Cisco Systems is integrating its TelePresence video collaboration technology and its unified communications products to create a health care platform designed to improve patient care in virtual physician visits. The platform, which will launch later in March, will allow more collaboration between doctors and patients, Cisco says.
- Cisco Systems is bringing together its TelePresence video collaboration technology and unified communications products to create a platform to enable better patient care in virtual settings. Cisco announced its HealthPresence platform March 1 at the HIMSS (Healthcare Information and Management S...

Seeking startup funding may soon get easier. A group of venture capital firms led by Andreessen Horowitz on March 1 unveiled a Web site www.seriesseed.com designed to streamline the way startups apply for seed funds, cutting the number of documents young companies need to fill out.

The Web site, formed with the help of startup lawyer Ted Wang, contains 30 pages of free documents entrepreneurs can fill out to apply for $300,000 to $1.5 million of initial funding. Typically, such documents run about 100 pages and have to be customized by lawyers. The 30-page term sheet would have to be customized as well, but it would dispense with some sections typically unnecessary for early-stage investments, such as those dealing with prior investors. The idea behind the effort is to “save start-ups time and money,” Wang tells Bloomberg BusinessWeek. “The negotiations process will also be shorter.”

Ten well-known venture firms have committed to accepting these so-called Series Seed Documents. They include Charles River Ventures, SV Angel, Polaris Ventures and Andreessen Horowitz, which is an investor into Web-calling company Skype and social games maker Zynga. “We are committed to making deals on these terms,” says general partner Ben Horowitz.

The venture firms hope others will end up supporting this effort as well. “I think this will become a new standard, and people will be able to raise money more quickly,” Wang says. Bloomberg LP or one of its subsidiaries is an investor in Andreessen Horowitz. Bloomberg LP also owns BusinessWeek.com.

I mentioned in an earlier post that Davos can be a catalyst for great ideas, and one example is the GreenXchange conceived by Nike. This morning Nike formally launched the Xchange at a CEO breakfast in Davos.

In an effort to get Skype onto more mobile phones, on Jan. 13 Skype appointed a new chairman. Miles Flint, who has served as an advisor to one of Skype investors, Silver Lake, and used to be president of Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications.

The appointment likely signals Skype's increasing determination to make further inroads into mobile, where it's not had as much traction as hoped. Several years ago, Hutchison Whampoa began offering 3 Skypephone. Skype has also made the service available as an application consumers can download onto some of the most popular smartphones, such as the iPhone. But Skype is yet to conquer mobile phones in a big way.

Flint may help change that. While at Sony Ericsson, he'd overseen the launch of popular phones like the Walkman line. And he may have the industry contacts and expertise necessary to launch more Skype-branded phones, and to get the software onto more handsets directly at the factory. He may also be able help Skype to make its software and its business model more attractive to handset makers and their carrier customers.

What's more, Flint also has connections and experience with consumer electronics other than mobile phones, having worked in marketing for Sony. Those connections could come in handy now: All consumer electronics, including digital photo frames, cameras and even televisions are getting connected to the Web. And Flint may be able to help Skype get onto more consumer electronics gear, wireless (as is increasingly the case) as well as hooked onto the Internet via cables.

Dell missed even modest expectations for its fiscal third quarter ended Oct. 30, but CFO Brian Gladden pointed to a sequential rise in fourth-quarter sales helped by the launch of Windows 7.

In its Nov. 19 earnings report, Dell said sales fell 15% to $12.9 billion. Net income fell by 54% to $337 million, or 23 cents per share after excluding certain one-time items. Wall Street analysts had expected Dell to earn 28 cents a share on sales of $13.1 billion. A year ago, Dell reported earnings of $727 million, or 37 cents per share, on $15.2 billion in sales.

Shares of Dell fell by nearly 6% in extended trading after the report. At the end of regular trading Nov. 19, Dell’s stock closed down 19 cents, or 1.2%, at 15.87.

The weakness was spread across nearly all of Dell’s businesses. Sales to large businesses bore the brunt of the declines as information technology departments continue to keep a tight rein on costs. Nearly 80% of Dell’s sales are to businesses and government customers. “We are losing share in the aggregate” because of a heavy reliance on commercial sales, Gladden told reporters during a conference call after the results were announced.

Dell didn’t see much benefit from Microsoft’s launch of its new Windows 7 operating system on Oct. 22, since Dell’s quarter ended eight days later. In the two weeks leading up to the launch, customers put off PC purchases to avoid buying machines with older software running on them, Gladden said. “We built a little backlog as a result, and we’ll ship through that in the fourth quarter,” he said.

Dell’s gross profit margin came in at 17.3%, or 18.3% after excluding one-time expenses related to the closure of a plant in North Carolina. Shaw Wu, an analyst at Kaufman Bros., said he was expecting an 18.6% profit margin in a Nov. 19 research note.

Dell’s consumer sales fell by 10% during the quarter, but Gladden said Dell “walked away from some retail business during the quarter” that wasn’t acceptably profitable in order to preserve margins.

Turn back to BusinessWeek.com later tonight for a full report on Dell’s third quarter, and a look at what’s ahead for the company.

I blogged this morning over at Byte of the Apple about Dell's debut of its long-awaited smart phone over in China, given that the release comes on the heels of Apple's not-so-successful launch of the iPhone in China. I suggested that since the Chinese clearly don't want to pay a lot for their iPhones, maybe Dell can carve out some decent volume if the Mini3 is priced for the mass market. Trouble is, as Jared Newman at PCWorld points out, Dell is being coy about details such as price.

Here's what Dell is saying, beyond the press release, on its Direct2Dell blog.

Not since the launch of the iPhone in 2007 has the announcement of a new product had as dramatic an effect on the competitive landscape of the smartphone business as did yesterday's Verizon Wireless release of the Motorola Droid. The day after Droid, the handset, wireless networks, mapping, and navigation markets all look very different.

Although the Droid handset itself is a very nice piece of hardware, the real news here is Google's Android 2.0 software. This major overhaul of the operating system and basic applications has taken Android from an interesting wannabe to a top-tier contender in the mobile software market. And the inclusion of Google Maps Navigation, with its free real-time, turn-by-turn driving instructions turns the nav business on its head.

The coming of age of Android could be very bad news for the weaker competitors in the smartphone business. Droid is no iPhone killer--the idea is silly--but it is a viable competitor. At worst, Apple's penetration into the market will grow a bit more slowly.

Who was the big winner of today's much-hyped Droid launch?

Sure, the warm reception that the new Android-based smartphone is receiving is a big win for all of the parties involved: Verizon Wireless, Motorola and Android-maker Google. (Personally, I was impressed by the phone, and thought it represented a nice package of features, design and functionality.)

And the stock market seemed to agree. Today, Verizon's stock was up nearly 3% and Motorola's stock was up 1%, while the Nasdaq tanked nearly 3%. Google fell about 1.5%. And Apple took a hit, falling 2.5%.

But I'd venture to say that Motorola was the big winner, if only because the company was in such desperate need of a win. After all, the cell phone biz is a hits-based business. A best-selling product can reverse a company's fortunes quickly, as Motorola has seen first with its popular StarTAC, and then with the Razr line of devices.

Since Motorola has bet the farm on Android, technologists and investors would have lost a whole lot more confidence in the company's ability to manage a turnaround if it blew this launch. There was so much at stake with Droid that they had to nail it, or come close to nailing it.

At today's unveiling at the W Hotel in New York City, Verizon Wireless Chief Marketing Officer John Stratton went out of his way to pump up the fallen icon. "This is a new Motorola," said Stratton. "We took a chance, some would say a big risk at this early stage in their turnaround. But I am delighted at the level and quality of work. We will continue to work with Motorola."

Motorola co-chief executive Sanjay Jha, who seemed nervous at first, grew more comfortable as the event wore on and the media got their hands on the devices. Next year, Jha said Motorola would release at least 20 Android-based handsets. The strategy, he said, is to offer more smartphones for the lower end of the market, as well as selling more devices around the world. "Android is evolving faster than any other platform," said Jha.

For now, though, Jha was all about the Droid, claiming it was the world's best current smartphone.

Stratton agreed wit Jha's assessment, arguing that the Droid could "compete head to head" with the Apple iPhone. But he acknowledged that consumers would be the ultimate judge. "The market will tell us how well we did," said Stratton.

- Spencer Ante also publishes the Creative Capital blog. Click here to read more.

Cisco updated its portfolio of Integrated Services Routers to coincide with the launch of Borderless Networks, intended as Cisco’s next-generation architecture for network infrastructures. Here’s a look at the new products.

SCOTTSDALE, AZ–(Marketwire - October 27, 2009) - BroadSoft Connections 2009 (Booth #5) - Adaption Technologies, Inc. the nation’s first provider of fully automated and scalable IP solutions, announces the launch of the Rialto® SaaS solution for VoIP providers of all sizes. Rialto® enables services providers to easily define new services and packages, provide end-to-end automated flow through of …

SCOTTSDALE, AZ–(Marketwire - 10/27/09) - BroadSoft Connections 2009 (Booth #5) - Adaption Technologies, Inc. the nation’s first provider of fully automated and scalable IP solutions, announces the launch of the Rialto SaaS solution for VoIP providers of all sizes. Rialto enables services providers to easily define new services and packages, provide end-to-end automated flow through of service …

Talks to bring the Apple iPhone onto Verizon Wireless's network might have broken down, according to an Oct. 20 note from Sanford C. Bernstein analyst Craig Moffett. "Looking ahead, Verizon may have provided a clue as to the state of its (presumed) efforts to land a CDMA version of the iPhone for its network when it recently started airing 'iDon't' advertisements bashing the device," Moffett writes. "The ads set the stage for the launch of a competing device, the Motorola Droid, powered by Google's Android operating system. Running negative ads bashing the iPhone seems an improbable way to win friends in Cupertino; it is not implausible, then, to guess that the new Droid campaign might signal a breakdown in relations between the two firms."

The negative ad campaign points out many of the iPhone's shortcomings, such as inability to run applications in the background. And it's a risky move: Until now, most carriers hadn't dared to compare their smartphones with the iPhone, though Sprint Nextel had designed a Web site comparing its Samsung Instinct with the legendary Apple device. So far, I don't know of a single iPhone-bashing campaign that worked.

There's a possibility that Verizon Wireless is simply using the negative campaign to apply more pressure on Apple to come to an agreement. Or, Moffett might be right, and instead of waiting for Apple to come around and offer the iPhone through Verizon, Verizon Wireless is now betting the house on rival makers' smartphones.

I just received an e-mail invitation to a Sept. 10 Motorola event in San Francisco. The invite provides no details on the mysterious event, but it features the fun little robot that represents Android, which is software for mobile phones created by a coalition of companies led by Google.

Clearly, it's not a stretch to call this invite what it is: An invitation to the launch of Motorola's first Android-based phone.

This launch is a huge deal. The ailing handset maker, whose market share has dwindled precipitously in recent years on failure to come up with best-selling products, has effectively bet the company on the success of its new line of Android-based devices. Its first phone's design and capabilities will offer a glimpse at whether Moto has succeeded or failed in that mission.

Blogs are already full of pictures of the phone Moto will supposedly announce; here's a link to one of the more credible ones. Is this phone for real? Will it impress analysts, carriers and consumers alike? We'll have to wait until Sept. 10 to find out.

After rumors of an impending deal leaked two days earlier, MySpace officially announced its acquisition of music startup iLike on Wednesday. Though terms of the deal were not disclosed, AllThingsD reported that the unit of News Corp. paid $13.5 million in cash upfront, and promised an additional $6 million to retain founders Ali and Hadi Partovi and other iLike talent.

Years after its launch in 2002, iLike found its greatest success in becoming the de facto music player on the social networking pages of MySpace rival Facebook. Lacking its own music service, and acknowledging the popularity of iLike on its site, Facebook changed the name of the application in its menus to just "Music" in April. Of iLike's 50 million registered users, 31 million installed the music player on their Facebook pages.

There are no plans to disrupt the use of iLike on Facebook or any other sites, MySpace CEO Owen van Natta said on a call with the media. On the contrary, he thinks the service could help MySpace extend its reach to more areas of the Web. "This marriage has to do with a distributed Web and how it is the Web can serve our users in a more distributed way," said Owen van Natta, a former executive of Facebook hired by News Corp. in April.