San Diego’s BizTech news was slowing down as Christmas approached, so this week’s roundup will be short and sweet.
—Drop Down Deals, a San Diego startup funded by a private investment group called Sambreel Holdings, launched a new website to complement the free downloadable Web browser plug-in the company introduced last month. Once loaded on your computer, the Drop Down Deals plug-in remains hidden until you visit an online shopping site for which coupons or deals are available. Then a window drops down on the right-hand side of the screen that shows the coupons and discount codes available for that retailing site.
—Nissan delivered its first production models of its new Leaf all-electric vehicle in San Francisco, San Diego, and Phoenix, AZ. La Jolla resident Tom Franklin, who was the first San Diego resident to sign up for the electric vehicle, drove his blue Leaf off the lot at Mossy Nissan in Kearny Mesa.
—Connect, the San Diego nonprofit group supporting technology and entrepreneurship, gave its 2011 Otterson Award to Intuit for its TurboTax software, a product that was initially developed by San Diego-based ChipSoft before it was acquired by Intuit. Connect also gave its “Distinguished Contribution Award” to life sciences consultant Julia Brown and Provide Commerce CEO. Check out the complete list of winners from Connect’s 2011 Most Innovative New Product Awards here.
—San Diego’s Avalon Ventures is celebrating the holidays with extra verve, after two of its portfolio tech companies got acquired. Rackspace Hosting acquired San Francisco-based Cloudkick, and AOL purchased Pictela.
—San Diego’s Novatel Wireless filed a patent infringement lawsuit against San Diego’s Franklin Wireless and China’s ZTE Corp. over five Novatel patents covering its MiFi mobile hot spot technology, according to The San Diego Union-Tribune.
Author: Bruce V. Bigelow
In Memoriam: Our dear friend Bruce V. Bigelow passed away on June 29, 2018. He was the editor of Xconomy San Diego from 2008 to 2018. Read more about his life and work here.
Bruce Bigelow joined Xconomy from the business desk of the San Diego Union-Tribune. He was a member of the team of reporters who were awarded the 2006 Pulitzer Prize in National Reporting for uncovering bribes paid to San Diego Republican Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham in exchange for special legislation earmarks. He also shared a 2006 award for enterprise reporting from the Society of Business Editors and Writers for “In Harm’s Way,” an article about the extraordinary casualty rate among employees working in Iraq for San Diego’s Titan Corp. He has written extensively about the 2002 corporate accounting scandal at software goliath Peregrine Systems. He also was a Gerald Loeb Award finalist and National Headline Award winner for “The Toymaker,” a 14-part chronicle of a San Diego start-up company. He takes special satisfaction, though, that the series was included in the library for nonfiction narrative journalism at the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University.
Bigelow graduated from U.C. Berkeley in 1977 with a degree in English Literature and from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in 1979. Before joining the Union-Tribune in 1990, he worked for the Associated Press in Los Angeles and The Kansas City Times.
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