Two weeks ago I joined Avvenu, Inc. as CEO. We’ll start a company blog shortly. Meanwhile, I wanted to add a more personal perspective to the company news release. Several friends were surprised that I did not go to an open source or media company. In truth, I certainly looked at opportunities at several, and at some companies with more traditional products and services as well. In the end, Avvenu captured my imagination and passion for the same reasons that VA Software/OSDN did: incredible market potential, a highly talented and fearless team, and a companywide hunger for leadership.
Over the past couple of years, the developers at Avvenu have built a very strong remote access platform, enabling consumers and business users to securely access their home and office computers directly from their web-enabled mobile device or computer.
I’ve been associated with startups before, and the VC’s can make or break a company, regardless of its potential. So, I took a hard look at Avvenu’s pedigree. Avvenu is backed by two tier 1 venture capital firms, Charles River Ventures and Worldview Technology Partners. Both VC firms have in excess of $1B+ under management, both have extensive portfolios, and both have had some of the biggest and well known exits in the past few years. Avvenu is also backed by Motorola, a key business partner.
Today, many of us in the industry think of technology as being either consumer or business, but not both. I believe that consumer and business technologies, much like open and proprietary software, are quickly converging and introducing new business models. I’m thrilled to be part of this innovative young company that will play a key role in facilitating this convergence and the shift to seamless mobile lifestyles.
Comments
Avvenu is a great product. How about opening it up to Linux as well?
We are considering both a Linux and Mac port of the agent. Will let you know when its on our roadmap.
Congratulations on the role of Avvenu’s new CEO, Mr. French. I read through the press release (an impressive bio!) and you are certainly a great match (except that you probably won’t be making Avvenu “open” anytime soon. *smile*).
Anyway, I just wanted to drop a note and meet the man in charge. I came across Avvenu a few weeks ago when searching for MyWebExPC substitute (what a disappointing field that is – just a couple of reliable and reasonably priced solutions!), and Avvenu came to rescue. Imagine that! I do, however, wish that Avvenu launches competitive remote PC browsing (not just access to files) since I do need to stay connected to my email correspondence. Is there anything of similar nature in the works?
All the best running the show.
Artashes
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Hello Richard-
I have been an Avvenu customer for several years. After the Nokia acquisition (specifically in Feb or Mar of this year) my “Anytime Access” began to fail. No files are being uploaded or stored on your servers. I have contacted customer support on numerous occasions over the past 4 months and have had no satisfaction. For the past several months, I have not even received a reply. Initially I was told to reinstall the software (by the way, nothing was changed on my PC prior to the service failing) – I did that and recreated my list of files to be uploaded. Still no success. The next time I contacted support they said to reinstall and recreate the list. I told them that I had already done that and nothing happened. They then told me that there would be a patch shortly and refunded 1 month’s service fees. Subsequent to that, I have not received any responses to my numerous support requests. All that I can assume is that under Nokia, there is no customer service, no support, and that nobody at Avvenu cares anything about making the service work. I am tired of contacting support and tired of complaining and will look for another service. I had asked for a refund several months ago and got $3.99 back (one month). I will now contact my credit card company and reverse the charge, since I have paid for a service that I have not received and Avvenu has made no attempt to correct whatever the problem is. I will wait several days to see if you or someone on the executive team responds… then I will contact my credit card company.
Herschel Weintraub
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