TechFlash: Seattle's Technology News

Adometry founder John Dietz could have kept growing his Redmond online advertising metrics company organically. After all, revenues were growing and the company was generating positive cash flow.

But Dietz decided it was the best time to sell. Why? "Our concern was that we wouldn't be able to compete with other companies moving into our field without funding or an acquisition," he says. As a result, Adometry announced today that it was being purchased by Austin, Texas-based Click Forensics. Terms weren't disclosed, but Adometry's five employees in Redmond will join the new operation.

The Redmond office also will remain open, and they may add some employees there.

Amazon.com plans to shut down AmazonTote, a pilot project in Seattle in which customers were able to order select products online and then have them delivered to their homes for free. We first got word of the service last summer when the company quietly rolled out the delivery service in Seattle's Madison Park neighborhood.

In a note to customers, the company said that it will no longer take orders for the service after 6 p.m. on March 3rd. It is also directing customers to the company's AmazonFresh grocery delivery service.

Here's the note that Amazon sent out to customers today:

BigTip, a stealth mode startup led by former RealNetworks and Yahoo employee Matt Rowlen, has raised $475,000 of a $600,000 round, according to a SEC filing today. The Kirkland company, which was founded last year, says it is trying to provide a fun way to bring merchants and consumers together.

We're looking forward to seeing everyone Tuesday night for the latest TechFlash Meetup. Come on out to the Spitfire in Seattle's Belltown neighborhood starting at 5 p.m. to mingle with other members of the tech community during this free event.

As part of the festivities, you’ll have the opportunity to compete for prizes in a TechFlash game night. We will bring along a few game boards of our own -- Settlers of Catan, anyone? -- but this event is predominantly BYOBG (bring your own board game).

Even if you're not into games, this is a great opportunity to network with startup entrepreneurs, developers and other TechFlash readers, whether you’re in the technology industry or just looking to plug into the Seattle tech community. It’s a free networking event with a no-host bar and food.

Scott Lipsky's new photo sharing service, PhotoRocket, blasted off today at the DEMO Spring conference in Palm Desert, California. The Seattle startup, which I've written about in the past, is attempting to make it dead simple for users to share photos with friends, family and social networking communities like Facebook, Flickr and Shutterfly.

The service is trying to differentiate from other photo sharing sites by allowing recipients to access photos without the hassle of logging in or downloading images. It also attempts to make it easy to find who sent images.

AT&T may have lost its exclusive arrangement to sell the iPhone. But the wireless carrier is picking up another gadget, and this one comes from Amazon.com. Today, AT&T announced that it will begin carrying the Kindle 3G at company-owned retail stores beginning March 6th.

Microsoft made a big splash in 2008 with the acquisition of Danger Inc., plopping down $500 million for the mobile technology company behind T-Mobile's iconic Sidekick device.

Gee, how'd that turn out?

Of course, the ensuing three years have been anything but smooth, with an October 2009 meltdown of the Microsoft/Danger servers leaving some of T-Mobile's most faithful customers fuming. Meanwhile, back at Microsoft, the company's attempt to leverage Danger's expertise resulted in the short-lived Microsoft Kin.

And here's the latest: T-Mobile and Microsoft will soon detail plans to transition away from the Danger servers that run the current generation of Sidekick devices.

Rob Glaser is returning to his roots. The well known Seattle entrepreneur who founded RealNetworks in 1994 today is launching a new online video startup called SocialEyes which allows users to record and send video messages to friends. It also allows users to engage in instant messaging chats related to video. The startup, which is headquartered in San Francisco and backed by Bellevue's Ignition Partners and Maynard Webb, is launching this week at the DEMO conference in Palm Desert, California.

Glaser is serving as a co-founder and chairman of the new company, with former Avogadro CTO and Microsoft veteran Rob Williams listed as CEO.

Here's a little-known fact about the film that won Best Documentary at last night's Academy Awards: Filmmaker Charles Ferguson's experiences with Wall Street -- while selling his company to Microsoft in the mid-1990s -- helped lead to the film, "Inside Job."

But the Redmond company probably won't be bragging about this particular behind-the-scenes role.

Ferguson was the chairman of Vermeer, the company behind the FrontPage web publishing software, when it sold to Microsoft for $133 million in 1996. Ferguson recounted to The Deal last year that he decided to sell the company without investment bankers after his initial discussions with some of them left a bad taste in his mouth.

Microsoft this morning announced a March 23 release date for Windows "Intune," a new online service for managing Windows PCs.

The company is aiming the service at businesses without full-fledged IT operations, hoping that they'll be interested in the types of PC management tools common among large enterprises. Microsoft is also pitching Intune as a way for IT departments to move into cloud-based operations.

Intune comes with a web-based console for managing, updating, monitoring and tracking all the computers in a particular company. The company previously announced a price of $11/month per PC for the service.

John Barbour, the former president of the GameHouse division at RealNetworks, has landed a new gig at educational toy maker LeapFrog Enterprises. Barbour spent nearly two years at RealNetworks, and before that he held a number of executive positions at Toys R Us.

Our guest this week is our former Seattle P-I colleague Art Thiel, the veteran Seattle sports columnist and co-founder/president of SportsPress Northwest, an online sports journalism venture. We talk about subjects including sports journalism in the digital age, how technology has changed the way teams and athletes communicate with fans, and the tech moguls behind the region's pro sports teams.

In our weekly news roundup, we talk about an innovative new travel technology startup, and the future of Microsoft's Kinect sensor.

Listen above or subscribe to the podcast using this RSS feed (http://feeds.feedburner.com/techflashpodcast), or via iTunes or Zune. Access the archive to hear full episodes of the podcast, and continue reading for links related to this week's episode. Here's the MP3 file.

Nate Nead is a first-year MBA student at The University of Washington. But he's getting a real-world lesson in business as the leader of DigitalSignage.com, a Seattle software startup that allows customers to remotely manage and schedule content for LCD displays. The company -- started in 2008 -- is profitable and growing. We chatted with Nead for the latest installment of Startup of the Week.

What’s your elevator pitch... DigitalSignage.com and DigitalMenu.net provides digital signage and digital menu board solutions to enterprise and entry-level clients across the globe. By providing hardware and software that allows business users to remotely control and schedule content on an unlimited number of digital displays, we give business professionals the ability to promote messages for internal corporate communications and customer engagement for advertising.

T-Mobile USA, hoping to lift itself out of fourth place in the U.S. mobile market, instead dug itself a little deeper in the fourth quarter, according to results released this morning.

The Bellevue-based wireless company posted net customer losses of 23,000 for the quarter, compared with 371,000 net customer additions for the same quarter a year ago. One bright spot, however, was an increase in its number of smartphone customers, which lifted its average revenue per user from data services.

Sujal Patel

It was late on Oct. 14 when Isilon Systems Inc. founder Sujal Patel decided he needed to book a red-eye flight to Boston to meet EMC Corp. boss Joe Tucci.

Up to that point, the two men had never met, even though EMC advisers had been talking with Seattle-based Isilon since April about buying the company.

EMC had offered Isilon $33 per share, and Patel and his team were discussing how to proceed. Patel called Tucci’s office to see if the two could meet.

The face-to-face the next day at Tucci’s office in Hopkinton, Mass., proved to be the turning point in negotiations, said Matt McIlwain, a managing director at Madrona Venture Fund in Seattle, which had invested heavily in Isilon and was one of its biggest shareholders.