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Fabrizio Capobianco, founder of Funambol, the open source mobile cloud company, today announced that he is stepping down as CEO of the company. Amit Chawla has been appointed CEO to expand the company’s global footprint with carriers and enterprises. Capobianco will assume the positions of President and Chairman of the Board, where he will focus on the company’s strategic direction and partnerships.

Update: Fabrizio explains his move on his blog.

“Amit’s extensive telco and operational background will help Funambol get to the next level,” said Fabrizio Capobianco, Funambol President and Board Chairman. “I am thrilled that Amit has joined us and look forward to teaming with him to take the company to new heights.”

Amit Chawla previously was CEO of enterprise mobility specialist Agito Networks, which was acquired by ShoreTel, where he guided the firm from an early stage startup to the acquisition. As CEO of NexVerse Networks, Chawla spearheaded the merger with a division of ECI Telecom to form Veraz Networks which was listed on the NASDAQ in 2007.

“Funambol is the leader of open source mobile cloud sync solutions for billions of phones and connected devices,” said Amit Chawla as newly appointed CEO. “The company’s technology is widely deployed by major mobile companies worldwide. We now have the opportunity to significantly grow this success by expanding Funambol’s global carrier footprint and enterprise adoption.”

My opinion is that Funambol is bringing on Chawla for his major experience in successfully exiting similar businesses, and thus is preparing a huge M&A or IPO in the near future. Funambol has raised close to $20 million to date and is now experiencing unprecedented demand for its open source mobile cloud software. The company recently signed its 50th Carrier Edition customer, including several tier-1 carriers and device makers. Ten companies are launching services based on Carrier Edition this quarter..

Funambol was founded by two italians in Silicon Valley, it has its headquarters in Redwood City and a major tech development center in Pavia, Italy.

This is a guest post from Jasmine Stephenson, she is a freelance writer and travel blogger. She is currently exploring South America. She is also a guest blogger for Pounding the Pavement and a writer on the subject of becoming a nail technician for the Guide to Career Education.

Advice on if an MBA for entrepreneurs is necessary varies widely and remains a controversial subject. As an entrepreneur, you may have a solid idea and sufficient funding. However, doubts linger about whether you are educated enough to open a business or if you’d benefit from an MBA. Here we’ll take a look at the pros and cons of each to help make your “back to school or not” decision easier.
Pro: Networking opportunities abound.
Depending on the type of business you’re thinking of starting, networking within your graduate school can be a great benefit. School opens you up to professors, advisors, and classmates who are all interested in creating success in business. You may find a potential partner, expound upon your existing idea, or open up word-of-mouth working avenues.
Con: It doesn’t guarantee success.
No matter how many degree titles you can tack on the end of your name, none of them is a guarantee for success. More and more college graduates are complaining about lack of job opportunity due to high unemployment rates and increased competition. In fact, several famous entrepreneurs have been able to enjoy excessive success without a college education, namely Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, and Walt Disney.
Pro: Gain skills you don’t have.
You might be a naturally persuasive salesman, have a knack for numbers, or be an effective communicator. While you shine in one area, you may lack in others. Going to school for an MBA will empower you with skills you don’t possess, such as accounting techniques, marketing tips, and budgeting.
Con: It won’t matter to your clients or partners.
When is the last time you went to buy a product or utilize a company’s service, then hesitated at the counter before asking, “Wait a minute. Does the owner have an MBA?” Never. If your company shows promise, your products and services are of superior quality, and you are a reliable provider, no one will think about or care if you have an MBA diploma hanging on your wall.
Pro: Gain valuable insight from professors.
If you’re planning on attending a top-notch university, you’ll benefit from knowledgable professors. Hopefully, your instructors will have experience in the field in all aspects of business, from marketing to managing client relationships to standing out from the competition. These veteran professionals will be able to share insight with you that you would not have received otherwise.
Con: It’s cost prohibitive.
Let’s face it – getting an MBA isn’t inexpensive, with costs averaging at about 20,000 Euros. To pay for this degree, you’ll have to either drain your savings or take out a loan. Ask yourself if it’s worth the financial damage to earn this degree? Also consider if this money would best be used as an investment in your startup as opposed to in school.
Pro: Find inspiration through concrete examples.
Dedicated entrepreneurs will spend time reading case studies, marketing psychology books, and biographies of successful people. The reality, however, is that it is a small minority of people who have this dedication, drive, and insight to look for these solid real-life examples. Being enrolled in an MBA program, however, will guarantee your exposure to role models and success stories. Not only will these provide a source of encouragement, but will also show you the tactics, personality traits, and decisions that foster success in business.
Con: You’ll lose time.
A master’s in business administration program normally takes one to two years, depending on whether a part-time or full-time path is chosen. If you do decide to pursue the MBA, you won’t even begin to start your company for another one to two years. On the flip side, in two years, you could have already had 24 months’ worth of experience building your company, ironing out
kinks, and perfecting your product or service. A year or two is a lot of time to spend in school if you feel ready to start your business now.

So the time of the year has come when everyone involved in the EU startup scene begins to book his tickets, look for a couch to crash on and buy his LeWeb tickets.

The major european tech conference is on again, in Paris on the 9th and 10th of December. The speakers are the top of the line you’d expect and they include: Gary Vaynerchuk, Yossi Vardi, Alexander Tamas, Barry E. Silbert, Robert Scoble, Kevin Rose, Dave McClure, Matt Mullenweg, Marissa Mayer, Phil Libin, Salim Ismail, David Hornik, Dennis Crowley, Jeff Clavier and dozen of others.

Also, there’ll be the classic startup challenge hosted by TechCrunch, and the 16 finalists that are going to present are:

• Badgeville Inc (NETHERLANDS)
• Cauwill Technologies (IRELAND)
• City M (FRANCE)
• Desk.io GmbH (GERMANY)
• Fiddme (ISRAEL)
• Garmz (AUSTRIA)
• Greendizer (FRANCE)
• GreenPocket GmbH (GERMANY)
• Nuji (UNITED KINGDOM)
• Praized Media Inc. (CANADA)
• Smallrivers (SWITZERLAND) (Paper.li)
• Super Marmite (FRANCE)
• Tagattitude (FRANCE)
• Tinypay.me (NETHERLANDS)
• Waze (ISRAEL)
• Work4 Labs (FRANCE/USA)

Expect some major coverage on this very blog.

I attend a LOT of conferences, and I must say that last year’s Europas was by far the best one. Kudos to Mike and co for hosting it.

As expected, Techcrunch is hosting it again this year. The 2010 edition will be held in London on november 19th, the venue will be the amazing Paramount (Top floor, Centre Point, 101-103 New Oxford Street, London WC1A 1DD).

If you’re into the eu startup scene, you should most definitely attend. Grab your tickets here.

23, a Copenhagen based “startup” that is offering photo tools since 2004, is introducing its Video product, believing that the “videosite” is the new way to work with online video.

So far organizational use of video on the web has been about embedding clips from centralized services like Youtube. Having your own videosite with its own domain, own design and own videoplayer have been for the few. This has hindered the adoption of video in organizations along with innovative uses of video. Even using enterprise video solutions, you had to build a website and then integrate the video solution into it. This has made videosites cumbersome and complex, requiring large budgets and well-proven business cases. 23 Video changes this by being a full video website, a videosite, out of the box combined with industry leading video capabilities. This makes it possible to start a videosite in minutes and customize it to your organization’s needs in days.

23 Video’s pricing is also very interesting, it’s a one-size-fits-all scheme, with a single $675 plan, this includes a .tv domani and 1 Terabyte of traffic per month. I think this is very affordable.

“During our preview period, we’ve already seen multiple customers creating several videosites. That’s our vision, to turn creating a new site into something you just do in an organization when an opportunity or need arises. With your web designer or agency to help you customize and design the videosite, just like they’d normally do for any other website.” says Steffen Tiedemann Christensen, co-founder of 23.

Industry analysts Gartner estimates 25% of organizational communication and interaction to be video-based in 2013.

“We’re just starting to scratch the organizational potential for using video. Organizations are reinventing how they communicate by shifting from text-centric websites to videosites.” says Thomas Madsen-Mygdal, co-founder of 23.

23 Video is also announcing that it launches with one hundred partner partners in more than 10 countries and an open partner program to engage even more as they decide to work with web agencies, communication agencies, advertising agencies and innovation consultancies that are using 23 Video to build videosites for their customers

Some of the main features are:
- HD video
- Full analytics giving you feedback on plays, engagement time and playthrough percentage.
- Templating and design modules to make designing easy.
- Distribution of your videos via Facebook, Twitter, Google Video, podcasts and Youtube.
- Videos playable anywhere on any device from mobile phones and iPads to Apple TV.
- Global distribution making your videosite quickly accessible from around the globe.
- Open Upload allowing users to easily upload videos to your videosite.
- Controlling access to your videosite. For example, making the videosite accessible only to your intranet or for paying visitors.
- Full API allowing easy integration with other systems such as SharePoint.

I think this will probably be a cash cow, we’ll see how much it can scale.

This post originally appeared on Jesper’s blog, he is a danish Bocconi graduate, who is in the process of launching his own TLC startup in Italy.

Following the interesting and lively debate about the Italia startup environment kicked off by he founders of Mashape and followed up by Stefano Bernardi, I want to add my point of view of the startup environment in Milan as I have experienced it. Particularly, I like a lot of the ideas and comments to the two blogs about an Italian eco-system and how we can improve the conditions for startups and entrepreneurs in Italy.

My perspective is after finishing a graduate degree at Bocconi and working on a startup idea in the Italian ICT sector for the past year. After two years at Bocconi it is hard to come away with any other conclusion that it is every young Bocconi students’ wet dream to either work in fincance, consulting or for a huge multinational corporation. That can be fine as well but it means that you’re an outsider if you want to start a business and while the US celebrates failure, it is scorned upon in Italy.

It is true that a major problem in Italy is the culture, and most Italians never fail because they never try. I had no contacts in the industry we’re trying to start a company in and yet I have received advice and help from Italian top executives and successful Danish entrepreneurs as well as been introduced to Italian VCs and angels. My experience has been that people are extremely helpful when you approach them as well-prepared and with an open mind.

First of all, there is only one elective in English at Bocconi focused on entrepreneurship and having taken that elective it leaves a lot to be desired. The ideas people had for startups and business plans were mostly very poor and showed the classical mistake to focus much more on the idea than the execution (Italian restaurant in Dubai anyone? Also we have no competitors were often considered to be a good thing).

The problem as Stefano pointed out, is simply that the pool of potential entrepreneurs is extremely small. Therefore the ideal strategy is to bring as many of these people together as often as possible.
What really disappointed me in my experience with the University here is the complete lack of interaction between the different universities. Why aren’t there common classed for CS students from Politecnico, business students from Bocconi and the Design students from Marangoni for example? Interesting things happen when people who think differently meet and I think this is vastly misisng in Italy! In a similar vein, the startup scene in Italy has seemed very un-international to me. Although it is silly and a waste of energy to dream of a Silicon Valley like eco-system there are nice things about Italy: people are friendly and helpful, the weather and food is good and the living standard is high compared to many countries. Certainly, Italy could leverage this to do much more to attract e.g Eastern European and South American talent but for that to happen the culture has to become more international.

Finally, Bocconi like many European business schools suffer from the problem that they view entrepreneurship from a very academic perspective and except for the interesting guest speakers students would be better off reading the list of popular startup and VC blogs. Instead of these courses being taught by accomplished entrepreneurs they are often taught by dry academics and it is easy to lose your hope if you only listen to this type of people. Our professor hated our idea and since it was the only idea that would require VC he also considered it far to risky and big for us to undertake.
This in many ways sums up my experience with entrepreneurship at Bocconi: An Italian restaurant in Dubai is considered a better idea than a business model with several successful exits in other European markets.

p.s a great and much needed initiative to encourage more startups is also to reduce bureaucracy. David Welton’s initiative to reduce the costs of creating an SRL. Read about it here and sign the petition here.