Obama to choose Cisco CTO or D.C. CTO
President-elect Barack Obama has narrowed the field for the new federal chief technology officer job down to two candidates, BusinessWeek reports. Padmasree Warrior (pictured, left) comes with a wealth of corporate experience. She is the current chief technology officer of Cisco Systems Inc. [CSCO] and the former CTO of Motorola [MOT].
By contrast, Vivek Kundra (right) is a public sector IT pro, known for using technology to make government more open. He has been the CTO in the government of Washington, D.C. since 2007, where apparently he runs his staff like a startup, experimenting with new technologies, including social networking and cloud computing. One point of commonality: Both were born in India.
Intel's income drops 90%
Intel Corp. [INTC] saw its income all but disappear last year, with fourth-quarter net income plummeting 90% from the same quarter a year ago. The results, released Thursday, include a billion-dollar negative impact from the previously announced reduction in the carrying value of the company's investment in WiMax network developer Clearwire Corp. [CLWR]. "The economy and the industry are in the process of resetting to a new baseline from which growth will resume," says CEO Paul Otellini. "Intel will continue to extend its manufacturing leadership, drive product innovation, develop new markets and implement operating efficiencies that have already taken more than $3 billion out of our ongoing cost structure since 2006. Intel has weathered difficult times in the past, and we know what needs to be done to drive our success moving forward."
When asked how the earnings may have an impact on Intel Capital, the company's venture capital arm, a spokesperson says, "the business economy may effect the value of our portfolio, but our overall investment strategy is unchanged and there is not a direct effect from Intel's revenue." For months, Intel Capital CEO Arvind Sodhani has been taking an upbeat and indeed opportunistic view of the economy, in contrast to the scare tactics invoked by some other investors.
Twitter organizer Tweetdeck scores seed round
Tweetdeck Inc., a one-man startup that's quickly become one of the most popular programs for Twitter over the last six months, has raised a seed round of $500,000 led by New York's innovative incubator Betaworks. Tweetdeck creator Iain Dodsworth, a 34-yer-old Web developer in London, tells Behind the Money that he wrote the Tweetdeck program because he was frustrated with the single stream of Twitter tweets, which he found "overwhelming." Tweetdeck lets Twitter users organize tweets into more managable customized columns. He sent the program to 10 friends for fun and then watched in astonishment as Tweetdeck became an overnight hit, thanks to a glowing review by influential tech blogger Louis Gray who stumbled on it in the word-of-mouth "viral" way of social media. With backing from Betaworks and undisclosed others, Dodsworth plans to turn Tweetdeck into a real company, keeping the current consumer product free but charging for a more sophisticated "pro" version targeted at helping companies track what's said about them on Twitter and other social media services, such as FriendFeed.
Tumblr adds new features
Multimedia microblogging service Tumblr Inc. has added new features, including a new dashboard, a directory of third-party programs and a directory of third-party programs. The video below, created by Tumblr's 22-year-old founder, David Karp, explains the changes, as does a blog post by Spark Capital's Bijan Sabet. Tumblr recently raised $4.5 million from Spark and Union Square Ventures. Betaworks was an early backer.
