Citrix Buys Cloud.com for More Than $200 Million; Redpoint Is on a Roll

TechCrunch has learned that Citrix Systems is buying Cloud.com for between $200 million and $250 million. The deal should be announced within the hour. Cloud.com gives companies their own private EC2-like infrastructure. The team has built the company in just a few years, boasting massive clients with demanding infrastructure needs like Zynga, Tata, and other huge undisclosed tech names. Cloud.com was funded by Redpoint Ventures, Nexus Capital and Index Ventures.

Of course the big question is with things going so well, why would Cloud sell? In a Valley where companies are either huge and take forever to build or wind up being a quick flip worth less than $100 million, deals this size have become rare. And closing one just two years after its first venture round having raised just $20 million in funding is even rarer. Perhaps the offer was just too life changing for the entrepreneurs to pass up. Who are we to judge that?

This is another exit for Redpoint Ventures who was the first money in and is having quite a year. Clearwell was bought by Symantec for $390 million. Qihoo went public and is now boasting a $2.5 billion market capitalization. Home Away went public too; it’s now worth $3.3 billion, and Redpoint owns 26% of it. Responsys also went public and is valued at $760 million. Redpoint was the first money in Cloud.com, so although the purchase price isn’t as big, it’s still a nice multiple.

Hashable Turns Inward With A Quiet Redesign

Some people like to broadcast every moment of their lives, but when you are dealing with business contacts that tends to be more of a private activity. Mobile startup Hashable is learning that helping people over-share is not always the right way to go.

The company pushed out a significantly redesigned app for both iPhone and Android which changes the focus to more of a personal mobile CRM app for professionals. You can still use Hashable as a digital replacement for business cards, but instead of encouraging users to broadcast each meeting, the default is now private.

The hash button is now front and center, enticing you to record your meetings. Some of the new features include the ability to add private notes about contacts and set up reminders for yourself that populates your calendar. The address book, which brings in contacts from both email and Twitter, now lists people in reverse chronological order based on your last interactions with them. It also is easier to send follow-up emails or Tweets right from the app.

“The service has really morphed into a mobile CRM,” says CEO Michael Yavonditte. “Our heaviest users preferred more privacy, less broadcasting.”

Despite pushing hard and growing steadily, Hashable only has about 60,000 active users. (Chief marketing officer Emily Hickey recently left the company). The redesign should appeal more to hardcore networkers and other serious users. And now the company plans to make a big push with its Android app (which lets you bump phones to exchange contact information via an NFC chip).

The focus now is very much on helping people manage their business lives rather than boasting about who they #justmet.

Video: Home Security System Uses Radio Signals To Detect Intruders

Video and infra-red were yesterday: Japan’s National Institute of Information and Communications Technology, the NICT, is working on a home security and monitoring system that’s entirely based on radio signals. The main advantage of the so-called “RAdio-wave Mesh for Intruder Detection System” (RAMIDS) is that there are no blind spots in the areas screened anymore.

The system consists of a transmitter and antennas that detect changes from the signal’s amplitude and phase. Depending on a threshold value set beforehand, an alarm is triggered every time an event in the room is monitored and causes a change (for example, when a window is being opened).

What’s interesting is that RAMIDS can also be used in aged care. In rest rooms, for example (where video cameras can’t be installed for obvious reasons), the system could detect unusual behavior, i.e. when people who have entered the rest room stop moving for a certain period of time.

This video, shot by Diginfonews in Tokyo, shows RAMIDS in action:

Palm: Not Waving But Drowning

I’ve been trying to maintain a bullish stance on Palm and WebOS and I’m still a big fan of the Touchpad. But with the loss of CEO Jon Rubinstein I wonder if the “webOS global business unit” née Palm is serious about the platform and if the unrest (which we first learned about on June 15 thanks to a tipster who told us Rubinstein was on his way out), continues, I suspect it may be curtains for the last great hope to offer an alternative to the Android/iOS juggernaut.

While I’m not about to ascribe Rubinstein’s passing to signs of Palm’s re-demise, I have heard of complaints of a “toxic” atmosphere at HP and the problems associated with shoehorning what was, at its core, a start-up into the dark, cadaverous corpus of Hewlett-Packard. As I noted here, HP isn’t after the glamor and glitz of the early adopter. Early adopters wouldn’t be caught dead lugging an HP around, just as they’d rather take in an evening of unlicensed dental surgery than look at “chic” devices like Dell’s failed Adamo line. You can put a pig in a dress and call it Pearl but you wouldn’t want to take said pig to dinner and then dancing at the school cotillion. Many have tried, HP included.

HP is an non-ego enterprise play and Rubinstein was an egoist in the best way. He was able to push through sweeping changes at Palm that essentially resurrected the company in the eyes of many and offered a strong alternative to the phone of the moment. WebOS was a reverse mullet, party up front, business in the back, and people loved it.

I’m worried that this time Palm won’t make it through another two years without being subsumed by HP. WebOS will exist, but it will be a shell over Windows. WebOS will exist but it will be used to improve printer interfaces. WebOS will exist but it probably won’t ride around in our pockets for much longer.

I want this screed to be untrue. I want WebOS to return, Phoenix-like, to the mobile space. They have, so far, impressed me. But I wonder how much longer they can impress the suits at HP.

Matt Grob Appointed As Qualcomm's CTO

Qualcomm has turned to its own ranks for its next executive vice president and Chief Technology Officer. Long-time employee and current senior vice president Matt Grob was just appointed to the post after spending the last 20 years at the company. The previous CTO, Roberto Padovani, is staying on board as an executive vice president and will continue to look over the company’s R&D and emerging technology efforts.

Matt Grob started at Qualcomm in 1991 as an engineer and worked on key advances. He contributed and provided leadership for early CDMA data services, the Globalstar satellite system and even 1x EV-DO wireless Internet access. Later, he was in a leadership role during the development of advanced 3G technologies. Matt knows wireless communication and cellular technologies; he holds 60 patents in the fields.

“Matt’s focused leadership and his vision into new technology horizons make him ideally suited to lead Qualcomm’s innovation agenda as chief technology officer,” said Dr. Paul E. Jacobs, chairman and CEO of Qualcomm.  ”For nearly 10 years, Roberto has played a pivotal role in establishing Qualcomm’s reputation for technology excellence.  We are fortunate that Qualcomm will continue to benefit from his seasoned expertise.”

Grob was promoted to senior vice president of Corporate R&D in 2006. He plans to continue his work in this area which most recently included wireless charging, peer-to-peer technologies and exploring the possibilities of Augmented Reality.

Matt Grob Appointed As Qualcomm’s CTO

Qualcomm has turned to its own ranks for its next executive vice president and Chief Technology Officer. Long-time employee and current senior vice president Matt Grob was just appointed to the post after spending the last 20 years at the company. The previous CTO, Roberto Padovani, is staying on board as an executive vice president and will continue to look over the company’s R&D and emerging technology efforts.

Matt Grob started at Qualcomm in 1991 as an engineer and worked on key advances. He contributed and provided leadership for early CDMA data services, the Globalstar satellite system and even 1x EV-DO wireless Internet access. Later, he was in a leadership role during the development of advanced 3G technologies. Matt knows wireless communication and cellular technologies; he holds 60 patents in the fields.

“Matt’s focused leadership and his vision into new technology horizons make him ideally suited to lead Qualcomm’s innovation agenda as chief technology officer,” said Dr. Paul E. Jacobs, chairman and CEO of Qualcomm.  ”For nearly 10 years, Roberto has played a pivotal role in establishing Qualcomm’s reputation for technology excellence.  We are fortunate that Qualcomm will continue to benefit from his seasoned expertise.”

Grob was promoted to senior vice president of Corporate R&D in 2006. He plans to continue his work in this area which most recently included wireless charging, peer-to-peer technologies and exploring the possibilities of Augmented Reality.

Vroom! Ignite Raises $7.5 Million For New Live Auto Racing Game

Online gaming company Ignite Game Technologies has raised $7.5 million in Series B financing from private investors in a round led by Steve Bellotti and Bill Budinger.

The company raised a $3 million Series A round in 2010 and has raised a total of $12.2 million in funding.

The company will use the additional capital for the development of a “new form of auto racing game”.

Exactly when it will launch and what it will bring to the table remains unclear. The company operates a website at SIMraceway.com where you can sign up for a beta of a game, which I assume is the one they’re referring to, although this wasn’t made clear in the press statement.

In it, the startup posits that it will provide gamers with an entirely new online auto racing experience that is “bound to shake up traditional racing gameplay” by emphasizing live online multiplayer gaming, a high-fidelity physics engine and “proprietary player skill quantification technology”.

The product will debut later this year in the fall.

Ignite is based in San Francisco and founded in 2008 by Jonathan Haswell and James Synge.