Graeme Thickins on Tech

Reflections & analysis about innovation, technology, startups, investing, healthcare, and more .... with a focus on Minnesota, Land of 10,000 Lakes. Blogging continuously since 2005.

Tag: Australia

Defrag 2010: A Chat With Atlassian

November 19, 2010 / / 2 Comments

On day two of the Defrag conference, I wanted to stop by the booth of Atlassian, a Gold Sponsor of Defrag. I was anxious to learn more about what I was hearing is a pretty freaking amazing company. Atlassian-logo You have to love the story: a couple of 22-year-old university dropouts in Sydney decide to start a company together, because they see problems with the state of enterprise software — it's expensive, difficult to configure, and requires huge investments in consulting to implement and years to deploy. So, they launch Atlassian in 2002, ship their first product, JIRA, and become profitable that first year. Fast forward to today: Atlassian has more than 20,000 customers and some 250 employees, on three continents. A few months ago, the company raised its first outside funding, to fuel even more growth: a $60-million investment from Accel Partners. You just don't hear too many stories of such rapid software startup success as this, certainly not coming out of Australia. (My own home country, I'm proud to say!) The company does so much to give back to the community, too, which is touched on in my interview, linked below. Atlassian-products Atlassian is really a different kind of software company, one that's rewritten the rules of enterprise software development and sales. Its bug tracking, collaboration and software development tools allow companies to work smarter and faster — and these tools are especially attractive for startups and small teams. Altassian offers a special package of six of its products, generally for up to 10 users each, for just $10. It's called the Starter program. But, get this: at Defrag 2010, I picked up on an even better offer for cash-strapped startups: how's free? Yes, lucky readers, it's the Free Starter program, which gets you fully functional licenses to all six products, including 12 months of support and updates. The promo code is ATLDEFR10 (and note the offer expires April 1, 2011). Now, let's get right to my interview so you can hear more about this amazing new breed of sofware company: Atlassian….

• Download or listen to my interview with Matt Hodges, a Product Marketing Manager for Atlassian who is now based in San Francisco… (MP3)

(UPDATE: For more on what Atlassian is doing to give back, I meant to inlude this link to a post on one of their blogs: Freemium is Dead…Long Live Causium.)

 

CES Post 4: Land of Oz Meets Vegas

January 8, 2007 / / 0 Comments

The Aussies banded together at CES this year, and did a nice job in with eight companies in one booth at the Hilton — which was called (of course) the Australia Pavilion. The whole effort was sponsored by the Australian Trade Commission and AEEMA, a computer industry association Down Under. I attended their press event at 11:00 this morning and met a number of the people involved, and later had time to catch at least one demo from the eight startups represented before I had to head off to the Yahoo press luncheon. Cesaussiebooth1

I met Angus Robinson, the CEO of AEEMA, based in Sydney…Barbara Adams, a U.S. representative of the Australian Trade Commission (based in Orange County, of all places!)…Annette Ahern, an Aussie based in Melbourne working for the U.S. Consulate there, and Aussie Susan Fitzpatrick, CEO of PR firm Dateline Media (Palo Alto, Sydney, and New York). They did a great job putting together this first-time organized presence for Australia at CES. (In addition to the eight companies in their booth, Robinson said there are an equal amount of other Aussie companies with their own individual booths in the show.)

AEEMA’s Robinson said his organization decided last year, after he had scoped out CES for the past three years, that this was the year to “show the world what Australia can do.” He said many technologies had their beginnings in Australia, including “the 802.11 wireless standard, the technology behind the Dolby headphone, the IMAX rolling loop, the electric drill, the inflight black box, the refrigerator, and more.”

Later, the one firm I got a chance to spend my limited time with I was really impressed with: Bluebox Devices, based in Melbourne. It has nothing less than a new “from the ground up digital media platform for the home.” I saw the concept demoed, and it was very cool. “It’s a complete on-demand digital content purchasing and management system for the mass market – TV, movies music, and other media types,” said Robert Yearsley, CEO. Cesbluebox

Interestingly, I also met an investor and board member of the company, an Australian named Ron Nissen, who’s now based in Milwaukee! He told that Bluebox lets people watch the content they want for free. “Basically, the pay TV model isn’t working, and free-to-air TV isn’t either.” I’m betting they can get the attention of the content and advertising industry in the U.S. A main objective of the firm is obviously to meet partners at CES, the CEO told me. One good one sauntered up while I was there, and quickly got his attention: Warner Brothers! I’m pulling for these guys, and have already suggested a potential funding partner that I know would like to hear about their technology.

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