It’s Elevator Pitch Friday, which means another startup has created a video that’s worth showing you. This week’s presentation comes from Duck Duck Go, a start-up that wants to make it easier for you to find what it is that you are looking for on the Internet.

Duck Duck Go combines a search engine’s algorithmic search technology with Wikipedia’s user generated content. They argue that the combination of these two technologies makes it quicker and easier for people to find what they want on the Internet.

Make sure to look at the latest job listing on CrunchBoard. While doing that take a look at our new Crunchboard Service and Sales Directories. They are a great way to connect with the start-up community. Here’s some of jobs posted in the past week:

• Freelance Web Apps & Social Media Developer
  Vested Ventures – Remote
• CFO
  MocoSpace – Boston, MA
• Sr. Software Server Engineer
  Tableau Software – San Mateo, CA
• Head of Content and User Support
  Yelp – San Francisco, CA
• Web Marketing Director
  Knewton – New York, NY
• Senior Marketing Manager
  Digg.com – San Francisco, CA
• Senior Product Manager
  Dictionary.com – Oakland, CA

TechCrunch is also still looking for a Ruby Developer to work on CrunchBase, as well as a fulltime writer to work on TechCrunchIT at our office in Atherton, CA.

International readers are encouraged to visit the British and French job boards as well.

Without our sponsors TechCrunch would not be possible. Accordingly, we want to thank the following sponsors for their support.

Clarion is a leading manufacturer of car audio and video systems, marine audio products, navigation systems, and other multimedia products.

RackSpace a provider of managed hosting solutions

MediaTemple TechCrunch’s exclusive hosting provider, and a worldwide leader in managed hosting solutions across all major platforms

eBuddy a web and mobile instant messaging client with over 18 million users.

IronScale the world’s first fully automated dedicated managed hosting solution

Perflect the makers of PSD2HTML and other solutions to turn design documents into W3C compliant XHTML

Seesmic the video micro-blogging service that powers video commenting on TechCrunch

Conduit, the makers of the Crunchbar, and other toolbars

ServePath the maker of GoGrid, the world’s first multi-server control panel that allows you to deploy cloud server networks in minutes

MailPronto a hosted e-mail solutions provider

TechCrunch also is happy to announce two new sponsorship opportunities. First, CrunchGear is publishing a Holiday Gear Guide, which is the perfect way for your company to reach people as they research their purchases this holiday season. Second, we are now offering a full banner (468×60) on TechCrunch’s RSS feed, which has over 1.2 million subscribers. If you are interested in either of these opportunities, please e-mail Dan Kimerling

Make sure to look at the latest job listing on CrunchBoard. While doing that take a look at our new Crunchboard Service and Sales Directories. They are a great way to connect with the start-up community. Here’s some of jobs posted in the past week:

• User Interface Engineer
  Facebook – Palo Alto, CA
• Product Design
  Facebook – Palo Alto, CA
• Killer Interactive Developer
  Crispin Porter + Bogusky – Boulder, CO or Miami, FL
• Web Project Manager
  FOX News Channel – New York, NY
• Superstar Rails Developer
  Cerego – Tokyo, Japan
• Senior Java/Flash/Flex Programmer
  RoboDynamics – Santa Monica, CA

TechCrunch is also still looking for a Ruby Developer to work on CrunchBase, as well as a fulltime writer to work on TechCrunchIT at our office in Atherton, CA.

International readers are encouraged to visit the British and French job boards as well.

Without our sponsors TechCrunch would not be possible. Accordingly, we want to thank the following sponsors for their support.

RackSpace a provider of managed hosting solutions

MediaTemple TechCrunch’s exclusive hosting provider, and a worldwide leader in managed hosting solutions across all major platforms

eBuddy a webware meta instant messaging client with over seven million users

IronScale the world’s first fully automated dedicated managed hosting solution

Perflect the makers of PSD2HTML and other solutions to turn design documents into W3C compliant XHTML

Davison a product design and engineering firm

Seesmic the video micro-blogging service that powers video commenting on TechCrunch

Conduit, the makers of the Crunchbar, and other toolbars

ServePath the maker of GoGrid, the world’s first multi-server control panel that allows you to deploy cloud server networks in minutes

Code42 the makers of CrashPlanPro, an automatic backup solution

MailPronto a hosted e-mail solutions provider

TechCrunch also is happy to announce two new sponsorship opportunities. First, CrunchGear is publishing a Holiday Gear Guide, which is the perfect way for your company to reach people as they research their purchases this holiday season. Second, we are now offering a full banner (468×60) on TechCrunch’s RSS feed, which has over 1.2 million subscribers. If you are interested in either of these opportunities, please e-mail Dan Kimerling

Make sure to look at the latest job listing on CrunchBoard. While doing that take a look at our new Crunchboard Service and Sales Directories. They are a great way to connect with the start-up community. Here’s some of jobs posted in the past week:

• Senior Web & User Interface Designer
  Online Computer Library Center – Remote
• ECommerce Marketing Associate
  Harvard Business Publishing – Watertown, MA
• Software / Customer Support Engineer
  Articulate – Remote
• Linux Server Engineer
  Slide – San Francisco, CA
• Web application developer
  ThatOne Company – Mountain View, CA
• Product Manager
  Life Events Media – San Francisco, CA
• Mojiva
  User Interface Engineer – New York, NY

TechCrunch is also still looking for a Ruby Developer to work on CrunchBase, as well as a fulltime writer to work on TechCrunchIT at our office in Atherton, CA.

International readers are encouraged to visit the British and French job boards as well.

Without our sponsors TechCrunch would not be possible. Accordingly, we want to thank the following sponsors for their support.

RackSpace a provider of managed hosting solutions

MediaTemple TechCrunch’s exclusive hosting provider, and a worldwide leader in managed hosting solutions across all major platforms

eBuddy a webware meta instant messaging client with over seven million users

IronScale the world’s first fully automated dedicated managed hosting solution

Perflect the makers of PSD2HTML and other solutions to turn design documents into W3C compliant XHTML

Davison a product design and engineering firm

Seesmic the video micro-blogging service that powers video commenting on TechCrunch

Conduit, the makers of the Crunchbar, and other toolbars

ServePath the maker of GoGrid, the world’s first multi-server control panel that allows you to deploy cloud server networks in minutes

Code42 the makers of CrashPlanPro, an automatic backup solution

MailPronto a hosted e-mail solutions provider

TechCrunch also is happy to announce two new sponsorship opportunities. First, CrunchGear is publishing a Holiday Gear Guide, which is the perfect way for your company to reach people as they research their purchases this holiday season. Second, we are now offering a full banner (468×60) on TechCrunch’s RSS feed, which has over 1.2 million subscribers. If you are interested in either of these opportunities, please e-mail Dan Kimerling

This week on the CrunchBoard we want to welcome Mirego and Brilliant2 to the new services and sales directories on CrunchBoard. They are great ways to reach the start-up community.

While you are checking out these new directories, make sure to look at the latest job listing on CrunchBoard. Here’s some of jobs posted in the past week:

• UI / Usability Expert in Consumer Web 2.0
  Mirantis – Foster City, CA
• Business Development Manager
  Green Mountain Energy Company- Austin, TX
• Social Media Community Manager
  Millions of Us -Sausalito, CA
• Online Marketing Specialist / Web Developer
  frog design inc. – San Francisco, CA
• Advertising System Engineer
  StumbleUpon – San Francisco, CA
• Hands-on Software Development Manager
  Slide – San Francisco, CA

TechCrunch is also still looking for a Ruby Developer to work on CrunchBase, as well as a fulltime writer to work on TechCrunchIT at our office in Atherton, CA.

International readers are encouraged to visit the British and French job boards as well.

This week on the CrunchBoard we want to welcome Mirego and Brilliant2 to the new services and sales directories on CrunchBoard. They are great ways to reach the start-up community.

While you are checking out these new directories, make sure to look at the latest job listing on CrunchBoard. Here’s some of jobs posted in the past week:

• Sales Marketing Planner
  Interactive One – New York, NY
• Developers
  Digg- San Francisco, CA
• Senior Web Developer
  Ted.com -New York, NY
• CTO
  Stealth Social Start-up – New York, NY
• Business Development Lead
  Atlantic Dominion Solutions – Winter Park, FL
• Senior PHP Developer
  Speedypin – San Diego, CA

TechCrunch is also still looking for a Ruby Developer to work on CrunchBase, as well as a fulltime writer to work on TechCrunchIT at our office in Atherton, CA.

International readers are encouraged to visit the British and French job boards as well.

Without our sponsors TechCrunch would not be possible. Accordingly, we want to thank the following sponsors for their support.

RackSpace a provider of managed hosting solutions

MediaTemple TechCrunch’s exclusive hosting provider, and a worldwide leader in managed hosting solutions across all major platforms

eBuddy a webware meta instant messaging client with over seven million users

IronScale the world’s first fully automated dedicated managed hosting solution

Perflect the makers of PSD2HTML and other solutions to turn design documents into W3C compliant XHTML

Davison a product design and engineering firm

Seesmic the video micro-blogging service that powers video commenting on TechCrunch

Conduit, the makers of the Crunchbar, and other toolbars

ServePath the maker of GoGrid, the world’s first multi-server control panel that allows you to deploy cloud server networks in minutes

Code42 the makers of CrashPlanPro, an automatic backup solution

TechCrunch also is happy to announce two new sponsorship opportunities. First, CrunchGear is publishing a Holiday Gear Guide, which is the perfect way for your company to reach people as they research their purchases this holiday season. Second, we are now offering a full banner (468×60) on TechCrunch’s RSS feed, which has over 1.2 million subscribers. If you are interested in either of these opportunities, please e-mail Dan Kimerling

This week on the CrunchBoard we want to welcome BeenVerified, Design About Town, and Span to the the new services and sales directories on CrunchBoard. They are great ways to reach the start-up community.

While you are checking out these new directories, make sure to look out the latest job listing on CrunchBoard. Here’s some of jobs posted in the past week:

• SEO Executive
  Latitude Group Limited – Warrington, Cheshire
• Chair, Clive Davis Department of Recorded Music
  New York University- New York, NY
• VP of Product Management
  Backcountry.com – Park City, UT
• Director of Business Development
  PredictWallStreet- Capitola, CA
• Senior Territory Manager – Branded Ad Sales
  MySpace – New York, NY
• Product Manager
  Shure – Niles, IL

TechCrunch is also still looking for a Ruby Developer to work on CrunchBase, as well as a fulltime writer to work on TechCrunchIT at our office in Atherton, CA.

International readers are encouraged to visit the British and French job boards as well.

I have no insider knowledge of Apple or its products, so analyzing Apple is a bit like reading tea leaves. But one particularly interesting tool in understanding the introduction of Apple products is MacRumors‘ Mac Buyer’s Guide. Looking at the buyer’s guide, it is clear that almost all of Apple’s consumer facing products have been refreshed, with the exception of the iMac, Mac Mini, Apple’s Cinema displays, and Mac Pros. Both the iMac and Mac Mini lines are likely to be refreshed any day now, whereas Apple’s monitors have been partially refreshed with the introduction of a 24″ LED Cinema Display monitor equipped with a DisplayPort. So, three obvious things that Jobs is likely to introduce in January are new Mac Pros, the 17″ MacBook Pro, and additional LED displays. This would unify Apple under the display port interface, something that Jobs stated as a goal for the company during Apple’s October Laptop event.

It is also likely that during the MacWorld 2009 keynote, Jobs will talk about Apple’s software. It is natural to expect that Apple’s the 2009 versions of the iLife suite of photo, video and music editing software, the iWork office productivity suite will be launched at MacWorld 2009. This is especially true given that the rumors suggesting that Apple would announce these software packages at its October laptop event turned out to be false. Normally such an announcement would not be very interesting. However, MobileMe, even with all its failed promise, could make the announcement of iLife and iWork ’09 far more exciting. If its over-the-air syncing platform were integrated into a cloud based collaboration platform for Apple’s iWork, iLife, and professional applications, this would to create a truly powerful user experience, and especially differentiate iWork from other office productivity suites. I am sure that Steve will given an update on OS 10.6, Snow Leopard, during MacWorld 2009, because at WWDC 2008, he said that the next version of Apple’s operating system would be released during the second quarter of 2009.

Three other less likely product introductions at MacWorld 2009 are a larger iPhone/Web Pad, a revision to AppleTV which integrates the product into networked flat-screen televisions, and iPhone Nanos. This week saw an interesting story come out of the New York Times. The Times reported seeing traffic from an Apple product which has a screen resolution greater than that of an iPhone but less than that of a MacBook. This seems to correlate very well with reports of Apple building something that is akin to a new Newton, although whether it is a bigger iPhone or a MacBook Tablet is still any one’s guess. Leaving the product pipeline aside, a large touch screen product makes complete sense for Apple, especially given the amount of money invested in their multi-touch intellectual property, something that has been largely limited to the iPhone and simple motions on the MacBook and Macbook Pro. While the economics behind Apple branded flat-screen televisions seem questionable, Jason Calacanis claimed to know that Apple was going to announce Apple brand flat-panel TVs that are networked and have integrated AppleTV functionalities. Jobs continues to call the AppleTV a hobby, and given that it has been close to a year since the AppleTV was updated, some sort of revision to the product seems to be in order. Finally an iPhone Nano seems a natural extension to the current product mix. If using non-GAAP accounting, the iPhone made up 39% of Apple’s revenue during the third quarter of 2008. An iPhone Nano priced at $99, would sell at significant at volume, and speed Apple’s growth in the mobile space.

Finishing 2008, Apple has a tremendous set of products to offer, with the iPhone 3G, MacBook, and MacBook Pro being at the center of the mix. If Jobs only announces updates to the rest of Apple’s core products, refreshes Apple’s software, and reveals more information about OSX 10.6, he would have extremely good content for his keynote. But, any one of the three products floating around the Apple rumor mill would make his keynote at MacWorld 2009 one to remember. Even without them, though, Apple is poised to have great product line up during the beginning of 2009.

It’s Elevator Pitch Friday, which means another startup has created a video that’s worth showing you. This week’s presentation comes from RouteYou, a startup that wants to make it easier for you to find outdoor routes that are optimized for your needs.

RouteYou wants to make it easy for you to find the best route from one place to another, whether in a car, on foot, or riding a bike. They do this by taking raw geo-spatial data and structuring it, turning mapping information into routes with turn-by-turn directions that people can use. They also offer a route planner that allows for collaborative route planning.

Starting a high tech company often means going at it alone, but eventually every start-up needs some outside help – whether from lawyers, accountants, real estate agents, or special types of vendors. And other times, a company just needs to sell things.

Unfortunately, startups don’t always know where to find help or list items for sale. To help them in these regards, we’ve added services and sales directories to CrunchBoard’s existing jobs directory. These new directories are intended to make it easier for high tech start-ups to find the professional services they need and sell the things that they no longer want or need. Conversely, the services directory in particular provides a door for professional services organizations into the high tech startup community.

While there are several such directories on the web from which to choose, we believe that CrunchBoard reaches an unparalleled audience. Companies can list themselves in the services directory for $200 per quarter or post items for sale for $25 per month. As before, jobs can be listed for $200 per quarter.

While you’re checking out these new directories, make sure to check out the newest job listings as well. Here’s some of jobs posted in the past week:

• Business Development Manager
  MySpace Video – Los Angeles, CA
• User Interface Engineer
  Facebook – Palo Alto, CA
• CFO
  MocoSpace – Boston, MA
• Senior Programmer
  Sitezoogle- Telecommute
• Mac Software Engineer
  doubleTwist – San Francisco, CA
• Product Marketing Analyst
  SkyTel – Herndon, VA

TechCrunch is also still looking for a Ruby Developer to work on CrunchBase, as well as a fulltime writer to work on TechCrunchIT at our office in Atherton, CA.

International readers are encouraged to visit the British and French job boards as well.

VMWare, is best known as a market leader in virtualization software, a type of software that simulates hardware for the purpose of separating a computer’s operating system from its hardware. For the consumer this allows one computer to run multiple operating systems, like Apple computers running Windows. For enterprise users, virtualization lets them run multiple virtual servers off of one physical server. However the software maker cannot seem to catch a break.

Research by IDC, and first reported by ComputerWorld, shows that VMWare’s market share of the enterprise X86 virtualization market fell from a reported 51% during 2007 to 44% during the third quarter of 2008. At the same time Microsoft’sHyper-V virtualization product has already had a material impact on Microsoft’s market share, even though the product was only released three months ago, as Microsoft’s market share jumped to 23% during the third quarter, up from 18% in the first quarter of 2008.

VMWare has not only lost a significant amount of market share in dramatic fashion, but also has lost a significant quantity of senior talent and share holder value. According to Reuters and the New York Times, since September 1st, VMWare has lost Richard Sarwal, their Executive Vice President for Research and Development, Mendel Rosenblum, a Co-Founder and their Chief Scientist, and Paul Chan, their VP for Product Development. As of the market’s close on Friday VMWare was trading at $20.69 per share, less than a sixth of its 52-Week high of $125.25 per share, and having lost more than 75% of its share price year to date. This comes after a tumultuous summer which saw VMWare’s founding CEO, Diane Greene, forced out by the board of its parent company, EMC, resulting in VMWare shares losing 25% of their value in one day.http://charts.wikinvest.com/WikiChartMini.swf

Given the current economic climate, VMWare should be doing better than ever. With the growth of Apple’s Intel based computer platform people are using VMWare’s Fusionsoftware, and its competitor Parallels Desktop, to boot Windows on Apple hardware. But more importantly in the current economic downturn, one way that organizations will squeeze more computing power out of existing hardware is to spend budgets on virtualization software rather than on new servers. This is because virtualization lets enterprises deploy multiple virtual computers on a single set of hardware while simultaneously maximizing hardware utilization and consolidating resources. This is why virtualization was ranked one of the top ten strategic technologies to watch in 2009 according to Gartner. As further evidence of the growth in the virtualization market, IDC noted that virtualization shipments increased a staggering 53% between the second quarter of 2007 and the second quarter of 2008. With enterprise grade products like VMWare Server and VMWare ESXi, the company seemed well positioned to make the most of the current economic situation.

The introduction of Hyper-V, which is priced extremely competitively, in combination with senior management turn over and slumping share prices has caused VMWare to be downgraded by at least three different investment houses (1, 2, & 3) in the past month. This combination of factors seems to be the perfect storm to disrupt VMWare from being able to take advantage of the opportunities which the current economic duress could have afforded it. Lets hope for the sake of their employees and their shareholders that they can get it together.

It’s Elevator Pitch Friday, which means another startup has created a video that’s worth showing you. This week’s presentation comes from Marcellus, a startup that wants to dramatically reduce the cost for companies to deliver video on their websites.

Marcellus wants to make delivering video cheap, easy, and on demand, by offering video delivering through the Software-as-a-Service model. This greatly reduces both the infrastructure costs and human capital needed to deliver video on websites, while making it far more flexible and scalable for companies to use. And, because Marcellus charges companies a metered rate for delivering video, companies can use as much or as little of Marcellus’ service as needed.

Sponsors enable TechCrunch to provide you the news and analysis that you have to expect, and so we want to thank them.

Conduit, the makers of the Crunchbar, and other toolbars

Seesmic the video micro-blogging service that powers video commenting on TechCrunch

MediaTemple TechCrunch’s exclusive hosting provider,
and a worldwide leader in managed hosting solutions across all major platforms

Perflect the makers of PSD2HTML and other solutions to turn design documents into W3C compliant XHTML

RackSpace a provider of managed hosting solutions

eBuddy a webware meta instant messaging client

ServePath the maker of GoGrid, and other cloudware products

Code42 the makers of CrashPlanPro, an automatic backup solution

SocialText the creator of wiki-oriented webware for the enterprise space

3Tera a cloud computing provider

Davison a product design and engineering firm

TechCrunch also is happy to announce two new sponsorship opportunities. First, CrunchGear is publishing a Holiday Gear Guide, which is the perfect way for your company to reach people as they research their purchases this holiday season. Second, we are now offering a full banner (468×60) on TechCrunch’s RSS feed, which has over 1.2 million subscribers. If you are interested in either of these opportunities, please e-mail Dan Kimerling

• Senior Flash Designer
  Photobucket- San Francisco, CA
• VP or Director of Engineering & Senior Architect/Web Developer
  Birrbit – San Francisco, CA
• Manager of Campaign & Analytics
  Nielsen Business Media – New York, NY
• Product Manager of Desktop Applications and IM
  MySpace- Beverly Hills, CA
• GUI Software Engineer
  Shure Inc – Niles, IL
• Web Programmer and Developer
  August Ash Ince – Minneapolis, MN

Since you already read TechCrunch, why not work here? We are looking for a Ruby Developer to work on CrunchBase and a fulltime writer to work on TechCrunchIT at TechCrunch’s Atherton California Office.

To our international readers, please check out the British and French job boards.

It’s Elevator Pitch Friday, which means another startup has created a video that’s worth showing you. This week’s presentation comes from Palo Alto Software, a software company startup that wants to make it easier for organizations to manage and collaborate using e-mail, to save time and be more productive.

Palo Alto Software wants to make organizations more efficient, by taking community wide e-mail boxes, such as info@, sales@, or admin@, and applying logic and analytics against them. For organizations that deal with large quantities of e-mail, managing that e-mail can become a task onto itself. Palo Alto Software’s E-mail Center Pro automates this task, freeing employees up to focus on the content of the e-mail instead of just managing it. E-mail Center Pro is sold through a Software as a Service model, with pricing based upon e-mail volume.

• Director of Analytics
  BillShrink- Redwood City, CA
• Business Development & Strategic Planning Manager
  New York Times – New York, NY
• Interaction and Web Designer
  Pandora Media – Oakland, CA
• Ruby on Rails Web Developer
  VisualCV- Reston, VA
• ECommerce Marketing Associate
  Harvard Business Publishing – Watertown, MA
• Senior Manager of International Digital Media
  A&E TV Networks -New York, NY

Since you already read TechCrunch, why not work here? We are looking for a Ruby Developer to work on CrunchBase and a fulltime writer to work on TechCrunchIT at TechCrunch’s Atherton California Office.

To our international readers, please check out the British and French job boards.