Microsoft acquires Intentional Software and brings old friend back into fold
Microsoft announced today that it was acquiring Bellevue-based Intentional Software for an undisclosed amount of money. With the purchase, Charles Simonyi, Intentional founder, Chairman, and CTO, who helped develop some of Microsoft’s famous Office tools like Excel and Word returns to Microsoft. Simonyi left Microsoft in 2002 to launch Intentional. While it’s not crystal clear… Read More Continue reading Microsoft acquires Intentional Software and brings old friend back into fold
For years we’ve been hearing about the promise of customer experience management, the notion that you can understand your customer at a highly detailed level and serve them the content, products, services and even ads that matter (or at least make sense) to them.
Sisense introduced a new tool today called Pulse, which uses machine learning to trigger an alert when it detects results outside of normal parameters for a particular metric. A user can set a Pulse alert to monitor a metric or KPI such as sales activity or win rate. The machine learning component watches the chosen metric and learns over time what’s normal. When it detects an… 
Synack, a startup that combines software security tools with a network of white-hat hackers to help keep its customers secure, announced a $21.25 million Series C funding round today. The round was led by Microsoft Ventures with participation from Hewlett Packard Enterprise and Singtel Innov8. Previous investors GGV Capital, GV (formerly Google Ventures) and Kleiner Perkins Caufield &… 
Microsoft has had a fair bit of investment action with InsideSales, the startup with a unicorn valuation of $1.5 billion, and today they are expanding that relationship with some product integration. The companies announced that InsideSales Playbooks will be available on the Microsoft Dynamics CRM platform. Playbooks offer customers a set of recommendations aimed at sales teams, such as the… 
Snowflake Computing, the company that built a Data Warehouse as a Service cloud solution, announced a $100 million Series D investment led by Iconiq Capital with help from Madrona Venture Group. Early investors Altimeter Capital, Redpoint Ventures, Sutter Hill Ventures and Wing Ventures also participated. Snowflake last raised $45 million in June, 2015. Today’s investment brings the… 
When I first met Cloudera CEO Tom Reilly in 2015 at the Intel Capital Summit, we were about to go on stage for a fireside chat to discuss among other things Intel’s massive investment in his company.