So – Jonathan Schwartz – Sun’s President – blogged about Sun’s offer to let people try a Niagra server free for 60 days. According to Jonathan: The program started off slowly – partly due to internal disbelief (there’s a long story, there), but secondarily, our focus group feedback suggested no one believed we’d actually send them a free Niagara. So let me reiterate: go to sun.com, fill out the form, we’ll send you the fastest server on earth, absolutely free. If you don’t like it, we’ll send someone to pick it up.

I woke up this morning feeling like brogging about a few of the companies I’ve invested in. It’s easy today since they are announcing meaningful customer implementations which are a very good thing for a young company. I already talked about NewsGator Enterprise Server and Law Firms; next up is Oxlo and GM. Oxlo announced that its product has been implemented at six dealer service providers with integration in the GM Retail Inventory Management (RIM) implementation. This is a key integration for Oxlo as they are now “in production” with GM. RIM is a sophisticated bi-directional real-time integration between GM and their Dealers – this integration enables GM and their Dealers to more efficiently manage parts inventory at the Dealership – saving both GM and the Dealer inventory expense in the process.

NewsGator announced that Dykema – a large midwest law firm – has implemented NewsGator Enterprise Server. Dykema has 10 offices and 800 users nationwide and they wanted integration with Microsoft Outlook. After considering several RSS aggregators that integrate directly with Outlook on the desktop (including NewsGator’s), Dykema determined that it was much more effective to use NewsGator’s Enterprise Server product and integrate with Microsoft Exchange (and correspondingly have seamless integration with Outlook, yet the benefits of centralized administration and no additional software on each desktop.) This is especially helpful in a multiple location (in this case – 10 site) implementation. 

At dinner last night, Chris, Jason, and I were talking about ice over dinner last night (as we were drinking our glasses of water – with ice in them.) Chris had recently seen this CNN clip about the “Dirty Ice Problem in Restaurants.” My favorite quote: “Fecal matter in ice is a serious problem.” Yuck. Room temperature beverages for me going forward.

One of the neat things about having a blog is getting feedback that actually teaches me something. I got a note from Brad Hugg that explained some stuff on 911 after I posted about the struggle I was having with Vonage and 911. Following are Brad’s comments, which are worthy of posting if only that he has a great first name. Back in 1995, I was one of two founding partners in a company called 911 Datamaster. We provided local PC/LAN based databases for 911 systems. Think of it this way, SCC Communications/Intrado provided data warehousing and database services for the Regional Bell Operating Companies (US West, PacBell, et al) and we provided the same service on a local basis to everyone else that wanted/needed to maintain local control over the 911 database….(an interesting side note for you is that a lot of Alaska landlines are actually covered by my old data base). Local phone companies, CLEC’s, military bases, nuclear facilities, etc. all were mandated by law to provide 911 services if they were going to provide local dial-tone. Before the Telecommunications Act of ’96, 911 services were farmed out to the Bell companies, and then eventually to Intrado. All we did was provide the same class of services to an entirely new market segment…nice opportunity!

I got a note from Jim Moore this morning that he, members of the Berkman Center, and the Berkeley China Internet Project have started a blog to keep pressure on Google regarding China. There’s plenty of meaty (and some entertaining) stuff there if you are interested in this issue. Hopefully, by posting this, I’ll get my blog blocked in China.

After trying a few different address combinations, I finally figured out that Vonage’s 911 address database must suck. Here’s the deal. I don’t actually have a legal physical address. I’ve mentioned this before in conjunction with issues I’ve had around the Patriot Act. I came up with a solution that solves the Patriot Act issue (that the USPS will accept without rejecting my mail). Occasionally it’s annoying (e.g. when someone tries to send a Fedex to my PO Box – yes – that still happens), but I generally ignore the fact that I’m theoretically off the grid since I have a T1 line coming into my house (thanks Qwest).

I got an email from Vonage today that they had completed 911 Dialing activation for my Vonage line. That’s good, I guess. However, even though my phone number is a (303) number (Colorado), they had my Alaska address on the 911 alert. I have no idea how they picked this address since both my Billing Address and Shipping Address on Vonage are Colorado addresses (not my home address – a PO Box.)

Jeff Bussgang – a GP at IDG Ventures in Boston – has a good post up on the dynamics – from both an entrepreneurs perspective and a VC perspective – on syndicating deals.