

And The Winner Of TechCrunch Disrupt Is… Soluto - thiele
http://techcrunch.com/2010/05/26/techcrunch-disrupt-winner-soluto/

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ojbyrne
"The company has previously raised $8 million over two rounds, but has been in
beta until now."

This seems idiotic. They should have had a restriction on what kind of
startups (i.e. only angel funded or bootstrapped) could win the prize. Except
of course, if it was just a giant techcrunch publicity stunt.

Giving $50k to this company is about as disruptive as, well, sliced cheese.

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qeorge
I love this idea and here's why:

Whenever I go to clean a friend's slow computer its not the malware and
spyware thats slowing it down - its all the random QuickCam and digital camera
softwares, or the TurboTax updater thats running all the time, or whatever
else has accumulated over the years.

Traditional AV programs are too rigid - I want it to uninstall the Dell Photo
Loader, even if its not a virus by any traditional definition. Crowd-sourcing
the watch list in this way seems like an especially elegant solution to the
problem.

If they get this right, I'd recommend it to a lot of people.

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silkodyssey
As far as disruptive technologies go I think saluto, if they deliver on their
promise of solving users' computer problems deserves this accolade.

I have always lamented the fact that personal computers users have to double
as system administrators to keep their systems running smoothly and the tech
industry has been trying to alleviate the pain by moving to web based
applications and alternative easier to use devices such as the iPad but if
saluto can really deliver it may just give the desktop a second chance at life
and that would truly be disruptive!

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brandnewlow
I was at TC Disrupt this week. A few observations:

1\. The Soluto guys and UJam (runners-up) had the most polished, finished
products.

2\. The Soluto guys were completely at ease, had a good sense of humor, and
had answers for every question asked of them. They also had funny, winning
accents.

3\. The Soluto guys were addressing a very clear pain point and had very
strong branding, including the catch-phrases and slogans that accompanied
their product "Anti-frustration software" and "Every family has a CTO. We're
building this for them!"

4\. There seemed to be a strong Israeli contingent at the event that were
sold-out for Soluto. They were the only startup all week that always had a
cheering section anytime they were mentioned. To the casual observer who
doesn't know it's the Israeli contingent cheering, this can look like popular
support and start to sway people on the fence. By the end of the conference,
they were pretty much the only startup anyone would mention if you asked who
they thought was going to win (YMMV).

5\. Also, as one HNer pointed out shortly before the winners were announced,
Soluto's presentation was the only one to inspire defensive questions from all
the judges. Each one of them asked questions about how their business would
impact projects and areas they were working in themselves.

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pavs
How is this disruptive?

Maybe I am missing some trick here? Microsoft has a free tool that does
exactly this for free from the horse's mouth:
<http://fixitcenter.support.microsoft.com/Portal>

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teej
There was also Windows Live Sync, Windows Live SkyDrive, Windows Live Mesh,
but none of those made Dropbox any less disruptive.

Sometimes making things simple and reliable -is- the disruption.

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mistermann
There's also sysinternals, and many other 3rd parties that produced utilities
for windows that were either no brainer useful, or actually did competently
what the MS equivalent tools botched.

There are so many things that MS does half-assed, even though it would cost
very little more money to do properly (copying files within explorer is one
obvious example). On the other hand, they will blow millions upon millions on
flashy geegaws that no one uses anyways.

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jfager
I'm amazed that Betterment got so much love, it's nothing more than a cynical
attempt to convince the unwitting that ETFs and Treasuries are just savings
accounts with higher returns. I would think the more appropriate response
would be to tip off the SEC to their marketing materials, not give them a
runner-up reward.

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holdenk
When I read this I thought you were over exagerating, but on first glance of
looking at there website it certainly wasn't clear it was an investment
product (however the statement next to the SIPC insurance makes it fairly
clear if you read all the way to the end).

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aresant
Their tagline "Anti-frustration software" is brilliant.

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p0larboy
love their logo :)

