Get behind us recession! Autonomy Corporation raised guidance on 2010 earnings and reported 43% rise in pre-tax profits. Saw spending on discretionary items up in fourth quarter of 2009. Mike Lynch anticipates increasing guidance further, ‘if things carry on as they are’. He described the economic climate in their annual results presentation as, ‘winter with snowdrops, just short of a full spring revival’.

The BLN Future of Games Discussion Dinner, 10th June 2010, 17.00 start, to be followed by roundtable discussion, cocktails, and dinner from 19:30.

The theme for discussion centres around building successful businesses in the games sector; what strategies are being employed today and what to look for in the future. Areas for discussion are likely to include: exploring various monetisation mechanisms; choosing the right platform/s and publishing strategy; broadening portfolios through strategic acquisition etc.

Confirmed attendees include senior executives/founders from Advent Ventures, Blue Duck Education, Eidos, Index Ventures, Jagex, King.com, Manga High, MediaTonic, Mind Candy Ltd, Picklive, Player-X, Playfire, Playfish, Playground, Realtime Worlds, Revolution Software, SCi, Square Enix Group.

The Business Leaders Network (The BLN) is a national community of entrepreneurs, business leaders and institutional investors involved in building and working with growth businesses. We facilitate peer networking, discover future leaders and stimulate debate about the development of key growth sectors in the UK economy. We help organisations grow – by connecting corporates to sources of innovation, entrepreneurs to investors or partners and investors to high quality entrepreneurs.

BLN events are run across the UK and promote interaction, investment and discussion between the individuals behind the UK’s most active investors, businesses and innovation clusters.

Attendees: Currently confirmed attendees include CEO’s, Founders or Chairs from Manga High, Mind Candy, IGA Worldwide, Eidos, Jagex, Realtime Worlds amongst others.

We are delighted to be partnering with Kleinwort Benson and BDO on this discussion.

There are many opportunities to attend networking events but we like to think that The BLN events are both high quality and a little different. You can see feedback from previous attendees here.

If you are a CEO/Founder/Senior Exec in a relevant organisation, we would love to hear from you if you would like to attend this event. Please note that by applying we CANNOT guarantee a place, although we do our best to accommodate relevant individuals. Our priority is always to ensure that our guests are relevant to the specific discussion.

• How to check your Tax Code. New computers at HMRC issue incorrect tax codes – possibly to millions. http://bit.ly/60fIVS #
• RT @McKQuarterly: What they'll be talking about in Davos http://bit.ly/4uV4Vl #
• Anyone care to recommend London based start up events for an interview with Read Write Web? #
• Intrigued to hear what the UK's #cleantech community thinks about the Better Place deal at our discussion this evening. #
• Leadership, leaving & legacy. 2 great goodbye notes. http://bit.ly/d0vViq – http://bit.ly/aEqYRL #
• RT @rorybrown: Private equity's view of magazine publishing http://bit.ly/cDGL3k #
• Can't wait? We are giving away an Apple Tablet-thingy: http://bit.ly/9l0Mm2 via @Azeem #
• Incredible. $appl has 100 year publicity storm EVERY time it launches a product #iWhateveritis #
• Awesome #camtechmeetup kudos @jedc sorry I cried. Past my bed time.. #
• Ten things you need to STOP tweeting about. http://bit.ly/vIUoN #
• Hmm. Spoke to #vc journalist who said I was, 'awesome'. Bit concerned that is journalese for, 'very indiscrete'… #
• 1st US carmaker for over 50 years to file for #IPO #Tesla motors. Raising up to $100 million. http://bit.ly/acV29Y #
• #tesla #ipo <1,000 cars sold >$230 million losses. up to $100 million raise. Filing details http://bit.ly/cdzoUm #

I love the smell of satire in the morning.

Image via Wikipedia

A lovely post on the cost to the publishing industry of offline piracy from the Go to Hellman blog.

“Apparently, over 2 billion books were “loaned” last year by a cabal of organizations found in nearly every American city and town. Using the same advanced projective mathematics used in the study cited by Publishers Weekly, Go to Hellman has computed that publishers could be losing sales opportunities totaling over $100 Billion per year, losses which extend back to at least the year 2000. These lost sales dwarf the online piracy reported yesterday, and indeed, even the global book publishing business itself.”

Good news! And so private equity lumbers into action again. Pets are big business.

Stylish too.

And Sun CEO Jonathan Schwartz’s all hands memo.

Looks like both he and Scott McNealy wanted to leave their mark in different ways. (See Scott McNealy’s note here). I like the hidden message (in red).

“Believe it or not, it’s been more than nine months since Oracle first announced their intent to acquire Sun in April, 2009. And the ‘interim’ period has been tough on everyone – on our employees, and our partners and customers. Thankfully, that interim period is coming to an end, with regulatory approval from the European Union issued today, and only a few hurdles remaining – before Oracle formally expands beyond software to become the world’s most important systems company.

Stylish.

There is no question that Sun made some mistakes along the way but anyone that can build a business that turns over $200 billion revenue in its 28 year life has achieved extraordinary things. Scott McNealy was one of the greatest characters in the technology industry and as I have blogged before, I think entrepreneurial businesses need more strong characters. They get things done, they create value (and sometimes destroy it), but they also make life more entertaining.

As Sun’s takeover by Oracle is rubber stamped by the EU – probably the one organisation in Europe that even Silicon Valley can afford to ignore – I was quite moved by this all hands note from co-founder Scott McNealy. There could be some slight evidence that he has a bit of an ego there but if I had been at Sun, this would have made me proud.

Compare with Jonathan Schwartz’s all hands note sent out last week – the professional CEO’s message.

“Subject: Thanks for a great 28 years

Date: Tue, 26 Jan 2010

From: Scott McNealy

To: [all Sun employees]

Gang,

When I interviewed many of you for employment at Sun over the years, one commitment often made was that things will change above, below, and around you faster than any place you have ever been. Looks like this was one area we exceeded plan for 28 years. While it was never the primary vision to be acquired by Oracle, it was always an interesting option. And this huge event is upon us now. Let’s all embrace it with all of the enthusiasm and class and talent that we have to offer.

Following on from a $200 million funding round in 2007, Better Place has raised a whopping $ 250 million Series B round valuing the business according to investors including HSBC, Lazard Asset Management and Morgan Stanley Investment Management.  Better Place was founded by Shai Agassi. Better Place plans to set up battery swapping stations allowing consumers to lease batteries and swap them as they get low with freshly charged ones. Definitely innovative but if this gets big, you can expect them to have serious competition from all sorts of angles. Not for the faint hearted. The company does not expect to have product in the market until 2011.

• Invading St Martin's Lane Hotel at 1.00 am with kilted bagpiper – excellent Burns Night at RAC http://boo.fm/b92938 #
• Daddy eats dirty food and nice food. #
• RT @BDO_Cambridge: Jagex launches War of Legends http://bit.ly/4xdh1F Runescape makers shovelling games out these days #