Charlie Wood
Charlie is the founder and CEO of Spanning Cloud Apps, a startup that aims to become the Norton Computing of the cloud computing era. He's a married father of two and a native Austinite. He blogs at Moonwatcher
The trouble with our increasing clock speed
Remember GATO, the submarine game? It assumed you had a 4.77MHz 8088 processor, because that’s what every IBM PC in the world had. It ran as fast as it could, and it was the right speed. Then turbo PC’s came out, and the 286 AT, and then the 386. And GATO sucked on those computers—it [...]
Spanning Stats for Google Drive is live in the Chrome Web Store
Cross-posted from the Spanning Backup Blog: Spanning Stats for Google Drive is now live in the Chrome Web Store! We’d really appreciate it if you would check it out and, if you like it, let us know by writing a…
Oppenheimer, the Fall of the Roman Empire, and Google Drive
Cross-posted from the Spanning Backup Blog: At Spanning, we’ve been doing sync since 2006. (Damn, that’s a long time.) But we hadn’t been doing it long before we realized that sync makes backup even more important. Because with sync, when…
On the Perils of Not Taking iCloud More Seriously
In 2007 I attended the Enterprise 2.0 conference in Boston and sat in on a session on the mobile workforce. At the time, Steve Jobs had introduced the original iPhone but it wasn’t yet shipping. As I remember it, the panel for the session included several industry analysts as well as representatives from Nokia, Motorola, [...]
The Emerging Mobile+Cloud Stack and Its Natural Owners
Apple’s is set to launch iCloud in the next few days, and with it Steve Jobs plans to move the center of your digital life to the cloud. Amazon just announced the Kindle Fire, which Jeff Bezos calls a service, not a tablet. When you buy a new Android phone or tablet, the first thing [...]
Going All-In on the Cloud
At Spanning we’ve decided to to keep no paper files, and instead use Google Docs as our filing system—for everything. And the thing that’s given us the confidence to go all-in on the cloud? Spanning Backup. All legal, HR, finance, operations, marketing, sales, IT, engineering, and corporate documents—everything but stock certificates, which we’re legally required [...]
On Apple’s Big Move to the Cloud
Yesterday Steve Jobs introduced iCloud, saying, “We’re going to move the digital hub—the center of your digital life—to the cloud,” and concluding his presentation with an admonition: “If you don’t think we’re serious about this, you’re wrong.” Apple is the…
So, Mr. Bootstrap took venture funding, huh?
Longtime readers of this blog will know that I’m a big fan of bootstrapping. Instead of putting together a pretty pitch deck and hitting Sand Hill Road (or 300 W. Sixth Street, as the case may be) I’ve long preferred the model where you open up the IDE, build something valuable, find a few people [...]
Spanning Cloud Apps Raises $2 Million Series A Round of Venture Funding From Foundry Group
Spanning Cloud Apps, the makers of Spanning Backup for Google Apps, today announced that the company has secured $2 million of funding from Foundry Group, a Boulder-based venture capital firm. Launched in September 2010 and spun out of Spanning Sync, Inc., Spanning Cloud Apps will apply the resources to continue to build on the company’s [...]
Spanning Backup Launches "3 Seats Free" for Google Apps Domains
Today we’re launching a better way for Google Apps admins to try Spanning Backup. It’s called “3 Seats Free”, and it gives every Google Apps domain three Spanning Backup seats absolutely free. These are fully-functional seats that never expire and be assigned to anyone in the domain. Just add Spanning Backup to Google Apps, assign [...]
