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| Publication: | Sydney Morning Herald |
|---|---|
| Date: | 4 March 2008 |
| Section: | Tech (IT) section |
START ME UP
By Nick Miller
It's been a banner week for Australian IT innovators. Next editor Nick Miller runs through a few choice start-ups and new projects.
The Monitoring Division at Australia's national ICT research institute NICTA has successfully spun out into a company, with $3.85 million in private funding. Monitoring Division Inc will use it to develop and sell its network performance intelligence technology. The first product is an optical signal-to-noise ratio monitor to help telecommunications companies and carriers measure the performance of the optical networks that carry data between cities and across the world. The new company has offices in Sunnyvale, California and Melbourne. Optical systems supplier Optium will be the first to use the new company's technology, in a solution to be available within a year.
* Job search website recruits4u.com.au soft launches this week, joining a crowded field. Founder Bill Angelidis says he decided to create the site while using Seek to find recruits for his IT services company, ASTA Solutions - he ended up with too many resumes and not enough genuine potential recruits.
"You can go online and get a car or a blonde but you can't find a Java programmer in Melbourne," Mr Angelidis says. The new site will charge a small fee for job seekers, or people interested in testing the job market, to put their profiles online. Businesses can search the database for free. Mr Angelidis says the site will initially focus on small to medium businesses and 18-35 year old recruits. It will not specialise in any industry and he wants to establish partnerships with universities and international schools to help graduates into jobs.
* BeamMe is a new company that provides a simple service: an icon for your website that sends a text message to the visitor's mobile phone. Director and co-founder Brad Down says he was amazed that no one had thought of it before.
"A friend complained to me that he was continually having to write down stuff like flight details and meeting addresses," Mr Down says. "I thought, why not make a button to send that information directly to your mobile?"
He's getting plenty of interest from businesses with Honda and business search site AussieWeb on board and some real estate classifieds sites examining the idea. It competes with SMSwebinfo and m.Net's Campaign Mobile platform. but Mr Down says his service is cheaper, stands alone and sends an SMS almost anywhere in the world. Surfers can test drive the service at Bestrestaurants.com.au.
* ZaaBiz, formerly LinkYa, is introducing sponsorship in its attempt to make a local, polished version of the LinkedIn professional networking site.
Chief executive Michael Brecht says he wants to broaden the idea to small and medium businesses and those outside the corporate IT sphere that's LinkedIn's focus. He is introducing speed networking events in the real world, where ZaaBiz members meet and socialise in the flesh and generate contacts and ideas.
Under the sponsorship model, professional groups pay to brand a group page on the site where members gather and exchange information and contacts.
* NineMSN-backed iSelect has competition, with the launch of moneytime.com.au.
Moneytime's site allows visitors to compare health insurance plans from a selected range of providers, comparing plan features. It will extend the same service to other areas such as financial, communications and energy products.
Similar sites in Britain such as moneysupermarket.com and confused.com are successful though they have recently hit controversy and attracted official scrutiny amid claims the sites don't educate consumers.
Independent financial advisers, furious at being gazumped, have complained to Britain's financial services regulator that the sites should follow stricter rules about making recommendations.
Disclosure: A Moneytime director is the writer's father.
NEXT FACTS
Want more start-up info? VS Consulting Group this week conducts an online Australian start-ups carnival at startups.sharmavishal.com.
Twenty-three young companies have registered to talk about their motivations and ambitions, the technologies they use, target markets, their mistakes, give advice and more. The carnival's founders say they want to "make this black art of starting up more open and easy".
The carnival started yesterday and will cover a handful of company profiles every day this week.