News

Our Customer Executive AirShare Continues Growth Path

Executive AirShare has grown from a small regional Midwestern U.S. charter operator into a fractional-share provider serving the entire U.S. market.

EAS will continue to expand, likely into new regions in the U.S. Plumb, who took on the CEO role two years ago, has since focused on scalability, to enable EAS to grow efficiently. This includes adding new accounting and operations software (BoldIQ’s Astro) and hiring Mike Bianchi, a former airline v-p of operations, to run the maintenance department.

“We’ve been profitable since the financial crisis,” Taylor concluded. “We’ve expanded every year. We continue to refine our recipe for success and make the business more scalable, and we’re in an excellent position.”

Click here to read the full article in AIN

Boldiq Names New VP Of Engineering & Development – Christer Lundin To Lead All Engineering And Development Activities

BoldIQ has hired Christer Lundin as vice president of engineering & development. Lundin, with over 20 years of experience in the software industry, will be responsible for directing all of the company’s software engineering and development activities including the migration of key software solutions to cloud-based services.

“We are at the perfect point on our growth path to add a world-class software leader,” said Roei Ganzarski, President and CEO of BoldIQ. “Christer’s track record as an innovative technology leader speaks for itself and his experience, expertise and leadership will enable us to continue and push the realm of possible as we provide real-time dynamic scheduling as a service to our customers.”

Prior to joining BoldIQ, Lundin held leadership positions at Microsoft for 17 years, including most recently serving as Senior Director of Engineering for the Windows Azure – Server and Cloud Division where he was responsible for developing and implementing a number of first class highly available, scalable, distributed systems. Prior to Microsoft, Lundin led R&D at Sendit, a Swedish company eventually acquired by Microsoft, and worked at IBM Sweden and the World Bank. Lundin also served in the Swedish Military and earned his MSc in Engineering from the Swedish Royal Institute of Technology.

Read the full release here

Why BoldIQ joined the Washington Technology Industry Association

Washington State is a hotbed of technology companies, many of them global trendsetters. It is only natural that leaders like Amazon, Microsoft, and F5 (to name a few) are major influencers and are listened to. But there are a lot of small technology companies in the region as well, many of them doing amazing things. WTIA provides a cohesive, overarching, and clear voice for all of us that alone, cannot be heard. Be it labor, education, or policy issues, the WTIA enables the small to act big. That is why BoldIQ joined WTIA and that is why Roei Ganzarski, BoldIQ president & CEO sits on the advisory board.

Click to read the WTIA annual report

Fortune on Startup BoldIQ Adds Legendary Software Exec Paul Maritz to Board

Paul Maritz, the former chief executive at VMware  VMW -2.56%  and Pivotal after a stint as a top exec at Microsoft, is joining the board of BoldIQ.

The Bellevue, Wash. company focuses on helping companies allocate and schedule big, expensive resources—airplanes, trucks, medical technicians—efficiently, using technology built at Dayjet, a company that helped business people share private jets.

Maritz has history here. He invested in Dayjet, which had great technology but bad timing. “The short version is that I inherited BoldIQ out of Dayjet which was ahead of its time, trying to be the Uber for the private jet business 15 years ago. Unfortunately, it didn’t survive the crash of 2008,” Maritz told Fortune in an interview.

But Dayjet’s scheduling and logistics technology lives on in BoldIQ.

The BoldIQ-Uber comparison only goes so far, Maritz said. “Uber doesn’t require as complex a model because it draws on a huge number of drivers. The air taxi business deals with precious resources. Being able to efficiently schedule them to get more than one passenger on each plane required advanced software,” he noted.

BoldIQ, which has raised just under $8 million in venture funding, is applying that technology to all sorts of businesses including freight delivery, home appliance repairs, hospital staff scheduling, and, yes, aviation.

The appliance service model is illustrative. In the Seattle area, one unnamed BoldIQ customer is able to perform 1000 home appliance service calls per day using 100 technicians. “We have to make sure two things happen, one that the company can provide most of the services needed and two how to do it in a way that’s timely for customers and prevents overwork by employees,” said Roei Ganzarski, chief executive of BoldIQ.

Using BoldIQ, service companies can schedule repair calls on the fly so if one technician calls in sick or shows up to an empty house, the schedule can be adjusted accordingly, said Ganzarski.

BoldIQ competes with products like IBM’s  IBM -0.01% iLog optimization engine as well as home-grown solutions.

“We also compete with not-invented-here syndrome,”Ganzarski said. His take is that BoldIQ can help aircraft companies, hospitals, and doctors schedule resources in a way that’s more efficient for both the provider and the consumer of the service, without any of those providers having to build their own scheduling system.

So what’s BoldIQ’s secret ingredient for handling all this complexity? “Russian rocket scientists,” Maritz and Ganzarski said almost in unison. “We’re not kidding,” Maritz added. The company’s team profile does indicate the presence of quite a few Russian techies..

The company claims JetSuite, GlobeAir, and Jeppeson, a unit of Boeing  BA -0.76% , as customers.

“If you can help an aircraft operator cut 50% of costs and make 20% more flights, everyone wins,” he noted. BoldIQ takes a cut of any savings.

Businesses can run BoldIQ’s software on Amazon  AMZN 1.18%  Web Services, Microsoft  MSFT 1.86% Azure public clouds, or on their own internal systems, Ganzarski said.

Read the full article here

BoldIQ Welcomes Paul Maritz to its Board of Directors

BoldIQ is at a key inflection point. Over the last year our business has grown, we have expanded into new markets, grown our employee base and provided services in the cloud, pioneering optimization as a service.

I can’t think of a better time to welcome Paul Maritz, technology visionary and former CEO of Pivotal and VMware to join BoldIQ’s Board of Directors!

Paul was an initial investor in BoldIQ and quickly realized the enormous potential and promise of our technology across a number of industries. Now in an official leadership position, Paul’s cloud and global service-based experience will be invaluable to our future success as we begin to expand globally with cloud-based solutions.

Paul brings more than 30 years of technology leadership experience to BoldIQ. Before leading Pivotal and VMware, Paul was President of the Cloud Infrastructure and Services Division at EMC after the company’s February 2008 acquisition of Pi, where he was the founder and CEO. Before founding Pi, Paul spent 14 years working at Microsoft, where he served as a member of the five-person Executive Committee that managed the overall company and was responsible for the product development and marketing of the Windows Client.

Paul is noted for his vast knowledge of cloud-based offerings and a vision. Bill Gates once said he had a “major impact not only on Microsoft but on the entire computer industry.” Paul’s guidance and expertise will help BoldIQ continue to disrupt how companies think about and act on their operations.

Welcome to the team, Paul!

You can view the official press release here. You can also view a GeekWire story here and a Fortune story here.

GeekWire on BoldIQ and new board member Paul Maritz

Paul Maritz, the former CEO of VMware and Pivotal Software, has joined the board of BoldIQ, a Bellevue, Wash.-based company that makes technology to quickly and efficiently schedule everything from trucks and planes to doctors and nurses.

Maritz, who made his mark as a high-ranking Microsoft executive, overseeing landmark versions of Windows, was an original investor in BoldIQ. The company’s technology traces its roots to DayJet, an on-demand business airline in which Maritz was an investor. DayJet folded in the 2008 crash, but the need for dynamic resource scheduling has only grown since then, Maritz said in an interview with GeekWire.

“This is a very interesting idea whose time has come,” Maritz said. “The on-demand economy demands this kind of a capability. Fortunately we’re in the right place to provide it.”

“Everything is now moving towards the on-demand model,” he explained. “On-demand cars, on-demand grocery shopping, on-demand repairs. Unlike Uber, in many cases in the on-demand world the underlying resource is not in infinite supply. To be efficient you have to schedule it efficiently and you have to schedule it to be where and when the customer wants it.”

Recalling a phrase from his Microsoft days, Maritz said, “I think BoldIQ can be the ‘Intel Inside’ of the on-demand economy.”

Maritz, who turned 60 last year, remains executive chairman at Pivotal but has taken himself out of day-to-day operational roles, freeing himself up to pursue a handful of for-profit and non-profit projects, devoting more time to investments that he has made over the past 10 years. On the non-profit side, for example, he’s the chairman of the board of the Mifos Initiative, an open source financial software platform.

BoldIQ is in the process of expanding its technology to a wider variety of industries and companies. Roei Ganzarski, the company’s CEO, described a test with a technical services company that was able to reduce, by 10 percent, the number of miles driven by its technicians, while also offering more reliable scheduling for customers.

The company will be offering those types of capabilities not only to large companies but also as a cloud-based service to smaller businesses that wouldn’t have the technology infrastructure or financial wherewithal to do dynamic scheduling on their own.

“Think of it as commoditization of optimization, if you will,” Ganzarski said.

The company’s most recent funding round was $3 million, raised in 2013. BoldIQ has 16 employees, but that reflects the fact that company outsources non-core functions such as marketing, public relations, finance and accounting, Ganzarski said. Maritz is the largest individual shareholder in the company, which is cash-flow positive.

Read the full article here

Technology Leader Paul Maritz Bets on Real-Time Dynamic Optimization, Joins BoldIQ Board of Directors

BoldIQ Inc., a global provider of sophisticated dynamic scheduling software, today announced technology leader Paul Maritz, former CEO of Pivotal and VMware, and former SVP of Microsoft, has joined its Board of Directors.

Maritz was an initial investor in BoldIQ and brings a strong background in cloud-based technology and global service-based experience at a pivotal time for BoldIQ as it expands globally with cloud-based solutions.

“BoldIQ’s technology has enormous potential across many different industries, and I am excited to help guide BoldIQ and contribute to the company’s continued success,” said Paul Maritz, BoldIQ Board member. “Optimized operations are essential to company growth – in every industry. BoldIQ’s offering will empower companies to maximize their productivity, while simultaneously decreasing operating costs and increasing revenue.”

BoldIQ’s technology is currently used to significantly increase operational efficiencies. BoldIQ has helped its customers in complex business environments drive significant increases in productivity, decreases in operating costs and increases in their revenue-generating capacity.

“Paul’s decision to join our Board of Directors marks an exciting time for BoldIQ as we expand our cloud-based solutions to offer demand-driven customers an unparalleled decision-making suite of tools,” said Roei Ganzarski, president and CEO of BoldIQ. “Paul recognized the potential with his initial investment and will now be an integral part of our growth as our sophisticated resource scheduling software disrupts industries like transportation, aviation, healthcare and staffing.”

Information Age publishes BoldIQ Opinion on Driverless Cars

A new age of mobility is upon us – and I am not talking about phones. With companies like GM and Lyft joining forces, it is a race to see which conglomerate will launch a network of autonomous vehicles first. As we begin seeing fleets of driverless vehicles hit the street, what will this future look like and what steps will the industry need to take to make this a reality?

The current focus on the driverless car itself is great and warranted. Will the car be safe, how will it deal with extreme driving cases, changing weather, accident prevention. However, as we work toward resolving these questions, we should not forget another overarching question: what will our world look like with all these driverless cars. Will they simply replace our current standard cars? Should we expect more congestion?

In the future, maybe 50 years from now, we will probably see an overarching infrastructure managing transportation resources from publicly scheduled transport to private on-demand transport. While this kind of single network layer – operating from above to connect vehicles and create the ultimate efficiency model – might be a utopian dream (at least for now), we can expect to see companies like Google, Lyft, Uber, GM and others begin to implement their own network layers to at least optimize their own fleets and reduce the required resources to meet demand. If they don’t, all we will see is more cars on the roads, more congested traffic, more waste, and on average, financial losses for the operators. This is exactly what happened with airlines after deregulation. Everyone wanted to be the ‘winner’, there were too many planes, huge waste and inefficiencies, and on average everyone lost money. In order to prevent these negative outcomes, we can expect companies eager to get their driverless cars on the road to implement some sort of overarching technology that will allow them to optimize their fleets of vehicles.

This would include a way for fleets to anticipate and respond to demand and challenging disruptions like traffic, accidents and weather. If companies start to implement this layer, it will enable a better use of resources and fewer cars on the road. Not only will this eliminate a future packed to the brim with autonomous vehicles around every corner, but energy waste and the need for expanded infrastructure like parking lots will be minimized as well.

Think about how many people are driving from similar locations to the same destination commuting to work every day? Or attending a ball game? How many of those cars sit in a parking lot idle, taking up expensive real-estate, until the owner needs to return home. A network layer that allows cars to communicate and be deployed based on demand would mean a more efficient network. For example, let’s say GM adopts its own driverless car network layer, and you’ve selected GM as your driverless car of choice. You’d simply input where you want to go and the GM car would take you. The network optimization engine would dictate which car is the best choice to get you to your destination on time in the most efficient way. It might not be the car closest to you – maybe traffic is holding it up and a different car on another street could get to you faster. The network optimization engine would sort through these various demands and disruptions in real-time and calculate the best solution to get you where you need to go at the time you need to be there. Also, this isn’t a dream world where everyone happily ride-shares with perfect strangers. Perhaps you prefer to ride alone. That is ok, and can still be done more efficiently.

This might sound like science fiction, or some sort of far-fetched dream, but we are already living in a reality where this is being done (sans the fleet of driverless cars). Operations optimization technology, in an overarching network layer, is currently used in industries like aviation to maximize efficiency in deploying resources like planes, pilots and cabin crew. Private jet companies, which leverage a similar model to other on-demand services, use this technology to deploy staff and resources to meet demand in real-time, all the time, even through disruptions. The same is true for some mobile workforces. So why not a network of driverless cars? Operating under a similar network layer, companies looking to deploy driverless cars could function as a truly on-demand and demand-driven service – two attributes necessary in the transportation industry to best serve their customers. This model allows for the most efficient use of resources to meet the most demand possible, with the ability to respond to disruptions like car breakdowns, ad-hoc demand and much more.

With a more efficient transportation system, we’re looking at a future with fewer cars and less car ownership. With advancements in technology, owning one car for transporting one person is becoming “old school” and not cost-effective, not to mention bad for the environment. And it appears some car companies are catching on as they invest in the future of autonomous car service fleets.

Transportation is changing – and it is no longer a matter of “if,” it’s a matter of “when.” Companies need to begin planning how to bring this exciting tech to our streets and ensure everything will be able to operate together seamlessly and without waste. As more and more automakers move beyond the era of personal, human-driven automobiles, we need the technological control infrastructure in place to support this movement to change our transportation system for the better – less traffic, less waste, better service.

See the full story on Information Age

BoldIQ CEO to speak at ‘Technology in Action: Transforming Logistics’ conference

The council of Supply Chain Management Professionals is holding its annual conference on February 25th, 2016. BoldIQ president & CEO, Roei Ganzarski, will be speaking about dynamic real-time optimization and how this technology is transforming logistics. From movement of people and cargo, to allocation of resources to meet the on-demand economy, dynamic optimization is the engine that enables rapid and optimal decision making.

BoldIQ Team We are recruiting for a VP Software Engineering & Development

BoldIQ is a software company providing revolutionary dynamic, real-time optimization solutions. Every day we answer a basic question for our customers – ‘what do I do now?’ Through our sophisticated resource scheduling solution, our customers can make informed and integrated decisions in real-time, all the time. We free up to 30% of our customers’ resources and at the same time reduce their operating costs by up to 20%. We do cool work that provides great value to our customers.

Come help us drive real-world operational change in aviation, transportation, logistics, healthcare and more. At BoldIQ you will be putting optimization to practical, every-day use, enriching the decision making and operations of our current and future customers.

In this critical leadership role, reporting directly to the president & CEO, you will lead the design, development, deployment, and sustainment functions for our software solutions. Our software solution is one of the best in the industry and you will be part of the team taking it to the next level.

We are looking for an exceptional leader to laser focus our efforts, add development horsepower to the team, and experience to our efforts. You will play a major role in our evolution and growth. You will be leading a variety of efforts from designing and implementing cloud system architectures, migration from an ‘on-prem’ solution to an Azure-based service, creation of industry specific applications, to streamlining bug fix pipelines and tactical development and test work.

At BoldIQ you will not be working in a small silo figuring out part of a solution to part of a problem. This is a system wide position. This is the real leadership deal.

Requirements and Responsibilities:

• Significant experience leading software development and sustainment operations teams.
• Proven ability to define a vision and roadmap for the tam, and inspiring them to achieve it despite the challenges.
• Ability and willingness to ‘jump in’ and write code when needed, while teaching and guiding others in the process.
• 3+ years experience in Agile development practices.
• 5+ years in multi-disciplinary management, including leading software engineering, test engineering, project/program management.
• 10+ years experience delivering B2B software products used by external end-users.
• BS or MS degree in Computer Science, or equivalent experience.
• Develop in .NET/C#/ASP.Net and experience developing for and deploying in Azure.
• Work directly with experts in resource optimization sciences to develop leading cloud based solutions and services for advanced applications.
• Full stack experience — front-end, back-end, business tier, schema, caching, . . .
• Experience Tackling and solving complex problems in usability, scalability, and distributed systems.
• Good communication skills.
• Self-motivation, resourcefulness and independent action.
• Working knowledge of Visual Studio and Team Foundation Server (TFS).
• An inherent drive to solve problems, collaborate with others and mentor team members.
• Experience supporting mission-critical applications on a large scale.

Compensation: Salary is competitive based on experience and/or qualifications. BoldIQ provides a complete compensation package including stock options, health insurance benefits, and retirement savings plan matching. Home-Work balance is important to us and we provide a working culture that supports that.