as service provider focused on maximizing ROI on search engine marketing (SEM). By offering to secure each client the best price per keyword to obtain a desired position on a designated search engine, and delivering real time data on cost-per-click metrics, SearchForce has developed a devoted customer base. Its innovative business model helps customers detect unanticipated surges or drops in online traffic, which in turn also creates a need for the company to commit to high-performance systems to help it lead in the burgeoning search engine marketing sector.

Was this information helpful? Please send your comments and suggestions to: sse-newsletter-feedback@sun.com

Posted by: Laura | Category: Generic | Comments [0]

Wednesday Jul 15, 2009

Tomorrows Web Conference - August 8th

Do you want to meet the Young Entrepreneurs of tomorrow ? Do you want to connect with like minded individuals and share your thoughts on ?

Bringing Youth and Technology Together, sign up now for a free ticket HERE

Posted by: Stewart Townsend | Category: Events | Comments [0]

Thursday Jul 09, 2009

The Scoop on Web Stack

Attention San Francisco Bay Area Startups!

We have two fabulous presenters at the upcoming Bay Area LAMP Meetup: Murthy Chintalapati, Senior Engineering Manager, and Jyri Virkki, Chief Architect.

Presenting on: Sun GlassFish/OpenSolaris Web Stack - The Next Generation Open Web Infrastructure.

If you're interested in attending, the registration link will be live soon on the LAMP Meetup page: http://apache.meetup.com/49/

Light dinner will be provided.

Logistics:
Date: Thursday, July 16
Time: 6:30-7:15pm
Address: Sun Microsystems, Inc., 4030 George Sellon Circle, Auditorium building (2nd floor), Santa Clara, CA 95054

Short abstract of presentation:

The OpenSolaris Web Stack is an open source project consists of popular open source web infrastructure (known as LAMP or SAMP) technologies, such as Apache HTTPd, PHP, Python, MySQL, lighttpd, as well as GlassFish and Tomcat. As a fully integrated in the OpenSolaris operating system, Web Stack delivers close integration with OpenSolaris innovations such as DTrace, ZFS, SMF and RBAC. OpenSolaris also provides a fully integrated PHP development environment with NetBeans. The Sun GlassFish Portfolio is the companion product offering which features the Enterprise Manager to manage and monitor diverse set of components. The Web Stack is optimized for scaling on modern multi-core systems. This session presents a technology overview of Web Stack, its ease of use, performance and monitoring.

Short bio of presenters:

Murthy Chintalapati (cvr) is a development engineering leader with two decades of building, leading and developing high performance teams in the fast-paced global environment. He specializes in infrastructure software products for enterprises deploying web 2.0 and open source technologies. He is responsible for Sun's web tier products, viz., Sun Web Server and the Web Stack. Murthy holds five U.S. patents and received Sun Microsystems Chairman’s Award for Innovation. He holds a M.S. in Computer Science and Engineering from Indian Institute of Technology.

Jyri J. Virkki is the chief architect and lead of OpenSolaris Web Stack project and the Sun GlassFish Web Stack product line. He specializes in server software security technologies and performance. Jyri holds M.S. in Information Networking from Carnegie Mellon University.

Posted by: Laura | Category: Americas | Comments [0]

Tuesday Jul 07, 2009

Webcasts Montée en Charge : à voir ou à revoir

C'est l'été ! L'occasion de voir ou de revoir les 3 webcasts animés par Thierry Manfé, Web Technologist chez Sun et consacrés à la montée en charge des sites web. Un bon moyen de découvrir les meilleures solutions pour absorber l'augmentation du trafic ainsi que l'augmentation du volume des données en tirant parti des fonctionnalités de virtualisation proposées par Solaris et ZFS.

S'inscrire ici

Posted by: Laurent Chiozzotto | Category: Français | Comments [0]

Outnow - A Success Story

Outnow Success Story - Sun Startup Essentials

Posted by: Stewart Townsend | Category: Generic | Comments [0]

Thursday Jul 02, 2009

One Million Dollar Media Prize for DEMOfall 09

The DEMO conference announced today that they will award an advertising package valued at one million dollars to the top enterprise and consumer technologies presenting at DEMOfall this coming September. The media package will consist of a six-month advertising campaign running from October 2009 through March 2010.

Find out more at http://www.demo.com/press/pr070209.html.

Reminder: Deadline to apply for the launch or AlphaPitch programs at DEMOfall is July 30. Companies interested in participating in DEMOfall should visit http://www.demo.com to get application information. DEMOfall will take place September 21-23 in San Diego, CA. Register at http://www.demo.com/pitch/applypitch.html

Posted by: Laura | Category: Generic | Comments [0]

Summer Essentials Hot Deals!

*If you're not currently a member of the program it's not too late, sign up at sun.com/startup to start receiving these benefits*

The configurations below are just some examples. Please contact us for pricing and different hardware configurations.

	List Price	Startup Price	% off
*Sun Training Packages:** Web Development, Java Technology, Solaris, Datacenter Support	n/a	$1,000/package/company	n/a
Sun Fire X2270: Nehalem Intel Xeon 2.53GHz, 6GB, 500GB SATA disk, Solaris 10 pre-installed	$3,176	$1,805	43%
Sun Storage 7210 Unified Storage System: up to 23 TB of capacity, energy-efficient 4U package	$71,995	$20,275	72%

*To take advantage of these great training packages, fill out the registration form. Please note: all courses are in English only.

Posted by: Laura | Category: Generic | Comments [0]

Wednesday Jul 01, 2009

Only 3 Weeks Left to Create Your Best Ads

There are only 3 weeks left to submit Sun Startup Essentials funniest, most exhilarating, heart breaking and motivating print, banner and video ads. More at: http://www.zooppa.com/contests/sun-startup-essentials.

Please let your creative friends know about this great opportunity! The deadline to submit your ads is July 21, 2009. Some fantastic ads have already been submitted on the contest website. Check them out!

P.S. Sun employees and contractors can compete, but they are not eligible for the Sun prize. They can win the community and Zooppa awards.