Benjamin Kuo’s Blog

Some housekeeping: as expected, we’re not sending out our newsletter tomorrow in observance of the July 4th holiday. For those who are wondering, we pretty much follow the market holiday schedule for our newsletters. Our web updates will continue, if there is any significant news. Thanks!

As most of you know, it’s a combination of our premium members and our sponsors who make it possible for us to produce our newsletter and cover Southern California’s technology industry. (Alas, you’ve got to pay for creating Internet content somehow!). So, we’re very grateful to the many sponsors who have stepped up to help us cover Southern California’s growing technology industry, and make it possible for us to exist.

On that note, I’d like to welcome our newest sponsor, Key Information Systems, an IT integration provider with headquarters in Woodland Hills, Newport Beach, Phoenix, and Sausalito.

Please let Key Information Systems–and the rest of our sponsors–know you appreciate their support of our coverage of Southern California’s technology industry!

Thanks to our newest sponsor, NeoHire, which is sponsoring our  “Executive Moves” section.

NeoHire is a Southern California recruiting agency, specializing in online
media and technology properties. The firm’s current clients include
Zag.com, Vantage Media, Buzz Media, and other firms. The company also has recently launched a new consulting division, providing web and product
development, and online marketing services.

Thanks to NeoHire for helping to support socalTECH!

For those of you with the Amazon Kindle, who would like to read our daily news feeds on that device, you can now subscribe to our feed directly from Amazon.com.

I’d like to welcome our newest sponsor of socalTECH.com: Microsoft’s Bizspark program, a program which provides nearly-free Microsoft software to web and software startups. Microsoft is eager to make its program available to the many, innovative startups — of all stages — here in Southern California, and they’ve asked us to help get the word out about their program.

Microsoft provides the key components for any software developer — Microsoft Visual Studio, Microsoft Expression Studio, Microsoft SQL Server 2008,  Microsoft Server 2008, plus Microsoft Office — at no upfront cost for three years, and simply requires $100 after three years for the software. More details on the software can be found on their website.

Lots of software developers complain about the expense of these kinds of tools, and the program helps early stage startups who don’t have the dollars get started up without incurring costs. If you–or any startup developer you know–are interested, you just need a code to apply. Please contact me and I’ll make sure you get one.

Just a heads up,  I’m anticipating that posting will be somewhat more irregular than usual on our news this week, as I’m traveling.

Hello everyone, just a quick housekeeping note that we’re moving our main servers today. The changeover should be transparent to everyone, but if you do notice anything funny in accessing or using our site over the next few days, please let me know.

Welcome to our newest sponsor, Murano Software.

Murano is an Agoura Hills-based software outsourcing firm, with operations in Russia. Murano offers a wide range of consulting services, including a specialized group working on Google Android phone applications.

You can learn more about Murano on their web site, www.muranosoft.com. Welcome!

We’re in the midst of putting together an industry survey, to collect some data about the Southern California high tech community’s thoughts about the industry and economy.  The survey is a collaboration with The David James Agency.

I hope you’ll help socalTech.com get a pulse on the local technology by participating in the survey.  The survey is designed to take only a few minutes of your time, and you can visit the following link to participate:

http://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?key=ps0RPkXW-fLmerWmmBPgkdg

The survey should take 10-15 minutes. Thanks in advance for your participation!

Merry Christmas! As you might expect, posting will be light on both the blog and news site until the new year. We’ll be posting breaking items as appropriate. We hope you’re having a great holiday with your family and friends!