« contact | Main | Swiss Give iPod High-end Sound And A Luxury Look »
January 05, 2006
Firefox, Safari, and co. create opportunity for Trolltech spinoff
From time to time the alarm:clock euro profiles early stage and emerging startups. Today it is Froglogic getting the treatment. A team of software engineers parachuted out of Norway’s Trolltech, the quick-growing embedded software and GUI development tool company backed by Index Ventures, to create Froglogic back in 2003.
Froglogic develops and licenses automated debugging and testing tools. Initialy it targeted users of Trolltech’s software and C++ programs, which gave them enough customers and cash (it is self-funded) to extend the its product features to target a much bigger market, namely automated tools to test complex web applications and make sure that they work correctly in all of the popular browsers.
There is indeed a growing number of browser out there. A quick look at our SiteMeter log for the a:c euro shows the diversity of browsers in use these days: Firefox, two versions of Internet Explorer, Safari, two versions of Opera, and Konqueror.
Froglogic, not to be confused with the German PC games publisher Frogster Interactive that is poised to float on the Entry Standard stock exchange in Frankfurt, has formidable competition in the form of Mercury and Rational.
CEO and co-founder Reginald Stadlbauer believes that the the startup cab compete given its cross-browser testing edge. He told the a:c euro that despite the existence of web standards, different browsers behave very differently, especially when it comes to the more complex and interactive web applications.
“We test with the same test script on different browsers and that's the niche we want to use to enter the market,” said Stadlbauer.
We think that the founders are onto a good thing. Judging by its list of customers, there is demand for its tools with the likes of Reuters and Siemens buying licenses, as well as electronic design automation (EDA) folks at Xilinx, Synopsys, and Gradient, and business software developers,such as Language Weaver and Selden Systems.
It targets a niche market today but web services are taking off and so are the number of browsers on the Net, so it just might have a chance to build a business with international appeal based on its newest product.
We are however a bit concerned about the company naming trend we are seeing in Europe. Is it a Shrek effect? Logical frogs, technical trolls, at least the monikers make it easy find them in Google. What is more, the names seem to reflect a certain self-effacing humor. At Froglogic and Trolltech amusing-software-demo is not an oxymoron.
Read- Trolltech’s Cute Product Launch
View the demo of Froglogic’s first product with funky sound-track
Posted on January 5, 2006 09:00 AM | Posted to Early stage | Permalink
Trackback Pings
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.thealarmclock.com/mt/mt-tb.cgi/420
