Next Roundtable Thursday, December 10, 8 a.m. PST

This free, online mentoring roundtable is designed to help entrepreneurs further develop their business ideas.  It will begin at 11 a.m. EST/8 a.m. PST/9:30 p.m. IST.  You can find more details and register here.

Wall Street Pay, Bank Failure Risks Continue?

Andrew Ross Sorkin raises questions about the banks’ rushing to pay off their bail-out dollars, potentially jeopardizing their safety, again. Read Bailout Refund Is All About Pay, Pay, Pay. Very concerning! >>>

Deal Radar 2009: Apptio

Founded in 2007, Apptio is a provider of on-demand IT cost transparency solutions. It provides IT financial management (ITFM) software that helps CIOs run the business of IT. Apptio’s software provides greater visibility into the full cost to deliver IT Services, helps companies optimize their costs, improves productivity by automating key IT financial management processes and helps communicate the value of IT across business stakeholders. There are five distinct product modules focused on the fundamental IT financial processes: IT service costing, bill of IT, budgeting and forecasting, IT benchmarking, and service quality management. >>>

Teaching English to MNC Workforces: GlobalEnglish CEO Deepak Desai (Part 6)

SM: How many people are learning on GlobalEnglish today?

DD: About 130,000 people. We have a lot of TAM still available. Brick and mortars, traditional classroom providers, are still dominant. There are a few companies online as well. Englishtown is based out of Europe and is a subsidiary of English First, which is a huge brick and mortar business around $700 million to $800 million. >>>

Video Q&A on Gaming

Deal Radar 2009: Proofpoint

Founded in 2002, Proofpoint is a leading email security and data loss prevention solution provider. The company allows large enterprises to block spam, protect against email viruses, and ensure compliance with corporate policies and regulations through their messaging infrastructure. Launched in 2003, its flagship product, Proofpoint ENTERPRISE™, uses advanced statistical machine learning models, or “MLX technology”, to accurately identify spam using different attributes to differentiate between spam and valid email. >>>

Wireless Chips and IP: MRVL, IDCC, ARM, TSRA

It may still be a bit of a bumpy ride for semiconductor manufacturers, even as the smartphone market grows at a steady clip. According to Gartner, semiconductor revenue in 2010 is expected to increase 13% and rebound to 2008 levels of $255 billion as the PC market continues to strengthen, but in 2009, it is on pace to decline 11.4% to $226 billion. In 2010, PC shipments are projected to increase 12.6% to 336.6 million units. Let’s take a look at how Marvell and semiconductor IP players, ARM, Tessera, and InterDigital are benefiting from the recovering semiconductor market. >>>

Teaching English to MNC Workforces: GlobalEnglish CEO Deepak Desai (Part 5)

SM: As you have been building your business, what are the different geographic dynamics that you have been seeing? A lot of obvious applications are in India with the call centers business, where the accent in spoken English is a challenge. This seems like a perfect application to address that.

DD: We have some customers in India but not for that specific application. >>>