Snow is already starting to coat the peaks of the Northern Rockies, so I've been talking to local ski aficionados and thumbing through the new Powder Magazine Equipment Guide.  I'm shocked to find explosive growth in U.S.-based boutique ski-makers producing high quality skis

Many of these ski-makers are classic garage startups launched in the past decade by a few people with some dogs. They are definite leaders in the industry, producing the groundswell behind the "rocker" ski movement, a reverse-camber ski which is the new technology taking hold in the mainstream.

Not all of the skis are handmade in America, with many of them being produced in Europe. But I found very few that are produced in China, unlike the mass-market skis. What's interesting is that these small companies are gaining a lot of attention in the ski community for their innovation, high quality, and attention to detail. Here is proof that startups, jobs, and products can be created through hard work and innovation.

There is a surge of startups trying to address the management of smartphones in enterprise networks, which is surely going to be a massive issue. If you think about how the number of smart, networked mobile devices are proliferating, and how employees use them for both work and private purposes, you can imagine this is a big management headache. That's the opportunity that Silicon Valley startup MobileIron is going after. I spoke to MobileIron back to CTIA and have since done some more research on the company. The company last August raised $11 million in Series B funding from top investors including Norwest Venture Partners, Sequoia Capital, and Storm Ventures. The company is led by CEO Bob Tinker, who was a former business development manager for Cisco's wireless business units. He was also formerly vice president of business development at Airespace, which was acquired by Cisco in 2005.

Gold-plated Silicon Valley venture firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (KP) is upping its bet on iPad applications.  The partners, in a post on TechCrunch, say that the immense growth projected in the iPad market is leading them to  "double down" by boosting the venture capital firm's fund focused on the iPad -- the iFund -- by $100M to a total size of $200M. Why now? KP partners believe, apparently, that the iPad is ushering in a new phase of innovation comparable to the World Wide Web. Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers partners John Doerr, Bing Gordon, Chi-Hua Chien and Ellen Pao write that the iPad experience is a follow-on boom to the Web:

The rest of the 90’s were a ONCE-in-a-lifetime experience. Entrepreneurs created the Web, and great ventures – Netscape, Amazon, Ebay, Google, and others. And they changed our lives. Silicon Valley became the Florence of the New, Networked Economy. The advent of the iPad feels like deja-vu, like it’s happening all over again. Not once, but TWICE-in-a-lifetime.

The VC partners have funded 14 companies, with 3 in stealth mode. The companies include Booyah, Cooliris, GOGII, iControl, InMobi, ngmoco, Pelago, Pinger, Shazam, shopkick, and Zynga mobile. KP partners say the companies in the iFund have generated more than 100 million downloads and that they expect the companies to generate more than $100 million in revenue this year. To read the full article, go here.

It's the "third anniversary" of Hulu, otherwise known in the beginning of the end of network TV. And now, the message that Hulu is leaking to the press is that Hulu is a grand success. The company has released revenue numbers -- $100M -- and said it's profitable. The loyal press mavens (myself included, I guess), are lapping up the Hulu success story. Yes, it is a success story. Hulu's a great site, and a good concept. Real media people banded together to take on low-quality Internet viral video. There's no reason we should be surprised that large amounts of high production-quality entertainment TV can't be successful over cat videos on the Web. As I wrote a few months ago, it's likely that video will take on an increasingly large role on the Internet, and become more profitable, because the costs of delivery are declining rapidly. The New York Times has a classic 'We Are Too Erudite to Commit' headline on the topic: "Successes (and Some Growing Pains) at Hul." Thanks NYT. You mean growing a $100M company from scratch has some challenges? To its credit, the NYT story does add a minor scoop: Hulu will have an iPad app. The New York Times says that the Website is coming under pressure from its content owners NBC Universal, the News Corporation and the Walt Disney Company, to add subscription products and boost advertising margins. Well, of course the content companies want more money. That's because they still haven't come to grips with the fact that their broadcast business model is turning to sand, and they think there's going to be a gravy train on the Internet. My message: Chill out dudes, you have a massive, growing Internet property. Use it to your advantage!