Earlier this week, Scoble called out to VCs to ask whether or not they support .NET in response to an eWeek article titled Is .Net Failing to Draw Venture Capital Loyalty? The responses I have seen from Rick Segal, Tim Oren, Ed Sim, and Bill Gurley are primarily qualitative, conceptual, and theoretical discussions about VCs, platforms, and how VCs think about (or don’t think about) investing in platforms. Rather than go down that path (as I generally agree with everything they said), I figured I’d try to be additive to the discussion by providing quantitative information from my active portfolio companies. All the companies I’m talking about are Mobius portfolio companies – but I’m only going to look at the ones I’m responsible for since I know their technology platforms off the top of my head and don’t have to ask my partners for any information (e.g. I can write this post in 15 minutes on a Saturday afternoon before a run.) I have 15 companies that I’m responsible for (I don’t sit on all the boards – Chris Wand who works with me has several of the board seats – they are all listed on my web site on the left sidebar if you want to take a look.) 6 of them use .NET in meaningful ways. They are as follows:

I was sitting in a meeting with Ryan McIntyre and his cell phone went off. His ringtone sounded vaguely familiar but I couldn’t quite place it. I told him. He laughed and reminded me about the story behind Hell Sink Ye. If you are looking for a new ringtone, try this. If you want a ring tone symphony, try this.

I was recently asked to write an article on “Work Life Balance” for the MIT Sloan School Alumni Magazine. I’m an MIT alum (‘87 and ‘88) and – when I asked what they were looking for – they told me “something personal that talks about how you’ve achieved it.” So – I sat down and cranked out the following. I hope it’s useful / inspiring / thought provoking for others out there in the world searching for the elusive “work life balance thing.”

I’m proud of all the companies I invest in, but I’m especially proud of the ones that just crank up the volume and get it done, especially in markets that other VCs say “eh – boring.” Rally Software is one of these – I’ve been an investor since it was started a couple of years ago and am having a great time watching Tim Miller, Ryan Martens, Don Hazell, and team create a business from scratch. Tim, Ryan, and Don all had a tenure at BEA and their experience and seasoning shows in everything they do.

I can’t remember why Tobias Wolff’s Old School ended up on my reading pile, but I grabbed it and tossed it in my bag for my trip to San Francisco. I mistakenly thought that Wolff had written a bunch of novels and that this was one of his “classics.” It turns out that Wolff is actually one of the great short story writers of our time (as well as a master of the memoir – e.g. This Boy’s Life). Of course, Amy has all of his other books which she just brought to me with a big smile (e.g. Brad – you philistine you).

Niel Robertson – the CTO of Newmerix – was interviewed recently about his “four rules of market timing” (as they apply to creating a company). Niel is a successful multi-time entrepreneur (and fellow MIT grad) that I’ve known for a decade. He was an early engineer at NetGenesis, co-founded Service Metrics (I was the lead investor – Service Metrics was acquired by Exodus in 1999) and co-founded Newmerix several years ago (again – I was the lead investor). Niel is also the proud owner of the nicest Ferrari in Boulder.

I’m a Firefox fiend (extension count going up daily; Greasemonkey security fears acknowledged) and I just found out that if you have multiple tabs, you can go to tab N by hitting Ctrl-N. If you are like me and can’t visually scan horizontally for numbers (e.g. I have to count from left to right to figure out which tab I’m at – minor dyslexia-like thing) there’s an extension that’ll number the tabs for you.

In the spring, NewsGator announced its Media Platform and a deal with the Denver Post. Today, the DenverPost.com released News Hound, their private-label RSS reader built on top of the NewsGator Media Platform. We’ve got a bunch of other media deals in the works, but this is the first one to ship. While News Hound is a standalone client (which the Denver Post wanted, vs. a web-based client), the integration with the overall platform (e.g. the NewsGator Media Platform) enables either a standalone client or a web-based client, or both.

Anthony Nassar, who publishes an ezine called Propel Your Venture, just published an interview with me that he did last month. Simultaneously, VC Experts reprinted a post that Jason Mendelson and I wrote on participating preferred stock called To Participate or Not.