SlideRocket, which has raised $7 million in funding, is a cloud-based online presentation application that produces slideshows that rival PowerPoint. More than 20,000 customers and 300,000 users leverage Slide Rocket to more effectively build, deliver and share presentations.

Slide Rocket integrates authoring, asset management, delivery and analytics tools in a single hosted environment that allows you to quickly create presentations, store, tag and search your assets, collaborate with your colleagues, securely share your slides in person or remotely and measure the results. The site also supports web-based conferencing that allows users on different computers to view the same presentation simultaneously and includes a marketplace, an “iTunes For Presentations,” that allows users to purchase assets for their projects

For VMware, the acquisition of SlideRocket is an investment in bringing business software to the cloud.
Brian Byun, VP and general manager at VMware said in a release: VMware is at the forefront of building the core cloud computing infrastructure and enables users to gain ever greater value from cloud-based solutions. SlideRocket’s cloud-based architecture, innovative design, and strong integration with other cloud applications and services have transformed a decades-old business productivity software and redefined the way we consume and communicate information.

Th isn’t VMware’s first purchase of a cloud startup. The company bought cloud based authentication system TriCipher and IT performance analytics company Integrien last August.

SlideRocket, a startup that helps create online presentations, has raised $5 million in Series B funding led by Azure Capital Partners with Hummer Winblad Venture Partners participating. This new round of funding brings SlideRocket’s total funding to $7 million. The company also announced that Chuck Dietrich, former General Manager and Vice President at Salesforce.com, has joined the company as CEO.

SlideRocket is an online presentation application that produces media rich slideshows that rival PowerPoint presentations. SlideRocket says it will use the funding to grow the company by adding more hires and help continue innovation of the product.

SlideRocket took the beta label off last fall and added collaboration tools to let users share slides and other assets between presentations and turn on a conference mode similar to WebEx, allowing users on different computers to view the same presentation simultaneously.

In addition, the startup is announcing a partnership with online presentation software maker SlideRocket, which basically means its library of stock music and royalty-free sound effects will now be included in the SlideRocket marketplace.

The revamp of the site consists of both a cleaner design and more functionality. One of those new features is the addition of promotion codes you can pass to friends, and of course we requested some for you. The first 100 TechCrunch readers to sign up for AudioMicro using the promotion code “TECHCRUNCH2” get access to 2 free audio downloads credits (an $8.99 value).

As for the new site: the search process, which was below par before, has been completely redesigned and looks and feels much better now. You can now also take audio files with you on the web, meaning that there’s now an embed code that you can use to embed tracks on your blog, social network account, etc. (example below). AudioMicro also introduced some type of ‘lightbox’ feature that lets you create favorite lists and buy the audio material on there at a later time.

http://www.audiomicro.com/swf/EmbedPlayer.swf

Finally, there’s an API available now that allows approved partners to create applications using the AudioMicro library. The SlideRocket partnership is a first result of the new API: utilizing it, SlideRocket users can now license tracks from the AudioMicro archive and incorporate them directly into their SlideRocket presentations.

Last month, AudioMicro announced the availability of its second iPhone app, AudioMicro Lite (iTunes link). The app includes over 50 royalty -ree sound effects as well as a “Sneak Attack” feature, which sets the iPhone to play a specified sound effect when the device is moved by an unsuspecting person (lots of fun). For 99 cents, users can upgrade to the full AudioMicro app, which includes over 500 professional sound effects.

SlideRocket, an online presentation application that produces slideshows that rival (and in many cases, better) PowerPoint, has launched to the general public. The site had previously been available under a public beta, and is now removing the beta tag and introducing a set of pricing tiers along with some impressive new features.

Since we last wrote about SlideRocket the site has introduced new collaboration tools that allow users to share slides and other assets between presentations. Users can establish which assets will be made available to specific groups of peers using granular permissions control. The site also supports a conference mode similar to WebEx, allowing users on different computers to view the same presentation simultaneously (unfortunately this doesn’t yet support audio so you’ll need to set up your own phone or VoIP call independently).

The site has also introduced a storefront described as an “iTunes For Presentations” that allows users to purchase assets for their projects. Users will be able to buy stock photos through a partnership with Fotolia, graphics and backgrounds from PresentationPro, and printing/delivery through Mimeo.

Even though some of SlideRocket’s cloud-based competitors are free (SlideRocket charges for its more advanced features), the site is still very impressive and will likely draw a steady stream of business. It will be hard to displace PowerPoint as the de facto tool to build presentations, but SlideRocket is a great alternative, especially because users don’t have to deal with incompatible file formats and different versions of Office.

Other players in this space include 280 North, Empressr, and Zoho.

SlideRocket is another Flash-based presentation app that wants to recreate PowerPoint in the browser and take advantage of the web’s sharing and mashup capabilities.

There are a handful of companies striving to be the presentation tool for the cloud era, including Google, Zoho, Empressr and a Y Combinator startup called 280 North that we covered last week. Ask the guys behind SlideRocket, though, and they’ll tell you that they’ve gone much further than their competitors in building a real business class app, one that’s worth paying for like other SaaS offerings.

While SlideRocket doesn’t plan to launch publicly until this summer, it officially enters its private beta period today and we have 500 invites available for our readers (claim your’s here).

Overall SlideRocket is a very attractive and capable product that does indeed match and exceed the expectations set by PowerPoint. There’s a slew of impressive features I could mention: the ability to import your own fonts, the many different layouts, the special effects for objects such as videos and photos, and the asset library that can be searched by keyword, to name a few. SlideRocket also has pretty sophisticated analytics tool that let slideshow creators track who and how many people have viewed their shows, as well as how long each spent on particular slides.

A heavy emphasis has been placed on community, with users encouraged to share assets like images, themes, and templates with each other. You can also import images directly from Flickr or Yahoo, and spreadsheets from Google.

SlideRocket has been designed with extensibility and portability in mind as well. Third party developers will be able to build components into slideshows using the app’s APIs. The application itself can also be integrated into other online services. The company has already worked with Salesforce to create a version of SlideRocket that operates within Salesforce and makes it easier for sales people to create and track the slideshows they send to clients.

When SlideRocket launches publicly, there will be a free version for single users and two business versions that satisfy the needs of small and large corporations.

SlideRocket raised $2M from Hummer Winblad Venture Partners and First Round Capital in December 2007. (Correction: it was their first round of capital; they didn’t raise it from First Round)