I’m over at TechCrunch50, where the morning was slow and buggy but things just livened up fantastically with, believe it or not, the enterprise software panel. Seriously, it was awesome. As judges, Marc Andreessen, Marc Benioff and Yossi Vardi were not only incisive but absolutely hilarious. And the presenting companies looked good.
“It’s amazing how a conference can turn on a dime,” said Kent Goldman, principal at First Round Capital, sitting next to me in the second row. With no Wi-Fi, slow pacing, and glitches galore, the only highlight this morning was Ashton Kutcher and his new web show “Blah Girls.” But that all changed this afternoon when Andreessen jokingly demanded from the judges table a “very, very dirty” vodka martini.
Here are the enterprise software picks:
- FairSoftware helps developers setting up a project together split up shares without hiring lawyers and making a C corp. Benioff said there was a big need for this, that he would love it on his platform. Vardi, Israel’s best-known tech investor, jokingly stressed out about what cutting out lawyers would mean for Jews.
- Yammer is Twitter, feature-for-feature, for companies. The judges absolutely loved this, but I couldn’t get past how much of a ripoff it was. It’s made by the same people who do the family tree site Geni. Benioff said he wanted to invest.
- Blueprint helps developers design software for multicore CPUs. Andreessen said he liked this but worried it would be at its best for easy problems.
- OpenTrace, which gives every product a barcode and traces it through the supply chain to dynamically calculate its environmental load, seemed very cool. I’d love to see more of how it works; we’ll get the folks at Earth2Tech to check it out further.
Photo courtesy of TechCrunch.
7 trackbacks so far
5:14 PM PT
[...] Enterprise Software Steals the Show at TechCrunch50Source: GigaOM [...]
9:54 AM PT
[...] Enterprise Software Steals the Show at TechCrunch50 Source: GigaOM [...]
6:25 PM PT
[...] Enterprise Software Steals the Show at TechCrunch50Source: GigaOM [...]
9:44 AM PT
[...] Enterprise Software Steals the Show at TechCrunch50 Source: GigaOM [...]
11:09 AM PT
[...] Enterprise Software Steals the Show at TechCrunch50 Source: GigaOM [...]
7:58 AM PT
[...] the enterprise). We can see this reflection in Bernard’s preview of DEMO for RWW, and in Liz Gannes’ account of how enterprise software stole the show at TC50. OK, Liz was referring to the first day of TC50, but I get the impression that her point still held [...]
8:15 AM PT
[...] Links to source posts: Dennis Howlett, Rafe Needleman, Rob Diana, Mathew Ingram, Svetlana Gladkova, Chris Cardinal, Chris Brogan, Jennifer Leggio, Bernard Lunn, Joe Duck, Stephen Baker, Mike Gotta, Fred Wilson, Duncan Riley, Liz Gannes [...]
6 comments so far
4:41 PM PT
I too am unable to understand why investors even take a second look at those startups that rip off on others.
5:12 PM PT
Hi Liz - in the back rows, and completely agree. The ‘other inbox’ banter was very entertaining.
10:58 PM PT
@Danny B.
The ‘other inbox’ dialogue was certainly one of the most engaging moments of the day. Finally some honest debate.
5:14 AM PT
I don’t understand what “Enterprise” problems these are trying to solve. How about a better time sheet, or a better way to invoice customers or a better way to hire/fire people? Is it the Salesforce, Oracle and SAP have solved all of the problems worth solving? What I would have loved to see is a competitor to Salesforce. That would have been a great show.
My big problem is that no one today is really focusing on the Enterprise space. Social networks are all the rage, but I know most of my customers block Facebook an the like.
8:12 AM PT
i’m thoroughly confused about yammer - there is already a very solid ms-tech-based twitter clone called yonkly and it is open source! where are people? yonkly.com (and search for code via the site or elsewhere)
9:27 AM PT
enterprise software is where the action is at baby! interesting tools.