Tech Roundup of the Week: Ford Focus EV, Flud, Legend3D, Sotera

—Quest Software (NASDAQ: [[ticker:QSFT]]), the IT software provider on the border between San Diego and Orange Counties, said today it acquired BitKOO, a North Hollywood, CA-based specialist in identity and access management technology. Financial terms were not disclosed. Combined with the recent acquisitions of e-DMZ (privileged identity management), Völcker Informatik AG (provisioning), and Symlabs (virtual directories), Quest says the BitKOO deal extends the strength of its Quest One Identity Solutions business.

—San Jose, CA-based EnVerv, a chip design firm with a San Diego office, said it raised $12 million in a Series B round for its power line communications technologies, which enable electric utilities to use their own power lines to serve as a smart grid communications network. Benchmark Capital led the new round, which was joined by existing investors New Enterprise Associates and Walden International.

—UC San Diego computer security researcher (and San Diego Xconomist) Stefan Savage talked with me about recent research into spam networks and hacking the automotive software used to control cars. Savage said he takes a more holistic approach to protecting computers and networks against malicious intruders. While a great deal of money and effort are devoted to technically “hardening” computer systems against spam, for example, Savage said the payment systems by which advertised goods and services accept consumer credit cards “is a huge weak link that has no cheap substitute.”

—Ford’s Dan Kapp came to San Diego to plug the carmaker’s new plug-in, the 2012 Focus EV. The electric vehicle will go on sale at San Diego Ford dealers during the first quarter of 2012. Ford said

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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.