Enterprise collaboration and groupware company Intraspect Software has been sold to public company Vignette for $20m in cash and stock. Old Friend Tom Gruber has been CTO there for quite a few years, but I doubt he and other officers are going to get rich from this exit: according to Venture Source, Intraspect had raised almost $85m in seven rounds of financing since 1996, and at one time was valued at $135m post-money. The last round was $33m, so even a 1x liquidation preference will account for all of the acquisition price.

This one's a cautionary tale not only on the late-90's investing boom/bust (Intraspect's history covers nearly the whole saga), but on the long selling cycles and difficulty of extracting revenue from businesses for software of this type. Social Software advocates and investors take note.
2:40:52 PM    

Ex-Institute for the Future staffer Matthew Holt and I have been carrying on a background e-mail conversation about problems in health care, provoked by my screed on the wretched business conditions in California. Healthcare is a bit OT for this blog, but Matthew has posted parts of the discussion on his own healthcare blog, so I invite you to check it out there.
1:08:27 PM    

Doug Rushkoff comments sagely on the role of content as an excuse for communications, rather than a core value, in wireless mobile data. It's a lesson as old as Minitel and CompuServe. Why is it that phone companies of any description get into a lather and fancy themselves in the content business everytime they venture into a 'interactive' medium - when they already deliver the core value of interaction - communications? I've been seeing it since the abortive 'interactive TV' non-market of the early-90's, and I still don't get it. Hollywood envy? Something in the water?

Via Many-to-Many
12:58:00 PM